Give you an explanation, but not as an agnostic position.
I do accept that religion can give you an explanation.
Whether you believe in that explanation or not is up to you.
But do you not think within your human nature,
you have that crave to have an explanation, right?
Yes. Brilliant. I do. I have the craving to have an explanation,
but I don't accept the conclusion without enough evidence to believe it.
I am as engaged with you in trying to find it, but for me, it hasn't been found yet.
And for you, it has been found.
I'm in the process of finding it.
I feel like I'm earlier in the process of finding it.
And maybe my generations from now,
my progeny, thousands of years from now will find it.
I am actually, and I think some people might have trouble with this,
but I am actually comfortable not knowing.
Okay. Why do you feel comfortable not knowing?
Because I find a lot of motivation from deriving purpose for myself.
Okay, lacking a God.
What is my purpose?
I think I can be motivated every day by a desire to treat people well,
by a desire to give back to my community, my family, my friends and to grow every day
and maybe contribute a little bit more to these questions.
We don't know the answer. Yeah.
Islam is no problem, what you just said,
because we as Muslims, we believe that we believe in the concept of fitra,
which is natural disposition to recognize as the creator and universal knowledge,
universal knowledge that everyone knows good and bad.
For example, if you see someone bashing up
a child's head, from your natural inclination it's wrong, right?
Yeah.
So islamically speaking, we have no problem.
There are some universal knowledge that we all have
because God has given us this like some a blueprint in our heart.
We got no problem with that.
But if you're saying that this universe, there is a fit for purpose,
then I would say that it is important for you to know if there is God or not.
I think it's important.
Otherwise, what you're giving me, you're giving me an alternative option,
which is this just came by itself or this came from nothing.
Yeah, I can't quite say that.
I can only say I don't know where it came from.
I see where you're coming from.
I ran into this problem with a Christian friend over lunch two weeks ago.
He had the same thing.
He's like, I don't understand how you can't...
You should have a universal truth that you would want me to believe.
Just like he has a universal truth in the belief,
his Christian belief that he wants me to believe.
He couldn't get past the fact that I am actually uncomfortable.
I can't say to you it came from nothing.
I don't know what it came from.
It could have come from Allah, but I don't know.
Okay.
Islam says this, right?
Islam says that God has created us with a purpose.
The purpose of our creation is to worship Him alone.
Now, you know from your natural inclination, if I was to give you a simple
example of a phone, you know from your natural inclination
that you know that this phone did not pop from nothing, correct?
This phone didn't create by itself, right?
So you know from based upon your natural inclination that there is the creator.
Even though you haven't seen the creator, but you just know there's the creator.
Why? Because you look at the features
of the phone, you look at the software, you look at the applications, right?
So this is innate within your nature
that creation itself is evidence for the creator.
If you allow me to call the human beings
as machine, we're far more complex than this phone which is also a machine.
So what about the creation of the heavens and the Earth?
It's a very compelling argument.
Whether there's cruelty or whether you call it beautiful or cruel, it is created.
And the creation is a bit evident of a creator.
But the question is, what is that creator? Good question.
Very good question.
You're saying there's some...
Everything we see is the natural world, right?
Yes. But there is something being supernatural.
I don't like to call it supernatural.
I'll just say the creator is unlike his creation.
Okay, fair enough.
Yeah, I'm fine with that, right?
I can't ascribe things to that.
I can't ascribe anything from facial features to desires
to cruelty or benevolence or omnipotent or not.
I can't ascribe anything to that. But if you can see...
I believe it might be there.
Like I said, what was before the Big Bang?
I don't believe in the Big Bang.
I'm just saying if you were to, what was before that?
Even an agnostic can't answer that.
Yeah, but islamic perspective, we believe that God is the first
and there was nothing before Him and God is the last and there's nothing after Him.
So how can something come from nothing?
But isn't that tautological, right?
Because you could also say...
This feels like a bit like an immature argument.
No, nothing's immature. Go on.
I mean, what came before God, right?
Okay, good question. Right.
So if you were to say that something can have no before and no after,
then couldn't you say the Big Bang equally could have no before and no after?
But you have to understand.
It just levels advocates argument, you know what I mean?
No problem.
The definition of God that we provided to you is God is uncreated.
So it's like, for example,
if I was to ask you who created this phone, you would say, what's your name?
Nat. Nat, right. Raihan, Nice to be here. Nat, right?
Nice to meet you.
