Hamza Andreas Tzortzis

My Blog is Changing: www.hamzatzortzis.com

2011-10-21T22:17:00.002+01:00

As-salaamu alaykum dear readers and followers of my blog,

This blog will transition in to my official site www.hamzatzortzis.com. Please follow that site for updates. I have already uploaded new material including an essay on the literary and linguistic miracle of the Qur'an. There is a new Q and A section as well as a podcast section.

Please contact myself if you have any suggestions for improvement.

I am looking forward to engaging with you in the near future.

Thank you and may God reward you.

Was-salaamu alaykum,

Hamza.

God: Fairy Tale or Truth? Hamza Andreas Tzortzis & Dr. Lars Gule (Scandinavia's Leading Atheist)

2011-10-12T12:30:00.000+01:00

The Qur'anic Argument for God's Existence

2011-10-03T13:02:00.001+01:00

By Hamza Andreas Tzortzis Draft 0.2

“No question is more sublime than why there is a universe: why there is anything rather than nothing.”[1]

When we reflect upon our own existence we will come to the realisation, that at some point in time, we began to exist. Since we were once non-existent and are now in existence, it follows that we must have had a beginning. In light of this, the Qur’an raises some profound questions: were we created by nothing? Did we create ourselves? Or did we create the universe?

“Or were they created by nothing? Or were they the creators (of themselves)? Or did they create heavens and earth? Rather, they are not certain.” Quran 52:35-36

These questions can be addressed to the existence of everything temporal, in other words the entire universe. Therefore, the exegetical implications of these verses can be logically formulated in the following way:

Things that began to exist were either :-

1. Created or brought into being from nothing

2. Self caused or self created

3. Created or brought into being by something else that began to exist

4. Created or brought into being by a non-created or un-caused entity

Before we proceed, the first presupposition has to be subtantiated, as it forms the basis for the Qur’an’s argument for the existence of God. This first assumption is that the universe began to exist.

Did the universe begin to exist?

To substantiate the view that the universe began to exist we can bring into our discussion a plethora of philosophical and inductive arguments:

1. The second law of thermodynamic

2. The absurdity of an infinite history of past events

3. Astrophysical evidence

1. The second law of thermodynamics

The concept of entropy was introduced to explain the direction of various processes that occur in the natural world. Entropy is a measure of how evenly energy is distributed in a system. For example, heat always flows from a body of a higher temperature or energy (low entropy) to one of a lower temperature or energy (high entropy). Take the following illustration of a container with gas,

when the partition is removed, the gas in one end of the container will spread to the whole of the container, going from a state of low entropy (higher temperature or energy) to high entropy (lower temperature or energy).

Hence, according to the second law of thermodynamics, processes in a closed system tend towards higher entropy, as their energy is being used.

Applying the second law of thermodynamics to the universe we will conclude that it must have began to exist. Since the universe is a closed system, with enough time the universe will suffer a heat death or thermodynamic equilibrium. When systems are in thermodynamic equilibrium, they cannot transfer energy. This is because entropy can only increase over time. Therefore, as the universe continues to expand it will eventually become cold and dead. However this raises a question, if the universe never began to exist it would imply that the universe has existed for an infinite amount of time. If this is true then why isn’t the universe already in a state of heat death? This strongly suggests that the universe must have had a beginning, because if it didn’t it would imply that it has existed for an infinite amount of time, which would mean that it should already have suffered a heat death. Since it hasn’t suffered a heat death, it strongly indicates that the universe is finite, meaning it began to exist.

2. The absurdity of an infinite history of past events

Some philosophers such as Bertrand Russell argued that the universe is eternal, meaning it has no beginning and it will never end. However if we think about this we will conclude that this position is irrational. If the universe never had a beginning it means there must be an infinite history of past events. Yet does an actual infinite exist in the real world? Is it possible?

