Will Atheist Apologist Richard Dawkins Engage the Muslim Community

Mohammed Hijab

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Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. Welcome to the podcast. I'm with Imran Hussain. Ali. Are you doing? Boy Sam has good, good. Good. Very good, bro. Let's jump straight into this. We're obviously doing a response to Richard Dawkins and his podcast with Joe Rogan. Who is Richard Dawkins, for those that may not know, he's an atheist apologist.

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And well, actually, I think for me to introduce him would be maybe a little bit

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not not befitting, maybe we should get one of his colleagues to introduce him. Okay. We have someone called yo Wilson, who is one of the most renowned biologists no world well, leading

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biologists this is what he has to say about him.

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There is no dispute between me and Richard Dawkins and never has been, because he's a journalist. And journalists are people who report what the scientists have found. And the arguments I've had have actually been with scientist doing research. So he's agenda.

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So you were wrong. When you said he's his colleague, he's not really good point. He's someone that's in a totally different field.

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So very interesting. Yeah, I think we go with that definition. I think the reason why Wilson said this is because of the ideological stance that this man is taking with scientific discourse. It's not just the fact that he's going into the laboratory and just narrating kind of informatively the information that is finding it. Yeah, this man is using science. He's weaponizing. Science, if you like, yeah, for ideological reasons. To be honest, is very evident, bro, that he has a very he is an apologist for atheists. He is he he's just banging on about, you know, this is the right thing. This is the right view, try and doctrinaire children the very thing, by the very thing he's sending out

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that he's saying that other people are doing religions are doing when he himself is doing that? Well, let's take a look at the clip where he, he actually this is one of the things that came out of the podcast as a good thing. You mentioned it, because it's one of the main things that were mentioned the podcast,

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that one of the things that he finds wicked, in his words, or detestable or whatever is, is the quote unquote, indoctrination of children. So let's take a look at him saying that first of all, and then we'll switch to another clip. And I said to him, what's your target audience? And he said, 12? And I said, Really? Are you? Are you really serious that you'd like to? He said, hell is that a terrible place that anything I can do to persuade children, not to sin, and they must acknowledge, acknowledge Jesus and so on? Is it worth it? I thought that was a deeply immoral thing to say. But I think he was sincere. So as you can see, he's obviously finding that quite disturbing. But what I

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found interesting is that near the end of his podcast, he himself started saying, when he was asked, Who were you trying to target?

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With your book? He said it was children. Yeah, the audience, his publishers wouldn't really allow him to.

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Look at that video there. You wrote this. It's a beginner's guide, outgrowing God? Well, it's for young people. I'd originally wanted to write a book for the young children. And publishers didn't want to do that.

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You know, what, what is it? Is it the fact? I think what it is, is that we have an uneven starting point, yeah, that there is an assumption of neutrality when it comes to atheist discourse. At the end of the day is not agnostic discourse. This man is maybe you can say atheist, anti theist. But this is certainly not a neutral discourse. And I think what he's trying to present as is benign neutral,

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and therefore, children should should know these arguments from the early age. But when it comes to religious discourses that should be canceled out. Or if you want to live your life through a religious discourse that should not be afforded to you as a child. What do you think of this kind of, with him Look, I think is quite evident. I think people can see through this. So it's not going to be a bit of a shock. When I say this, he is it seems like someone that's having what I call a late life crisis. Right? He realizes he probably has a little more time on this earth, and may God guide him, you know, but he is on a mission. He wants to establish atheism as a truth. And to do

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this, he does a lot of gymnastics, he links science with atheism as if they go hand in hand. He does a number of other reasons such as say things about Islam, for example, which have nothing to do with Islam. He doesn't even seem to know much about Islam. Now, there's a point you wanted to mention regarding this, right? Yes, I think this is the thing. One of the most disturbing things about this individual is that he does seem theologically illiterate. Let's take a look at one particular video that he actually one part of the podcast, where he equates Islamic belief with Jewish belief and some of it has something to say about what Muslims believe about Jesus Christ. Let's take a look at

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what he said.

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on that issue, there are a lot of different religions and Hindus believe in hundreds of gods and Jews were even one God and Muslims believe in one God and they don't believe in Jesus. And so as you can see here, it doesn't seem to know that Muslims believe in Jesus. Yeah. Yeah.

