In this video I want to  ask 'Why am I not an atheist?'  

There are many reasons why I'm not an atheist  but I want to focus on one main reason  

that's not often explored in apologetics  and discussions about why atheism is  

basically a non-starter really for me. Before I  do that I just want to quickly run through  

the perfectly valid reasons that people give  for rejecting atheism. One is the evidence of  

physics. One of the most striking discoveries  of modern science has been that the laws  

and constants of physics unexpectedly conspire in  an amazing way to make our universe habitable for  

life. There's the evidence of astronomy and similar  to the fine-tuning of physics: earth's position  

in the universe and its intricately choreographed  geological and chemical processes work together  

with an amazing efficiency to create a safe  space for us to live in. There's the evidence of  

biochemistry, those amazing systems that you can see,   there's biological mechanisms that you can see at  

the biological level transporting proteins within  cells, you can see them on YouTube these these days.  

These are extraordinary pieces of engineering, I  personally cannot believe they are the products  

of blind evolution, Darwinian processes of  survival of the fittest, they're too intricate and  

engineered to be anything other than produced by  intelligent design, in my view. There's the evidence  

of biological information in their six feet of DNA  coiled inside every one of our body's 100 trillion  

cells containing a four-letter chemical alphabet  that spells out the precise instructions for all  

those proteins from which our bodies are made.  An extraordinary discovery in recent years: DNA.  

There's the evidence of consciousness itself:  how can mere chemistry and physics produce  

our consciousness. There's no explanation  forthcoming, it seems that consciousness is itself an incredible property. Now all these  are perfectly valid reasons for rejecting atheism:  

physics suggests a Creator who is intelligent,  who's involved. Astronomy shows a Creator giving  

us incredibly precise and careful  purpose and design to the universe.  

Biochemistry: biological information demonstrate's  the Creator is well.. creative. Consciousness  

shows the Creator's rationality  and I think gives credibility to the idea  

of life after death. These characteristics   do not in my view describe the god of deism  

who supposedly formed a universe and  then abandoned it went off somewhere  

else. Nor is it pantheism: the idea that the  creator and the universe is somehow co-existent  

or one. Polytheism with its multiple gods fall  short of that, and this impersonal force of New Age  

beliefs again doesn't kind of match up I think  to what we see in this science. Now when  

I usually quote the apostle Paul I'm usually quite  critical of him to be honest, but I want to quote  

an extract from his Letter to the Romans which  he wrote about two thousand years ago. Now in  

Romans chapter one he writes about the creation  and our place in it and he says: "For what can be  

known about God is plain to humanity because  God has shown it to them ever since the creation  

of the world His eternal power and divine nature,  invisible though they are, have been understood and  

seen through the things He has made. So they are  without excuse." I think that's very good.  

But the reason as I say I am not an atheist and  one of the main reasons is actually none of the  

above, though they're all perfectly good reasons, and for  that I want to turn to the writing of Ibn Taymiyya.  

Now he was a medieval Islamic theologian from  Damascus, and he was a Muslim obviously, and  

for him one of the central concepts for  talking about God as an alternative to the Kalam  

theologians who were these are other Muslim theologians  who drew heavily on Greek philosophy to prove  

the existence of God through reason, through the  cosmological argument, or the teleological argument,  

and so on. He focused perhaps more than anyone  else on this concept of 'Fitra' that's in English  

F-I-T-R-A. Now what is this Fitra? Well, the Quran  talks about the Fitra in the 30th chapter, verse  

30, and I'll just read it to you: "So [Prophet]  as a man of pure faith stand firm and true  

in your devotion to religion. This is the natural  disposition God instilled in humankind - there is no  

altering God's creation - and this is the right  religion though most people do not realise it.  

Turn to Him alone, all of you." Now this concept  of fitra is found in this phrasing 'this is the  

natural disposition God instilled in mankind' - that  is the fitra. And also there is a hadith which also  

talks about precisely the same thing.  I'll just get that up in a second - so  

the hadith says 'Every child is born on the fitra,  and then his parents make him a Jew, Christian or  

Magian, just as an animal gives birth to an  unbranded animal. So do you see any animal  

born branded, until you yourselves brand it?" So  a child is born in this natural state of fitra  

- which i'll define in a second - it is parents that make  him a Christian or a Magian et cetera. So what  

what is this fitra and why is it so important  to the Quran and especially to Ibn Taymiyya? Well  

It's this inherent belief in an  all-powerful perfect Divine being,  

and along with this knowledge it empowers  man to go beyond his basic desires  

and to aspire to a higher cause, a noble cause,  such as worshiping God and loving him alone. The  

fitra also gives human beings morality the sense  of natural justice that children have. You know, if  

they experience injustice they will make it clear  that they protest against this injustice and  

it naturally inclines human beings or all human  beings towards the truth and towards noble virtues.  

