RE: An interesting Muslim-Atheist discussion on Religion and Rationality
March 5, 2017 at 9:52 pm
(March 5, 2017 at 8:44 pm)mh.brewer Wrote: Not wasting 2 hours. Tell us what you think.
Did you watch the 5-6 minute video?
Well, the Muslim Hamza Tzortzis debated several atheists and states the same two arguments over and over:
1. Kalam Cosmological Argument
2. Qur'anic argument for Islam (stating that the language of the Qur'an is apparently so miraculous that it represents a divine miracle and truth of Islam)
In this discussion, he starts by stating that he doesn't want to have a debate but a discussion about the topic (religion and rationality). He then goes over the Kalam Cosmological Argument, saying that the universe has a beginning and the idea of the universe coming into existence without a cause cannot be true because "from nothing, nothing comes", and equates it with a mother giving birth to herself. He claimed that by using our reasoning and logic, we come to the conclusion that God exists. He said that it wasn't God of the gaps but reasoning, which he claims the Qur'an promotes. To him, rationality and science supports Islam. He then goes on the Qur'an and talks about the distinctive language of the Qur'an and its difference from other works like Shakespeares writings. He then goes on about scientism and how irrational it is since scientism requires philosophy to be proclaimed as true. He claims that the Qur'an tells us to think rationally and not just accept something to be true shallowly (that is ironic with religion).
Professor Hoodbhoy speaks about how science relies on a universal method that leads to similar conclusions and agreements among people. Religion on the other hand is very numerous but truth is never agreed upon, many different gods and explanations exist. Religion has offered explanations that the reason disasters happened is because of a displeased god, but science has its own verified and universally accepted explanations. He holds to the view that mixing religion and science is dangerous for rational thinking. One great part is when Hoodbhoy was puzzled on Hamza bringing up M-theory and physics and challenged him to write Einsteins equations on the board but turned it down.
In the end of the discussion Hamza states that Hoodbhoy hates the Muslim world, Hoodbhoy says he is lying, and Hamza then denies he said that and catches himself. Hamza then complains that Hoodbhoy didn't address his premises/arguments when it wasn't a debate anyways (as Hamza has stated in the beginning). Hamza starts to claim that Hoodbhoy does show signs of hatred for Muslims and Hoodbhoy walks away from the discussion while Hamza refers to Hoodbhoy as arrogant.
It wasn't so great of a discussion but was interesting to me. It represented a basic case for Islam (that Islam is apparently true out of all the other thousands of religions and a monotheistic abrahamic God [Allah] exists as opposed to the others) and on the flip side, a basic case against religion as rational.
