We Begin by praising
Allah we praise
him we seek his
help and we ask for his
forgiveness and we take refuge with
Allah from the evil of
ourselves and from the evil
consequence of our evil
actions whomsoever Allah
guides no one can
misguide but whomsoever Allah leaves to
go astray no one can guide and I testify
that Allah alone is worthy of
worship and that Muhammad s.
wasam is his servant and his
messenger why would
somebody be in an
atheist why would
somebody
choose a belief
system that
declares there is no creator of this
universe and this is the first point
that I want to make to all of
you that
atheism is a truth claim
atheism is a truth claim in other
words atheists are taking a position
about
something an
agnostic is someone who says I don't
know whether there's a God or not an
agnostic is someone who says maybe
there's a God maybe there's not a God I
don't know the evidence is not
convincing to to me either
way but an atheist is
different an atheist declares that God
does not
exist The Atheist declares that he or
she knows that's the implication they
know that God does not exist and what I
want to
examine is what is the basis of this
knowledge what is the basis of this
claim what an atheist
is claiming that God does not exist or
they know that God exists or they are
convinced that God does not exist what
leads them what makes them adopt this
claim what makes them take this position
now my good
friend and
colleague Hamza
sis we call him the Muslim
Aristotle we call him that mashallah not
just because he's Greek originally he's
Greek and he's a convert to Islam but
also he is very knowledgeable in the
field
of
philosophy and he has done many
debates with atheists leading atheists
in the
world including for example Ed
Buckner who is the head of the humanist
and atheist Society in the United States
of
America Dan Barker who is a former
Christian Evangelical who's turned his
evangelism now to atheism and many
others that Hamza has
debated both
publicly and you can see these
debates if you want to go to our website
our I era website you can follow the
links to to those debates and watch them
if this is a topic that interests
you what Hamza
concluded and it's similar to what I
have concluded after many many years of
giving
da that most people who are
atheists are not atheists
because their belief is
rational
no and all you have to do my dear
brothers and sisters is watch some of
hamza's debates with these leading
atheists in the world and believe me you
will be
disappointed you will be very
disappointed not with Hamza
alhamdulillah but you'll be disappointed
because atheists have
somehow managed to convince many
people that atheism is a type of
rational choice
it's the default position of the
scientist and the academic and the
intellectual so a lot of people today
imagine that most scientists are
atheists and this
alone just
this makes people sit up and take the
claim of
atheism
seriously even myself in my many years
as a
Muslim my mashallah probably now 25
years alhamdulillah as a
Muslim I've been a Muslim now longer
than I was a
non-muslim I have thought about this
subject a
lot how can we prove the existence of
Allah examining the arguments of the
atheists but as the title of today's
tour book
suggests I have concluded there is a
type of Deceit going
on that their claim to be rational and
intellectual is by and large a false
claim I would conclude and Hamza has
concluded that most
atheists are atheists because of
emotional reasons not because of
rational reason reasons their position
is an emotional
position not a rational
one and I think that the
two most obvious reasons for a person to
be an atheist and there are others there
are other
reasons but the two most apparent
reasons for a person to be an
atheist is number one the person
feels
that God has let them
down and this is what both me and my
colleague Hamza through experience we
have found that a lot of people and this
is often people who are formerly
religious become atheist because they
feel that God has let them down I used
to pray they would say I used to be
religious I used to believe in God but
then such and such thing happened to be
in my life such and such difficulty came
to me in my life how could God do that
to me I used to pray they would say I
used to be religious I used to believe
in God but then such and such thing
happened to be in my life such and such
difficulty came to me in my life how
could God do that to me how could God
sit there and let me face this
difficulty he should have rescued me he
should have saved me he should have
taken me away from this in other words
they experience some difficulty in their
life and they feel that perhaps they
feel they are so special that God should
have looked after
them and this itself of course comes
from a wrong concept of God and a wrong
concept of our relationship with God
as we Muslims know life is a test as
Allah subhana waala mentioned in the
[Music]
Quran in the Quran the Creator Allah the
Creator is telling
us that I have created life and I have
created death I have created
death I have not created death and life
except to test except to see which of
you is best in
conduct and he is Aziz he is the mighty
and he isur he is the forgiving so life
is a
test the
nature of the test
is that there will be hardship and there
will be ease there will be difficulties
there will be
hardships there will be illnesses there
will be sicknesses indeed in the Quran
Allah is telling us do you think that I
would leave you saying you believe
without testing you as we tested those
who came before
you so we will be tested and the fact
that we claim to be Believers in God
does not mean we will stop being tested
No in fact we know from the prophet
Muhammad s.