The concept of the actual infinite cannot be exported into the real world, because it leads to contradictions and doesn't make sense. Let’s take the following examples to illustrate this point:

1. Say you have an infinite number of balls, if I take 2 balls away, how many do you have left? Infinity. Does that make sense? Well, there should be two less than infinity, and if there is, then we should be able to count how many balls you have. But this is impossible, because the infinite is just an idea and doesn’t exist in the real world. In light of this fact the famous German mathematician David Hilbert said,

“The infinite is nowhere to be found in reality. It neither exists in nature nor provides a legitimate basis for rational thought…the role that remains for the infinite to play is solely that of an idea.”[2]

2. Imagine you are a soldier ready to fire a gun, but before you shoot you have to ask permission for the soldier behind you, but he has to do the same, and it goes on for infinity. Will you ever shoot? No you wouldn’t. This highlights, the absurdity of an infinite regress and this applies to events to. Therefore, there cannot be an infinite history of past events.

3. Take the distance between two points, one may argue that you can subdivide the distance into infinite parts, but you will always be subdividing and never actually reach the ‘infinitieth’ part! So in reality the infinite is potential and can never be actualised. Similarly the ancient Greek Philosopher Aristotle explained,

“...the infinite is potential, never actual: the number of parts that can be taken always surpasses any assigned number.”[3]

So if we refer back to an infinite history of past events we can conclude, since events are not just ideas they are real, the number of past events cannot be infinite. Therefore the universe must be finite, in other words the cosmos had a beginning.

3. Astrophysical evidence

The ‘Big Bang’ is the prevailing theory in cosmology. It was first formulated by the aid of some observations made by an American Astronomer called Edwin Hubble. While Hubble was trying to understand the size of the universe, he observed immensely luminous stars called Cepheid Variables and noticed something peculiar. He observed that some of these stars were further away than initially anticipated, and that their colour was slightly changed, shifting towards red, something now known as red-shift. From Hubble’s observations we were able conclude that everything seems to be moving away from each other, in other words the universe is effectively expanding. As time moves on the universe continues to expand, but if time is reversed, the theory is that everything starts to coalesce and come together. Coupled with the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, which is the radiation uniformly filling the observable universe, the idea of the ‘Big Bang’ was born. In other words the universe began at a cataclysmic event which created space-time and all matter in the universe. The physicist P. C. W. Davies explains,

“If we extrapolate this prediction to its extreme, we reach a point when all distances in the universe have shrunk to zero. An initial cosmological singularity therefore forms a past temporal extremity to the universe. We cannot continue physical reasoning, or even the concept of spacetime, through such an extremity. For this reason most cosmologists think of the initial singularity as the beginning of the universe. On this view the big bang represents the creation event; the creation not only of all the matter and energy in the universe, but also of spacetime itself.”[4]

Although our understanding of what happened 10^-43 seconds after the ‘Big Bang’ is highly speculative, astrophysicists now concede little doubt that this universe in which we live is the aftermath of the emergence and expansion of space-time, which occurred approximately 14 billion years ago. John Gribbin, an astrophysicist at Cambridge University, summarises the importance of ‘Big Bang’ cosmology,

“...the discovery of the century, in cosmology at least, was without doubt the dramatic discovery made by Hubble, and confirmed by Einstein’s equations, that the Universe is not eternal, static, and unchanging.”[5]

Thus the ‘Big Bang’ model describes our universe as having a beginning a finite time ago. As Alex Vilenkin, one of the world’s leading theoretical cosmologists, writes,

“It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”6]

Other models have been proposed to try and explain away the obvious metaphysical questions that arise from a finite universe, for instance P.C.W. Davies questions,

“What caused the big bang? . . . One might consider some supernatural force, some agency beyond space and time as being responsible for the big bang, or one might prefer to regard the big bang as an event without a cause. It seems to me that we don't have too much choice. Either...something outside of the physical world...or...an event without a cause.”[7]

These models include the oscillating and vacuum fluctuation models. These models however still have principles that necessitate a beginning to the universe, in other words they are non-infinitely extendable into the past. Take the oscillating model as an example, this model maintains that if the gravitational pull of the mass of the universe was able to surmount the force of its expansion, then the expansion could be changed into a cosmic contraction or ‘Big Crunch’, and then into a new expansion, with the process continuing ad infinitum. However, there are a few issues with this model,

1. Firstly there is nothing available in modern physics that would allow a universe that is collapsing to spring back into a new expanding universe.