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Look, you've read his new book is our grand God. We got we did a response to his own. Now this you know, some may argue this isn't really a blunder, whatever the case may be. But this is a common thread with him. It's a common trend with Dawkins right? He even in his book, for example, there is a very clear, there's many blunders he makes, but one specific one, which is almost a schoolboy error. Because one thing that non Muslims know about Islam, a few things is that no, bam is what is the celebration, right? Maybe other things would be the five pillars, etc. But the eat celebration is world No, right? Everyone knows. Now when it comes to this, he may he says in one part of the

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book, that Oh, look, you know, the stoning stoning of the stone, which which happens during the Hajj is a part of the eat celebration. Now, obviously, that's not the case, right? Because we know those that are performing hajj, they don't they don't celebrate eat, the support part of the hug ritual, not the eat celebration, and those are celebrating Eve are not stoning, the genre, which is the pillar, you know, these happened only thing is a concern in the same day. And what's interesting is I was thinking why would he make such a blunder? Well, one reason reason someone who makes it your band is if they're using Wikipedia as their main source of reference, because I went to Wikipedia

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did a bit of a search on the way this topic is covered. It's very unclear. So someone just reading that and making that as using that as the main source of, or the main reference point can easily fall into this. So he went on Wikipedia, I'm assuming that as well as the journalist he is, yeah, atheist apologists that he is. And he wanted to get his sources for Islamic theology from some edited website, probably some that's why it seems like the case to be because if you're gonna make such a blunder, yes, the only place you can seem to make it from my wife, my background, what I would do some research on is that it's Wikipedia. And this may be wrong by I mean, this is something

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Joe Rogan has to pay attention to if he's watching this video, and I hope that he does. That when you continuously it, this lowers the grade of the stock of your podcasts. You're bringing people who are non specialists on certain topics. I mean, this guy's not a theologian, and he's certainly not philosophy. Yeah, he is. I don't know what journalists

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forget about your Wilson's. He's a journalist, but science journalists, science journalists, right. He does have some qualifications. He's a evolutionary biologist. I don't think he's done. I don't know I don't for a while at least this Yeah, he's known as a general but the point is, according to Wilson, he's a journalist. Fine. You're an atheist journalist, you come and BBC to do your atheist journalism, you come and be channel for to do atheist journalism. They allow you on which, which is problematic in the first place, especially for neutralization, WC, because they should be, they should be fair to all religions, you wouldn't bring a Muslim on to run a Muslim discourse or

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narrative, you wouldn't bring a Christian onto this anyway. what the point is, you're not you have no fluency or you have no training in fields, such as these. In fact, you've made your name on the back of these religions, world's religions, you make your money out the world. And you don't even know you probably haven't even read a translation of the meanings of the Quran, for example, shocking, which is very true. And I think it's important to making this point because people need to know this, if you're going to be speaking about religion. Yes. And if you're going to be targeting because two of his main audiences in his new book, seem to be children, the American audience,

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particularly the Christian American Christians, and the Muslim world, right, that's what Yeah, he's highlight this in another interviews, I think on Channel Four is Oh, he said this on this podcast. And he goes, Yeah, so if that's your audience, and you're addressing Muslims as one of your primary audience, at least have the word can I use the at least have the Kamikaze? Yeah, to study the tradition, if you're gonna comment on if you're gonna write, but if you try to refute it, yeah, but if you seen this book, another interesting thing he does is when I was reading, I was looking, I was thinking, Okay, where is the Where are the chapters dealing with the Quran? Where's the chapters

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dealing with Islam? There is no such thing in his book. He has chapters dealing with the Bible, and the Christian tradition. All he does is he says, By extension, this also applies to Islam. Right? These days vary as much as as terrible as far as well. Look, I mean, like, like you say, he's preaching to the choir. But if he does, really, I mean, here's the thing is is a good

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thing to think about the fact that he's never actually debated a Muslim. Yeah.

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And he's debated someone like john Lennox, who I believe destroyed him. You watch that? Yeah, absolutely. I think he completely annihilated

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it was Richard Dawkins.