Then somebody asked you, who created Nat?
What's that got to do with the question you created the phone?
It's got nothing to do with it.
Okay, but you're choosing an end point.
You're choosing to end it at God.
And I could just say, well, who But God is not within the chain.
So for you to ask who created God is an invalid question.
I understand where you're coming from.
That's the supernatural thing.
There's a natural thing that has a before and an end.
I want to make this very clear.
A lot of people give you this infinite regress..
You must have heard this before.
I don't believe in this, right?
Yeah, I think that's fair.
Because we don't say God is within the chain.
I don't want to subscribe to the first cause argument, Kalam ...
I know a lot of people, a lot of Muslims use this.
I'm against this.
What I say is it's impossible to have infinite regress of dependent things.
For example, what is dependency?
Look, I'll give you the difference between causation and dependency.
The causation does not require a volitional will.
It doesn't require.
For example, if you have a fire, what's the cause of the fire?
The burning, right?
Are you going to say that the burning has consciousness?
No.
The cause doesn't necessarily mean consciousness.
But if we were to say that you can have infinite of dependent things,
but ultimately you have to depend on someone that's independent.
Yeah, I agree with that.
We say God is 'As-Samad'.
Allah is 'As-Samad' / the independent, self sufficient.
I want to make this very clear.
You don't subscribe to Thomas Aquinas' arguments
or first cause, I don't subscribe to that.
No, that's also compelling, too, right?
You can't infinitely go back
in the dependency tree and then always ask what was before, what was before.
That's your name for something that exists outside of that is Allah.
Allah who is S amat.
Allah, the Independent,
the One whom everyone depends upon, but He doesn't depend on anything.
My name for that would be something I can't describe supernatural, right?
No problem. But then my bigger problem with all this,
so I can accept that there might be something outside the chain.
But my bigger problem with all this is why
ascribe so much orthodoxy around this thing about which you know nothing about?
Very good question.
If I was to ask you this question, God is the creator.
He's the creator of the heaven and the earth.
He created us.
If I was to ask you a simple question,
who would be able to set the purpose of every creation?
So if I was to ask you, somebody created this phone, correct?
Is there a purpose behind this phone? Yes.
Is there a reason why he created the phone?
Yes. Right.
So do you not think that as complex as this phone,
do you not think that God, as the creator, will give us a purpose?
Okay, but even if we accept that He has given a purpose to the universe,
who are you to interpret that purpose?
Very good. Because there's billions of people around the world
and they all interpret this purpose very differently.
But who dictated for this phone to be created in the first place?
The creator? Apple.
Apple. Okay, fine.
Samsung.
But that's a company, but there's a manufacturer, correct?
Yeah. Right.
So who dictated the manufacturer to create the phone?
Nobody. Okay.
So similarly, God, He is Ak-Aziz, He is the Almighty.
He's all powerful. He could do whatever you want.
That's His kingdom. Right.
So now you don't have a choice.
The fact that this phone didn't have a choice for the phone to exist,
similarly, your existence, I'm assuming obviously you have parents, right?
Did your parents choose you the way how you look like?
No. Okay.
So what I'm trying to say to you is that, look, God has given us a purpose.
And we believe, Islam says this, basically.
God created Adam and Eve,
and He sent Prophets and messengers with exactly the same message.
Worship God alone, who is unlike His creation.
Don't worship His creation.
Yeah, don't worship His creation.
Rather, you only worship the creator. Why?
Let me ask you. I find that very appealing.
Worshiping the creation rather than whatever exists outside the creation.
Very good.
The reason why I say this is that, look, you're very handsome individual.
You're very good.
Good looking guy.
Everyone is built.
Look at us.
No, I'm being honest.
Everyone is built.
This is what Allah says in the Quran.
Allah says that was there not a period of time
when human beings were not worthy to be mentioned of.
He's asking you the question.
God is asking you the question that, look, at one point you were nothing.
Then what does Allah say afterwards?
Allah says,
Indeed, We created you from a mixed fluid as a means of test for you to be tested
and He gave you senses of hearing and sight.
Yeah, I love that. Yeah?
This is from Chapter 76 Verse 1 to 2 of the Quran.
Now God is questioning you that, look, you didn't exist 100 years ago.
Why all of a sudden did you exist?
Why did your parents existing?
Did your parents give you two eyes?
No.
So why is God worth it to be worshiped alone?
Why? Because He created us alone.