2. Secondly the mean mass density of the universe, derived from observational evidence, has shown that it is not enough to develop the required gravitational force to stop and reverse the expansion of the universe.

3. Thirdly, the second law of thermodynamics (as discussed above) implies the finitude of the universe. According to the oscillation model, the entropy is conserved from cycle to cycle of the various oscillations of expansion, crunch and expansion. This has the effect of generating larger and longer oscillations. Therefore the thermodynamic property of this model implies a beginning, as the universe that we exist in has not suffered a heat death, or thermodynamic equilibrium.

Since we have presented good evidence that the universe began to exist. We can now address the logically possible explanations the Qur’an presents as rationalisations of the origins of the universe.

Created or brought into being from nothing

We know the universe couldn’t have come out of nothing, because out of nothing, nothing comes! This is an undeniable philosophical principle, as P. J. Zwart in his publication About Time explains,

“If there is anything we find inconceivable it is that something could arise from nothing.”[8]

A significant point to raise here is that nothingness should not be misconstrued as the nothingness that some physicists talk about. The term nothingness in this context refers to the absence of anything physical, in other words there is no pre-existing ‘stuff’. In light of the beginning of the universe, there was absolutely nothing before it began to exist, which is why physicists have explained the universe as having a space-time boundary.

However, nothingness as defined by some physicists relates to the quantum vacuum. This is misleading because the quantum is something. In quantum theory the vacuum is a field of energy pervading the whole of the universe. In the word’s of John Polkinghorne, a philosopher of science, the quantum vacuum,

“...is not ‘nothing’; it is a structured and highly active entity.”[9]

So, in context of some of the physicists’ definition, the universe could not have come from absolutely nothing, as the quantum vacuum is something. It is a sea of fluctuating energy, which is still part of the cosmos and it did not pre-exist the universe. This point leads us nicely to the next possible explanation.

Self caused or self created

Philosophically, the universe couldn’t have created itself because that would imply a paradox. It would mean that something can exist and not exist at the same time. The logical ends of this explanation are tantamount to saying that your mother gave birth to herself!

Recently, the world renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking in his new book The Grand Design argues that the universe did self create due to the law of gravity,

“Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing...”[10]

But his view on nothing, as previously mentioned, is not really nothingness but is space filled with the quantum vacuum, which is part of the universe. In essence Hawking is telling us that the universe can create itself, but it has to already exist for it to do that!

Concerning the law of gravity, well that is just a mathematical equation that describes nature. This law is part of the universe, which can also be described as a force of attraction between material objects. Therefore, how can this force exist before matter, in other words the universe?

To assert that the universe created itself would be absurd and self refuting, because in order for something to create itself it would need to exist before it existed!

Created or brought into being by something else that began to exist

This is not an adequate explanation for the origins of the universe. The universe could not have owed its existence to another state of temporal physical existence. To maintain such an explanation would be equivalent of expanding the boundaries of the universe, as all things which have a temporal beginning exist within the universe. Also, if temporal physical existence owes itself to another temporal physical existence ad infinitum, it doesn’t explain anything. Rather it highlights the absurdity of an infinite regress, and that there has to be a beginning to the temporal physical states, which logically must be a non-physical state.

Take the following example into consideration. If the universe, U₁, followed another temporal cause U_2,and U₂followed another temporal cause U_3,and this went on ad infinitum we wouldn’t have the universe U₁ in the first place. Think about it this way, when does U₁ come into being? Only after U₂ has come into being. When does U₂ come into being? Only after U₃ has come into being. This same problem will continue even if we go to infinity. If U₁ depended on its coming into being on a chain of infinite temporal causes, U₁would never exist. As the Islamic Philosopher and Scholar Dr. Jaafar Idris writes,

“There would be no series of actual causes, but only a series of non-existents, as Ibn Taymiyyah explained. The fact, however, is that there are existents around us; therefore, their ultimate cause must be something other than temporal causes.”[11]

Created or brought into being by a non-created or un-caused entity

Since something cannot come from nothing, and self creation is absurd, including the unreasonableness of the aforementioned explanation, then the universe being created or brought into existence by an uncaused entity is the best explanation. This concept is intuitive but also agrees with reality: whatever begins to exist has a cause or a creator.