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And he debated others may, I think, William Lane, Craig, but in some panel panel discussion, debate. So he's a bit of Christians before but he's not debated Muslims before, let alone Muslims who have any kind of theological training or philosophical training. So I mean, if you really feel strongly about what he believes in, I don't think

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A good idea for him to come out and actually start debating. Absolutely. If again, if he's addressing the Muslim world, if he's trying to address the Muslim address a Muslim life lesson, right? We as a collection of brothers, or what we want to call a conglomerate of people who

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call to Islamic State, right? We have Arabic stations, we have Malaysian stations, Bahasa things in different languages, and it reaches millions of people, right? So for example, if we were to debate with him, it would he would be at achieving his target objective, you get the beginning through to millions of people. Yeah, you know, and all he has to do is accept our challenge. Like right now, we're challenging you, Richard Dawkins, let's be Let's be straightforward. We're challenging you

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to come and debate because at the end of the day, you'd be speaking about Islam, from the time you wrote The God Delusion. And you mentioned Islam and Muslims all the time, but why not? Now you're almost 80 years old? Why not? Before you, you know, depart the world, you know, leave the world, whatever. Why don't you do one thing which you never had the bravery to do, or never saw fit to do before, which is to actually put your ideas, make a critical observer

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kind of scrutinize your ideas, especially of Islam. At the end of the day, if you're speaking about what religion, why not put your ideas to the test against someone who knows that? Let me let me ask you a question. Well, because something he says, and I want to get your thoughts on this as well. Something he says is,

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religions are comforting. This is why man made religion, right, because it provides comfort. Right, and he applies this across the board to Islam as well. What do you think about this particular statement? Oh, it's true, isn't it? There's a beautiful hadith of Prophet Mohammed,

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which says, adamantly amble movement in the Ummah Hola Hola. Hola says actually I had an illiberal moment in a Sabah to Surat, Chicago in a sobre, todo sobre. El Shakur that wonderous is the affair of the believer, and that all of us as far as good, and this does not apply to anyone except for the believer. And if good things before him, then he is thankful, and the bad things before him, then he's also thankful, meaning that everything has a purpose, there's an existential reason for our existence. And anything that befalls us, whether it be good or bad, is something which has a greater cosmic reason, right? The point is, what he went on to then say is that well, this isn't a good

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enough reason to believe in the existence of God, therefore, you made it up. But the thing is, this is we don't use this as an argument for God's existence. Yes, we don't use this as a clarification point for why the Prophet Mohammed, for example, is a true prophet. So this is a straw man argument. And you'll find that he doesn't actually this is something that's hallmark of his writing. I haven't read his most recent book, but I've read the conclusion. What I've noticed about what he how he kind of

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makes his arguments is that he doesn't actually spend a lot of times dealing with arguments, philosophical arguments for God's existence. Yeah, he spent a little bit of time talking about Thomas Aquinas proofs. In the book. He didn't even go anywhere near the Aristotelian, sorry, the Hellenistic philosophers. Maybe he did, you know, very double in a cursory way industry, in and out yet, he didn't even go anywhere near the philosophical arguments of the medieval Islamic period. He didn't even go anywhere near the theological writings of the Muslims. So this is not a serious academic exercise. Yeah. What this is, is propaganda at its finest. Yeah, and the guy doesn't

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probably even know the names of those books. And he doesn't even know how to access those books. And many of those books will be inaccessible for him. But he's not happy to sit and have his ideas, scrutinized, he's happy and you'll find that in the past couple of weeks or three or four weeks, the kind of people that he's been to are people that agree with him. To a large extent. Absolutely. He's had podcasts with cosmic skeptic. Yes. Personally, I haven't watched that podcast, but I know that he's had one because I saw on YouTube. He had podcasts, obviously, with Joe Rogan. He has gone to atheists. Absolutely. So Isn't it time for him to step out of his comfort zone? He's the one who

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talks to everyone about moving,

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employing criticality and rationalizing and being scrutinized.

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Yeah, so you're in your echo chamber, you're in your atheistic echo chamber. And you're just comfortable having discussions with people with like minded opinions as Joe Rogan, the same thing can be said about him. I mean, to be honest with you, when was it Look at his Look, look at this right. Joe Rogan has? I don't know how many different podcasts

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Look how on diversities. Who, when was the last time you saw a Muslim traditionalist on his show? Yeah, I never. Yeah, maybe for us to have his own one. Probably. Yeah. Proper Muslim traditionalist is the only time for us to have became one I think maybe one or two other people. And the topic of conversation wasn't even religion. It was something else. Yeah. So these people are not happy to come out of their comfort zone. They're speaking as if they own the keys to rationality and enlightenment, but they are not even happy to come out of their comfort. Well, let's give Rogan the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he hasn't.