was that Allah tests the ones he loves
and the ones he loves the most he tests
them the
most because it is through this process
of being tested that we as human beings
become
refined that is how we learn to
improve that is how we become
better that is how our character and our
personality and our
disposition if we are
patient if we see the test through then
we become better human
beings it is like the process of
purifying the AE of a
metal in order to get the pure pure
metal you have to purify the ore you
have to
extract the pure metal from the dirts
and from the O that surrounds
it and through this
process the purification takes place so
a lot of atheists have this problem that
if there is a God how come he let this
happen to
me but this is not
rational it's not
this is
emotional it's
emotional if you think about
it and what I will do is go through the
rational arguments of God's existence
and we will see that there are very very
strong rational arguments very good
reasons to believe that this universe
has a
Creator and then we will examine
inshallah some of the arguments of the
atheists and we will also find
out that their arguments are not strong
arguments at all but I gave one reason
so the first reason
why out of the two major reasons that a
person becomes an
atheist and notice I say becomes an
atheist because the first topic I want
to discuss
a very interesting topic is that
believing in God is actually natural and
instinctive for human
beings so becoming an atheist is a
decision that a person
takes human beings are naturally born
believing in the
Creator it's our environment and
circumstances that take us away from
that atheism is an acquired
position it's not a natural
one it's
unnatural the second reason the second
reason why people become
atheists is because they simply don't
like the idea of having to live by
rules other than the rules they make
fors they don't like the idea that they
are going to be held accountable they
don't like the
idea that there are some things a human
being should do and some things a human
being should not do and that the only
being that has the right and the
knowledge to tell human beings that is
the creator in other words what attracts
The Atheist is what they imagine to be
freedom I say they imagine it to be
freedom and with this there are many
other reasons as
well there are some historical reasons
especially for
scientists the conflict
between the Roman Catholic church and
science has for many scientists marred
the position of religion visis
science and you particularly think of
the way that Galileo was
treated and for many scientists
this has meant that the church which for
them the Catholic Church represents
religion is against
science and that the church has not
given scientists the freedom to
explore and to develop different
theories and I think by the way brothers
and sisters as
Muslims that should be as a side point a
cautionary tale for us because of course
in our civilization
we have not had that conflict between
science and religion in our civilization
in fact we find that science was
promoted science was encouraged indeed
According to some Western Scholars and
intellectuals the scientific process
itself what we call the scientific
methodology was something the Muslims
invented and the Muslims introduced
and people in the west learned that
process from the
Muslims so I think it's important that
we as
Muslims are very cautious about creating
or exaggerating a conflict between
religion and science but of course if
the scientific Community is going to
decide to take atheism as its position
of choice it's going to become very hard
to avoid such a
conflict but I think the reality is that
first of all the claim that most
scientists are atheist is not true it is
simply not true in fact if you look at
some of the greatest Minds in science
like Albert Einstein it is very clear
from Reading Albert Einstein that he
believed in the existence of a
Creator
Newton of course who is
famous in many ways he's one of the
Giants of science also believed in the
existence of a Creator and interestingly
enough for many years of Darwin's
life he also believed that there was a
god it's only towards the end that it
seemed that he expressed doubts about
that so this claim that the scientific
Community is a atheist Community is not
really a true claim name at
all now my dear brothers and sisters
what I want to do is I want to go
through some of the arguments that are
put forward by people who believe that
the Creator
exists and I want to introduce a set of
arguments or a direction of discussion
that is quite
new and the reason I want to introduce
this is that there have has been a very
major piece of research done
recently in
Oxford uh by the society for mind and
anthropology or anthropology and mind
who did a
1.9 million pounds they spent on this
research as far as I remember there were
over 60 academics involved in this
research from all over the
world so this was a major piece of
scientific
research in the realm of human
psychology and
anthropology and after many
years they
concluded that the belief in God the
religious belief and the belief in
afterlife is not
something that is taught by our parents
it is something in distinctive and
natural in the human being that in fact
the very human thought process