This cause or creator must be uncaused due to the absurdity of an infinite regress, in other words an indefinite chain of causes. To illustrate this better, if the cause of the universe had a cause and that cause had a cause ad infinitum, then there wouldn’t be a universe to talk about in the first place (something we have already discussed above). For example, imagine if a Stock Trader on a trading floor at the Stock Exchange was not able to buy or sell his stocks or bonds before asking permission from the investor, and then this investor had to check with his, and this went on forever, would the Stock Trader every buy or sell his stocks or bonds? The answer is no. In similar light if we apply this to the universe we would have to posit an uncaused cause due to this rational necessity. The Qur’an confirms the uncreatedness of the creator, God,

“He neither begets nor is born.” Qur’an 112:3

The cause or creator for the universe must be a single cause for several reasons. An attractive argument to substantiate this claim includes the use of the rational principle called Occam’s razor. In philosophical terms the principle enjoins that we do not multiply entities beyond necessity. What this basically means is that we should stick to explanations that do not create more questions than it answers. In the context of the cause for the universe we have no evidence to claim multiplicity, in other words more than one. The Qur’an affirms the Oneness of the creator,

“Say: He is God, [who is] One.” Qur’an 112:1

However some philosophers and scientists claim: why doesn’t the cause be the universe itself? Why can’t the cause stop at the universe? Well, the problem with these claims is that they would imply that the universe created itself, which we have already discussed, is absurd. Additionally, we have good reasons to postulate a cause for the universe because the universe began to exist, and what begins to exist has a cause.

Our argument thus far allows us to conclude that this cause or creator must be non contingent meaning that its existence is dependent on nothing but itself. If it were contingent it would be one more effect in the chain of causes. The Qur’an verifies this,

“God is Independent of (all) creatures.” Qur’an 3:97

The cause or creator must also be transcendent, this means that the cause of the universe must exist outside of and apart from the universe. Since this being exists apart from the universe it must be non-physical or immaterial, if it was material then it would be part of the universe. This is confirmed in the Qur’an,

“There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the Hearing, the Seeing” Qur’an 42:11

This cause must have the power to create the universe, without this ability nothing could be created. The Qur’an testifies to God’s power,

“Certainly, God has power over all things.” Qur’an 2:20

This cause must have a will, because it wouldn't be able to create the universe without one. What this means is that it must have a will so the power to create could be acted on. The Qur’an refers to God as having a will in many places, for instance,

“And God guides whom He wills to a straight path.” Qur’an 2:213

In summary, we have concluded what the Qur’an concluded over 1400 years ago, that a creator for the universe exists, that is one, has a will, is powerful, uncaused, immaterial and eternal.

Quantum Physics Undermines the Argument

A common contention to the central argument made in this essay is that the assumption - whatever begins to exist has a cause - is false. This is due to the apparent observations in the quantum vacuum that sub-atomic events behave spontaneously without any causes. In light of this common contention there are some good objections we can raise:

1. Firstly, the view that some events just happen, also known as indeterminism, for no reason at all is impossible to prove conclusively. Our inability to identify a cause does not necessarily mean that there is no cause.

2. Secondly, there are deterministic perspectives adopted by physicists to explain these so-called spontaneous sub-atomic events. For instance in the 1950s David Bohm showed there was an alternative formulation of quantum theory that is fully deterministic in its basic structure. [12] Commenting on Bohm’s theory Polkinghorne explains,

“In Bohm’s theory there are particles which are as unproblematically objective and deterministic in their behaviour as Sir Isaac Newton himself might have wished them to be. However, there is also a hidden wave, encoding information about the whole environment. It is not itself directly observable, but it influences in a subtle and highly sensitive manner the motions of the particles in just such a way as to induce the experimentally observed probabilistic effects.”[13]

What this means is that the apparent indeterminism present at the quantum level can be explained deterministically by this hidden wave that produces observed indeterministic or probabilistic effects.