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Come across the opportunity to get someone that knows what they're talking about on the show to counter what's been said from the other end, he's made an effort to be, well, here's an opportunity, right? If they want to, they can always pick up on that. If he wants to, he can always pick up on that, of course. And I'm sure you won't have a problem to go in there. Even if we have mutual friends. Yeah, like for example, for us IBV.

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If you wanted to easily get me on the show anyone else like me? Then it would be very easy and even if it means to get Dawkins noon at the same time and have a bit of a discussion, live discussion, that'd be that's what he's got. Look, this is what people are going to start realizing this. About the Joe Rogan experience. Yeah. That show you just bring a certain kinds of people like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins. Alright, fair enough. You have the right to do that. Absolutely. But you're not challenging yourself by bringing these people on to agree with you. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, where is the challenge in that? You're a man of martial arts? You know, what's the point of

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going to a place where there's no challenge? It's like sparring the white belts.

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analogy go in with someone you don't you? He's a black belt in Brazilian jujitsu from one. So we're going with someone who can give you a bit of a, you know, something to think about from another perspective, right? Yeah. And so what I think is that

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a lot of the things that look one thing that you need to understand what we need to understand is that Richard Dawkins in that podcast, he didn't even make any arguments because

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this is the sad thing people just are so mesmerized by the fact that he is this name and someone that's so popular that they can't see past that and they can't see the the the folly of a guy right, honestly, here's a man that spends an hour or so on the podcast, doesn't want make one positive strong argument, if any, even a weak argument against Islam. Right. Well, it's God's existence of any religion. It's all emotional, emotional statements. This is why I think this is why I believe this is what we should do this is what should happen x y&z and that's it. Right. You know, what's even more interesting than that? There was a discussion about morality at one point. Yeah. In the in

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the in the podcast. And yeah. When he was asked about that, let's take a look at this. Actually, let's take a look when he was asked about morality. How he responded, because he was he said, he doesn't know how to pick up on what to peg his morality on Let's take a look. He says, I in outgrowing God, I call it something in the air, which of course doesn't explain anything. But what I mean by that is that it's not literally hovering in the air. But it's a cult. It's a collection of Oh,

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consciousness conversations between people dinner party conversations,

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parliamentary decisions, congressional debates, judicial decisions by judges, juries,

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newspaper articles, journalism, all these things together, conspired together to produce something in the air, something that that defines a given century or maybe even a given decade,

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with the moral values of that of that decade. Absolutely. dumbfounded. So as you can see that what, what can we say about that? Yeah, it doesn't stop. But the thing is, what I find that about this guy, to be honest with you, is that he's just employing a series of anachronisms and present isms, right? Because he's saying, Okay, well, we can't really answer the question of, is morality true or not? In his book? I think it's the blind watchmaker. Yeah. I think I think this is the book that he wrote this in that is only pitless. In difference. There's no good and there's no evil and there's no yeah, so he doesn't believe in an objective morality. Yeah. Yet, despite the fact that he does

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not believe in an objective morality. He still labels Abraham Lincoln, for example, as you know, one of the forerunners vanguard of morality, and he even used the word liberal. Yeah. And obviously, in this case, he means the political philosophy of liberalism. So the point is, how, where was this epistemic jump now from? There's no objective morality to these other moral people. But it's just smoke and mirrors? I'll be honest, yeah, this is what he's doing. You've seen his new book as well. And God, he has a chapter on this, how do we know what to do? How do we know what's good and moral without religion?

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all he's doing, he's bringing in several different things such as his a bit of evolutionary biology to explain morality, a bit of moral philosophy, a bit of what he calls what's up in the mean times change morality changes. You know, there's discussions at dinner tables, these discussions that philosophers and thinkers have, there are ideas that spread through society writers, poets, etc. They come together and all these ideas have been thrown around it creates something in the air, which leads us to know what's right and wrong. So why is essentially saying bro is his standard when he's confused, and he can't peg it down to at best. His standard for morality is subjective, what

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subjectively understood to be correct in the times that we live in, that is the anchor by which he's going to judge objective reality objective truths such as the tradition of Islam but that's the problem because he's arguments are actually moral arguments. Absolutely. Why Why should we not believe in religion because it's immoral to believe because think about himself when he when he attacks Islam, for example, on what basis

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Does he want Muslims or people to not turn towards Islam? Is it based on rational arguments? No. It's based on his moral claims. Islam is bad because x, y and Zed is talking nonsense when he talks about these things, and he doesn't always talk.