itself is shaped by religious
values this is very
significant because of course this
agrees with exactly what Islam has been
saying that every human being is born
upon the fitra in in other words every
human being as the prophet Muhammad
sallallah alaihi wasallam said is
naturally inclined to worship God alone
and as the prophet sallallah alaihi
wasallam said it is only our
parents that make us diverge away from
that natural inclination to single out
God for worship and make us followers of
different religions or no religion at
all so this is the nature of the human
being and it's interesting that this
very extensive piece of research has
confirmed that and we all have instincts
Animals by the way operate on Instinct
what makes the human being different
from the animal is that the human being
has reason we have the ability to reason
whereas animals they rely upon
instincts and we have also what we call
reflex actions so for example example if
I pick up something that is
hot not the Quran but something that is
very hot I don't have to think there's
no process in my brain saying this is
very hot I must drop it no you do it
instinctively you drop it instinctively
this is a reflex
action this is something that is not
rational this is just something that is
part of our intrinsic makeup in order to
keep on holding something hot you have
to train yourself you have to learn to
bypass your normal instinctive which a
human being can do we can learn to
bypass those reflex actions and force
ourself to hold a hot coal this is
unique to human
beings
Consciousness that ability to use our
mind to override our instinctive
reactions however this instinct is there
and the belief in God is instinctive
what is the proof what is the proof of
this it's very
interesting that one of the what we
could call the high Priests of atheism
Richard Dawkins was recently
on a a TV show and he was being
interviewed and that he was saying in
this interview you know most Christians
they don't know anything about their
Bible they just don't know about their
book so the interviewer said okay that's
interesting you believe Mr Dawkins
you're a big fan of Darwin aren't you of
course yes Darwin's very important um
could you tell me the full title of his
book the origin of the
species and Richard Dawkins start again
um
uh oh
God
said he said oh
God so he founded this atheist or this
renowned atheist is being put in a
difficult situation he doesn't know the
answer and he ends up going oh God like
oh God help me what am I going to say
and this is a guy who says he doesn't
believe in
God and actually this is
instinctive this is instinctive Allah
gives the example in the
Quran Allah gives the example in the
Quran of those people who go on a
boat and they go on the boat expecting
to do trade and expecting to buy and
sell they go onto this boat and when
they go out to seea there is a great
storm and Allah describes in the Quran
how the waves are coming over them like
the roof of a tent can you imagine huge
waves Crashing Down down on top of
you now for a bit the human being will
think okay the boat is going to save me
the boat is well built the boat will
save me or maybe they think the captain
will save me but when the boat starts to
disintegrate to break apart and the
captain gets washed
overshore what do they
do what do they
do they start calling upon the Creator
they start saying oh God help me and
when they say oh God it is not the point
the name is not important whether they
say God or Allah
or or whatever no the name is not
important it's the concept that is
important what are they calling to
conceptually conceptually in their minds
they are calling upon the being which
they know
instinctively has power over
everything in the
universe that's the one that they are
calling to they know that a being
exists
instinctively that can rescue them and
has the power and the ability to save
them from their difficulty this is the
point not the name but the point is the
concept and this is important because
this being they are calling upon
instinctively is not part of the
universe they are not calling upon
something that is part of the
universe nor is this being the universe
collected together
entirely
no this is a being they know is distinct
and separate from the universe who has
power over it
this of course is Allah this of course
is the
creator so this instinctive knowledge
which his major scientific survey now
has found is an intrinsic
part of our thought process as human
beings so this is very important because
actually we could almost finish there we
could say to any atheist you know
there's a God you know it it's in your
nature every single one of you knows it
and actually this is the reality
children are dying women are dying there
are earthquakes there is disease where
is this God how can he let it happen
however we soon realize with a bit of
thinking that this is not a rational
argument this is an emotional argument
it's based upon emotion
because the reasons for believing that
the Universe has a Creator are clear we
live in an organized systemized Universe
where we see organization where we see
systems it's rational to conclude that
there is power and will and intelligence
behind it well the existence of
suffering has got nothing to do with
whether there is a Creator or not it's a
different question actually the question