Now Ibn Taymiyya also said - and he really  massively enriched and expanded this whole concept  

of the fitra which existed before him in the Quran  and Sunnah and was discussed by other theologians,  

but he hugely discussed it and expanded the  understanding perhaps more than any other  

Islamic theologian ever. For him the fitra  was a cognitive faculty able to recognise  

the truth of any prophetic message and receive  the light of God's revelation and it was  

like a healthy eye recognizing the bright light  of the sun. So a pure fitra would naturally incline  

us towards 'wahi' revelation, the message, and accept  it recognising it as being from its Creator.  

Now what has this got to do with proof of God? Well  modern science I suggest confirms this amazingly.  

It confirms Ibn Taymiyya's extraordinary  insight. So let me just show you where. Now  

there's a recent study published by Oxford  University press which i'll just get up (here we  

go) entitled: 'Humans predisposed to believing in God  and the afterlife' - now this is research conducted  

by the University of Oxford, i'll link it in the  description below. Just to summarise the findings: it  

says 'New research finds that humans have natural  tendencies to believe in God and an afterlife.  

Research suggests that people across many  different cultures instinctively believe that  

some part of their mind, soul or spirit lives on  after death. The studies demonstrate that people  

are natural 'dualists' finding it easy to conceive  of the separation of the mind and the body. Dualism  

is a an idea in philosophy that human beings  are made basically made of a body and a soul.

Now for the more fuller version of the story  i'll just briefly quote some further extracts" A  

three-year international research project directed  by two academics at the University of Oxford finds  

that humans have natural tendencies to believe in  God and an afterlife. The Cognition, Religion and  

Theology project led by Oxford University drew on research  from a range of disciplines including anthropology,  

psychology, philosophy and theology they directed  an international body of researchers researchers  

conducting studies in 20 different countries  that represented both traditionally religious  

and atheist societies. So he basically went to a  representative sample across the world.   

Project director professor Roger Trigg from the  University of Oxford said: "This project suggests  

that religion is not just something for a peculiar  few to do on sunday's instead of playing golf.  

We have gathered a body of evidence that suggests  that religion is a common fact of human nature  

across different societies - this is the fitra! -  

this suggests that attempts to suppress  religion are likely to be short-lived  

as human thought seems to be rooted to religious  concepts such as the existence of supernatural  

agents or God or gods and the possibility of an  afterlife or pre-life. So i'll link to that  

below. This is a stunning modern confirmation  of this idea of the fitra we find in the Quran  

sunnah and expanded and elaborated to such  a great extent by Sheikh-ul-Islam ibn Taymiyyah in his writings  

and this makes a great deal of sense. This is a  very modern way in a way of of looking at the  

issue of God's existence through psychology,  through science, empirical evidence, as well as  

the indications of the existence of a transcendent  Being whom we call God. It is hardwired into our  

natures just as we are people who naturally  think, we have appetites and desires which are  

meant to be fulfilled in healthy ways we also have  a natural instinct to worship God alone. This is  

a part of our nature. Atheism then is a denial of  our human nature actually it cuts across  

what it is to be human at the end of the day not  only in our anthropology but also in the truth of who we are as creatures of the Creator. And I think  it's a very powerful argument today because you  

can bring in psychology, anthropology, theology,  philosophy, and the scriptures as well, all tending  

to complement each other and reinforce the central  fact of our humanity which is our desire and  

need to worship God a transcendent other. Another  piece of evidence which I'm not going to go into  

is abundantly attested in the literature that  people who have a religion who practice of faith  

sincerely are in general report very high levels  of personal satisfaction and happiness in their  

lives - they're not suicidal they're not having  existential crisis of nihilism and atheism. These  

people have a fulfilling and rich life and are  consequently on average more psychologically  

healthy than those that don't this is something  that's come out in many recent studies,  

and this is another confirmation of  the naturalness of faith so I find that for modern man in our current situation I  think exploring this whole idea of the fitra  

as corroborated by science leading to a fulfilled  and happy life now but also pointing beyond  

ourselves to the to al-Ākhirah to the hereafter as  well, is an excellent way of exploring belief  

in God and I find that a very rich and compelling  reason why I am not an atheist. Until next time.