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It's a joke, but that is his argument. But he is a man who doesn't have a moral standard. So if you if you go back, you trace go down the rabbit hole. You see the guy has no leg to stand on, literally. You know what I found really shocking about his book when I first read it.

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Not this new one I haven't written Yeah, you don't need to read it was nothing special. I'm pretty sure I'm sure you've read is probably slightly more engaged. But the whole point, you know, our books, both me and Hamza, yeah. But our books over took his book, The God Delusion at Amazon bestseller. And for those who want something to refer to Hamza resources book is called the divine reality. It's the second edition is out there. on Amazon. Now, my book is called Kalam cosmological argument, only three pounds. Let's bring it back to number one, because this is much cheaper than Dawkins book. Look, he's trying to make money we're not trying to.

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So the point I'm making is this go back to the point I was making, which was

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his morality, his his outlook, something about something I look at his book. And, you know, I'm really shocking and surprising is that in the beginning of The God Delusion,

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he said, he doesn't object to a to emotion of God.

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Like Einstein's notion, which is like a deist, deistic God.

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But that really, like I was thinking you really threw the cat in with the pigeons there. Because you're saying you don't actually have a problem with the idea of an entity that brings rise to everything that exists, which is commonly referred to in the vernacular as God. Yeah. You just have a problem with the qualities that this God has been given? Yeah. At one point in the discussion, and this is where they think they've got the kind of ridiculous if they think they've got like, the strongest argument is talking about who designed the designer? Yeah. And this is like a five year old question. Yeah, seven year old asked this question. And a probably a 70, an uninformed seven

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year old, who designed the designer.

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And we always ask the question, what is God a designer? Was? Was he the undesigned? design? I see the creator or is he the uncreated creator? So asking who created the uncreated is a contradiction in terms? Absolutely. You know, and he doesn't seem to follow the arguments presented by philosophers and theologians, of the uncreated creator. We're not saying that God is just a creator. We're saying that he's the uncreated eternal being absolutely right. And if you if you have a problem with this, then you have to show us otherwise. Right. But but but the funny thing is, and it's all wishy washy philosophy, and I don't think he's

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read up on any philosophy in any serious way. But what he said, what he suggests is his line of reasoning to make the point about who created God is the universe is complex, therefore, the creator must be complex, and therefore he needs to be explained to.

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Right, right, exactly. Which is okay. That's your that's your opinion, that's your way doesn't mean it's what you're saying. This guy's a materialist or something. Yeah. So he thinks that our understandings of complexity in the world must be in accordance with our metaphysical understanding would be the same. Yes. First of all, we don't concede to God being accomplished. Absolutely. And number two, when we say God has many attributes is different to saying God has many parts, you don't compare him to the physical world, right? He's understanding is that because he even mentioned this in the podcast, he said, Look, at one point, he was saying, Look at the camera is very complicated

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and stuff like that. And, and this is something he always does. And this was his main argument in The God Delusion. And he, I'm just shocked and amazed that he's allowed to get away with this stuff on national TV. I'm shocked and amazed, because on Channel Four, he said the same thing when he was speaking to the Asian man.

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groomer, so screw Murphy, I think his name was he was saying, Look, he said,

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You know, one of the most compelling arguments for God's existence is the argument from complexity. Right? So he said that, well, you know, you have these things, like, for example, the cameras complex and this and that, and you wouldn't think that could just be kind of pulling together, like, randomly and so on and so forth. But he said, this was our conception, before evolutionary biology or before the understanding of evolution. And now that we have understanding evolution, we no longer have to, and this is how they finish the podcast. And then in the in the in the channel for interview. He was saying

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the same thing applies. And you know, the the man, what's his name? Sorry, the Asian guy grew up. Yeah. So he was like, what about the universe? Which is a good question, because the universe is not a there's difference between physics and biology. I'm sure he's aware, right. He says, Yeah, same thing applies. So he's now in he's projecting? Yeah, this is myth. This is mythology. Yeah, he's projecting right. A biological understanding of living organisms. Yep. Or nonliving.

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living organisms, you know, rock this shows a desperation to make this.