is
why does God let these things happen it
doesn't prove or it doesn't say anything
about whether God exists or not but it
is a question of why and the only way we
can answer that question why is when God
tells
us in fact this very question
itself leads the rational mind to
conclude that we need revelation we need
God to tell us why is our life the way
it is what is the purpose of our life
what is the reason of our existence so
it's very interesting that the very
question of evil and
suffering in the world is a question
that should lead us to
believe not only that there is a God
because the issue has got nothing to do
with whether the Creator exists but it's
an issue to do with why oh God why why
do you let these things happen the only
way we can know is if God has revealed
that guidance to us
that is a very very powerful
argument for the need for Revelation for
the need for God to give this guidance
to us but anyway inshallah maybe we can
cover some of the rest of the stuff in
the question and answer
[Applause]
session abim green so now we have come
to the time for the question and answer
session as always we have a mic to the
left for the brothers and one in the
rear for the Sisters go ahead
sister
alikum um my question is just related to
what the brothers asked we know all that
God is just and no unjust will happen to
any person but when I talked to my
atheist friends online and in person
their questions that I cannot answer is
where is the just when I become a Muslim
and everything is easy because I was
born in this side of the world or I were
born in this family I know you just
answered that about the people who's
born in atheist family and such but the
question is what should I tell them ex
precisely if I tell them that God is
just and they will be answered in the
judment day they be their answer is I
don't believe in God and I don't believe
of the Judgment Day So my answer is
invalid to them or it doesn't give them
what they want to know but I think first
of all sister to me the answer in some
ways is quite
obvious because you are talking to those
people therefore you are giving them the
opportunity to change and to accept the
truth how then can they complain about
the message not reaching them when you
are the messenger bringing the message
to them
right and and this is the thing I really
have to say I hate to generalize about a
group of people there are some atheists
who are maybe genuinely confused people
right but
honestly many of them are very arrogant
people when you begin to discuss with
them you see it
you will give them very reasonable
answers and they come with very
unreasonable
replies and these are the people who are
claiming that they are reasonable I
would also recommend highly recommend
you give to your atheist friends you're
talking to online just ask them to read
this book The Man in the red Underpants
ask them to read it and see if they can
come to a response to what is in and you
should read it yourself inshallah you
will find it very very helpful because
the beginning of the book is talking
exactly about the issues to do with how
do we know and how can we be convinced
that God exists the other point I want
to point out sister is again the point
of
f we believe that every human being has
an instinctive knowledge
everybody atheism is an acquired
position and this study done by the
Oxford Institute for anthropology and
psychology 1. 9 million they spent 60
academics across the world they did this
including China including countries that
largely they don't believe in God what
did they do is when they examined
children and they questioned them and
they gave them certain tests in fact
what did they find they did have a
concept of God and they did have a
concept of the afterlife so even in
these atheistic societies children still
had this basic natural concept and this
is some of the reasons why they
concluded that the belief in God and the
belief in religion and the belief in
afterlife is actually a natural
instinctive belief in the human being
right so you find as I said I think the
main reasons why a person chooses to be
an atheist is because something bad
happened to them in their life and they
think you know how could God let this
happen to me or they just don't want to
live their life by some rules that's it
they don't want rules in their life they
just want to be able to do whatever they
want without feeling that there's some
accountability there may be other
reasons and some people are genuinely
confused about for example the problem
of evil another thing that often they
say is religion has led to so many
wars you see religion has led to so many
wars how can religion be true when
religion has led to so many wars and so
many
problems anyway the point comes again is
this a rational
argument think about it is this a
rational
argument no not
rational because you could still
conclude I'm not saying this is the case
I'm not saying this is the case but
rationally you could say well maybe God
likes
Wars it doesn't doesn't prove there's
not a god it doesn't even prove whether
a religion is true or
not what is the basis for them to say
because religion causes Wars it can't be
true what's the basis it's not a
rational basis it's emotional it's just
an emotional appeal it's not rational
and anyway it's not true