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Absolutely This is mythology. The atheist pseudoscience is best best basically, it's more of a pseudoscience was built on that. No, that's him. That's him really superimposing. And that's what the Quran says lol Kusama, what you

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like and

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you know that the creation of the heavens and the earth is bigger than the creation of humans. But most people don't think about that. In other words, why are we starting with this insignificant, comparatively insignificant, insignificant life form on this

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planet Earth, when we have the whole cosmos? Absolutely. Which is not actually biologically, it's not a biological

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foot in the door at that point. Exactly. So. So now when you're talking about natural evolution, and so on, yeah. Okay, if you wanted to say that about, if you want to say that, about living organisms, we at least can see where you're going with it. Yeah. We don't agree that it's unguided, and that all of these things are unguided. However, if you're going to say the same thing about the celestial matter, the fabric of space, and the physic the physical environment, the non biological, now You're being ridiculous. Yeah, this, this reminds me This is he he always attempted to get cross to do a point. He was hoping cross will be the one that introduces or discovers the evolution of the

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physical world as he found it, as is understood in biology, but obviously, cross was dealt with the Hamza. And after that, he moved on and he's tried to find replace, I think to be honest with you, after that debate with Kraus and Hamza, I think there's been a bit of a movement away from a giving Muslims a platform as it were. Yeah. Because what happened after that debate, is really let's be honest, right? There was a big shift towards religion. And there was a big shift towards people become atheists, becoming less convinced. Even today Hamza says, people comment under the video saying, you know, what you said there was truth in that, you know, and they're considering Islam and

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looking into

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that video. More than I don't know how many millions? Yeah, just an English language. Absolutely. And it was. So look, these people know what to do. If they really want their message to come out. They have to find they have to find the courage, you know, to get someone to debate them on these issues. Yep. Someone with a reach someone who can, whose work will be translated in many different languages. I hate to repeat this point, he kept repeating the point in

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his book gets 30 million downloads in Arabic language, which Okay, many things get 13 million downloads in Arabic language? I'm sure many pornography is get people are curious doesn't mean I'm not becoming atheists. Yeah, people are becoming atheists as well. Yeah, it's true, right. However, if you really want to have access points to the Muslim world, there has to come a time where you you have courage enough to face someone with the ideas that you have. Now, you've nearly ended your life. I mean, you're 78 years old, Richard Dawkins. So it's not too late now, to really kind of sorry to say man up, you know, and and face a Muslim who knows what they're talking about who has

00:27:57--> 00:27:58

some kind of a platform?

00:28:00--> 00:28:37

And we're happy to Absolutely. honesty and integrity dictates that if he's serious about his position, yes, seriously believes in his position. Yes. And he wants to address the Muslim world, he has to step up. I don't see another way around it. He has to step up in his lifetime and face off or in a public discussion or a debate with a Muslim who knows the position? If he's honest. According to this man, like, you know, there are many channels which are dedicated to translating our videos. Yeah, in the Arabic language. Yeah. There's like maybe three or four major channels with 10s of millions of views just on those channels. The same thing applies with in Bahasa, and basically the

00:28:37--> 00:28:39

Malaysian Indonesian area.

00:28:41--> 00:28:45

So if Imagine if he debase one of us, right?

00:28:46--> 00:29:05

I'm happy to be myself. He debates us. The video is translated into many different how many of us is that going to get? Yeah, how, if you really wants access points to the medical board believes his messages strongly believe in the truth of what he believes just how much coverage is not going to get a lot, it's going to get way more coverage than it didn't meet his objective is going to get more coverage than the 30 million.

00:29:06--> 00:29:36

So if you if his objective genuinely is to try and put his message to the Muslim world and not just preach to the choir and go to cozy little comfortable places, yeah. Where people agree with you and your worldview, then you're going to have to put yourself in a bit of a scary situation. Sorry to say, and and everybody has no excuse because at this stage, we're introducing him to a platform to our people, which you would not have had no access to in different languages and so on. So I want to repeat the the challenge.

00:29:37--> 00:29:59

If you really feel like you want to speak about Islam and Muslims, and you should do it to Islam and Muslims, yeah, we handle a lot like whenever we want to speak to Christians, we bring Christians who speak to speak to atheists will bring Korean atheists, liberals will bring a top notch academic atheist will speak to them. So why don't you have the same kind of standards for yourself? Absolutely. And I would even encourage his followers those that take them seriously. That's why

00:30:00--> 00:30:15

to seriously consider what we're saying. And they'll probably realize if they're honest, that they're making a valid point, the goal was to address Muslims. He writes about Muslims, he wants to attack the Islamic tradition, speak to a Muslim publicly, you know, one represent opposition that before we end, I wanted to kind of mention,

00:30:16--> 00:30:37

which is the point that Joe Rogan referred to as a homerun, which is I said, Look, there's so many gods in the world, there's so many religions. What kind of nonsense is that? Yeah, the argument is, there's so many religions, therefore, they're all wrong, therefore, they're all wrong. And he makes Dawkins the same type of claim. There's so many gods, therefore they were wrong. That's right. Right. So look, why not Zeus? Why not? Hercules? I don't know why.

00:30:39--> 00:30:43

I mean, where do you even begin with such nonsense? Because the truth is, this is that number one.

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When we refer to God, let's just make this very clear, so that atheists at least have an insight, because I'm sure some atheists are gonna be watching this video. And hopefully, Richard Dawkins, himself will have at least some access to hopefully you, maybe Joe Rogan himself, who is yet to put me on the show, and hopefully might do so after this. But the point is, is that

00:31:06--> 00:31:31

the thing is about when we talk about God, how when we say God, what do we mean? Right? When we know that there are many gods, in the sense that there are many gods that have been the many objects of worship. There have been many objects of worship historically And currently, contemporaneously, we see that there are many objects of worship. Hercules is an object of worship. Zeus is an object of worship, right? Yep.

00:31:32--> 00:31:34

Jesus is an object of worship.

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When monotheists or people that he has a fetish with really or fixation with a brat people from Abrahamic religions, what are we referring to God? barring maybe Trinitarian understandings for now, what we're talking about, is the creator of the universe. Yep. Okay, the one Creator of the universe, the all powerful, all knowing that all, and so on and so forth. Right. And the argument should not be straw man, what we're saying is that there is one Creator of the Universe who is pre eternal, post eternal, all powerful, all knowledgeable, and which brought rise to everything that exists. This is our conception of God. Obviously, there are other attributes, as per the religious

00:32:15--> 00:32:50

traditions, and you'd have to go into which book one believes in and so on, to kind of know the attributes of God. Yeah. But when we talk about a God, the Creator of the universe, that's the that's where the conversation should be. If someone believes in an object of worship that's outside of that, we would say, Okay, well, that is their object of worship, we wouldn't deny that for them. However, when we are talking about something which started up the universe, that is what you need to disprove absolutely not talking about Spaghetti Monster or serious order, and then equals a home run, what's the home run about it? Yeah, there's nothing home run about that. That particular point

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can be seen from many different perspectives, right? It could just be highlighting human nature, that we human beings, by the very nature are drawn towards worshipping and acknowledged, okay, good. But also this could also highlight a point that we understand from the saddle tradition, which is that God sent messengers throughout history with the same fundamental message, right, right. Obviously, the laws and rules were different for different societies and communities, but the fundamental message about God's existence, who he is his nature, and the purpose of human life was always the same. And what we see is that people change the revelation of that was interesting, but

00:33:21--> 00:33:55

historically, I mean, looking at into this recently, there are two general theories of the religion of history, the history of religion, the one line of thinking which has become predominant after the early 20th century and the debates that they had was that there is it starts with a thorough polytheistic type of Outlook, and then it develops to a monotheism. But there was very strong evidence which the other camp hold and still do some people that no It started off with monotheism and then it developed two policies, which is people change their added gods or deities, etc. So there is this this particular point is not a homerun it can be seen in many, many different ways. I

00:33:55--> 00:34:32

don't know why they see as a Yeah, as such a strong point against word religion. So what could we not say that to make sense of the data? Because as they acknowledge, yeah, deification of some objects of worship is something which is concurrent and also humans have absolutely yes, we have an implanted receptivity to believe in God in his own university that Richard Dawkins, Justin Barrett, I think it's just an Albert. Yes, he mentioned this in on the Oxford Oxford anthropological site in 2011, that we have this implanted kind of receptivity and the hard way, even so we believe in God, right.

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However, having said that, now the question is, how would you explain the data and why are we this is the question, right? So the Islamic narrative, which she hasn't really understood, I don't think it was a very basic narrative is, there was messengers and prophets that came before time, all of them came with the same message, that there's only one God worthy of worship and that you have to worship Him, the creator of the universe,

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and that this is the way to worship Him and there's some evidence that the Prophet comes with whatever prophet it may be. And Jesus is a prophet for us.

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is the Messiah, which I'm sure he didn't know when I know now,

00:35:04--> 00:35:04

right?

00:35:05--> 00:35:13

He's one of the people who came before times that the children of Israel, Prophet Muhammad as a final prophet, this is the narrative that he needs to properly understand before he tries to even refute

00:35:14--> 00:35:16

one thing I do agree with them on though,

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which I don't think many people would know that we agree with them on by I think it's a good place to end this conversation because we don't want it to go too long. Because people have things to do. And obviously, this is I think it's enough as well.

00:35:33--> 00:35:40

But the point is, at one point, I think the real concern that they had was teaching children about the Hellfire

00:35:41--> 00:35:55

and scaring children without a look from an Islamic perspective. You know, the, the Hadith says Raphael Kala mantras, that the pen has been lifted upon three people, types of people, and one of them is lol.

00:35:56--> 00:35:58

One of them is a Soviet,

00:35:59--> 00:36:26

you know, the young one until they become pubescent. The point being is that I agree with the fact totally agree with the children should not be scared with the hellfire. Absolutely, because that is not in line with the Islamic Now, of course, the Islamic narrative does not say that children will go to hell. So for a parent to try and use this as some kind of teaching method. Yeah. You know, I think even the Christian you can even argue the Christian narrative said the same thing. eliam like, you can do a study on that. But the point is, is that

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religious people shouldn't some of them do, right, they shouldn't use Hellfire as a means to frighten their children. Yeah, as a means to get them to do what they want to do. Because at the end of the day, what happens is those children end up being frightened, and it could actually end up lingering in their minds. And it does. Yeah, it could mean. And moreover, it's not true. Yeah, it's not true that those children because they're misbehaving, I'm going to go to hell file folders. So the point is, that kind of a discourse should be,

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should be confined to or should be had with, with adults, adolescents, so

00:37:03--> 00:37:24

sorry, with adults. So that's what I would. I would advocate agree with him that yeah, I think they don't know that we agree with them on these things. But just to kind of summarize what we're saying, is that here just as a, as a final challenge, really, to both men to Richard Dawkins and Joe Rogan, look, I will say, Look, he was a Richard joking.

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It was it was a Freudian slip on its way, but,

00:37:29--> 00:37:30

you know, was gonna say was,

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what happened to communicate? What happened to have these discourses? We have platforms, we have those platforms have different languages. If you really want access points to the Muslim world, if you really want to have conversations with Muslim representatives, which can be far reaching that we're here for you. We're here for you. And it's not going to be a hostile conversation. Yeah, why is going to be one of disagreement. And if you're ready for that disagreement, and if you're ready to defend yourself against a disagreement, you challenge yourself

00:38:04--> 00:38:37

and be critical about what you believe in. Right? Then we're here to provide that service for you. Pretty wrapped up in that? Would you agree with that? No, I completely agree with that. I think it's high time that he steps up. And he takes on that challenge. And if he doesn't listen to us, his followers should encourage him to do that. Where it's open, it's on the table, it's going to be nice, it's gonna be frank is going to be public, people are going to see people will benefit his followers will benefit. If the model gets to hear his message. Absolutely. It's a win win win from every single perspective, if it doesn't step up. For me, at least it clearly outlines his number

00:38:37--> 00:38:54

one, his insincerity, and number two, his lack of belief in his own position. That's what I mean, look, he went on a podcast, with a person with a similar kind of reach as I do just as a one person. Good skeptic. You know, by the way, I challenged and we had a debate in Oxford. Yes.

00:38:55--> 00:39:09

He came on his podcast had no problem with that. Right? So if, if it's about getting the message to young people, is it about getting the message to young atheists, young white people? Or do you really want to get the message

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by saying that I believe he'll never step up. He's afraid of the intellectual strength of the Islamic tradition and he will never stop an inevitable Muslim. That's just how I feel. I don't think you'll ever it doesn't need to be us just come and discuss with I don't think you come anywhere near you.

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But I hope he does. And there's hope God guides him, you know,

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before his time, but yeah, I think we're gonna wrap up on that. I think we're we're good. All right. Thank you.