However, since these two interpretations of quantum theory are empirically equivalent the choice between them will not be based on a scientific decision but on a metaphysical one. This leads to the philosophical objection to this contention.

3. Thirdly, from a philosophical perspective it is extremely difficult for these physicists (who adopt an indeterministic explanation of sub-atomic events) to justify their conclusions. This is because without the concept of causality we will not have the mental framework to understand our observations and experiences. In philosophical terms causality is a priori, which means knowledge we have independent of any experience. We know causality is true because we bring it to all our experience, rather than our experience bringing it to us. It is like wearing yellow-tinted glasses, everything looks yellow not because of anything out there in the world, but because of the glasses through which we are looking at everything. Take the following example into consideration; imagine you are looking at the White House in Washington DC. Your eyes may wonder to the door, across the pillars, then to the roof and finally over to the front lawn. Now contrast this to another experience, you are on the river Thames in London and you see a boat floating past. What dictates the order in which you had these experiences? When you looked at the White House you had a choice to see the door first and then the pillars and so on. However, with the boat you had no choice as the front of the boat was the first to appear.

The point to take here is that you would not have been able to make the distinction that some experiences are ordered by yourself and others are ordered independently, unless we had the concept of causality. In absence of causality our experience would be very different from the way it is. It would be a single sequence of experiences only: one thing after another. So to accept that sub-atomic events do not correspond with causality would be tantamount of denying our own experience!

References

[1] Derek Parfit, "Why Anything? Why This?" London Review of Books 20/2 (January 22, 1998), page 24.

[2] David Hilbert. On the Infinite, in Philosophy of Mathematics, ed. with an Intro. by P. Benacerraf and H. Putnam. Prentice-Hall. 1964, page151.

[3] Aristotle, Physics 207b8 (available online here http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/physics.html)

[4] P. C. W. Davies, “Spacetime Singularities in Cosmology,” in The Study of Time III, ed. J. T. Fraser (Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1978), pages 78–79.

[5] John Gribbin, In the Beginning: The Birth of the Living Universe (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993), page 19.

[6] Alex Vilenkin, Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universe. Hill and Wang. 2006, page 176.

[7] Paul Davies, "The Birth of the Cosmos," in God, Cosmos, Nature and Creativity, ed. Jill Gready (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1995), pages. 8-9.

[8] P. J. Zwart, About Time (Amsterdam and Oxford: North Holland Publishing Co., 1976), pages 117-19

[9] John Polkinghorne and Nicholas Beale. Questions of Truth. 2009, page 41

[10] Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow. The Grand Design. 2011, page 180.

[11] http://www.jaafaridris.com/English/Books/physicists.htm accessed 1 October 2011, 10:32AM.

[12] See D. Bohm and B. J. Hiley. The Undivided Universe. Routledge, 1993.

[13] John Polkinghorne. Science and Religion in Quest of Truth. SPCK. 2011, page 39

Hamza Tzortzis Discusses God's Existence on Philosophy Now Radio

2011-09-24T13:01:00.000+01:00

Islam, Atheism or Christianity? Live Radio Discussion

2011-09-20T09:34:00.000+01:00

Islam, Atheism or Christianity? Live Radio Discussion

What does an Atheist, a Christian and a Muslim all have in common? Well, they will be live on Resonance FM (104.4fm) tonight (20 Sept. 2011) at 7PM (BST) discussing their beliefs.

To listen live on-line please access this link http://resonancefm.com/listen.

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis will articulate why he believes Islam is the truth. A podcast of the show will be available on the following link http://www.philosophynow.org/podcasts.

A Note on the England Riots

2011-08-22T15:18:00.001+01:00

There will be no cheap political point scoring here. What I am about to say are my sincere views and advice concerning what occurred across England during the riots. Rioting spread across London, with unrest flaring up in other English cities including Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, and Nottingham. A man in Croydon was shot, houses were reduced to ashes, livelihoods were destroyed, and local family run businesses were ruined. Police were attacked and injured, cars were burnt and people were scared to walk the streets of London. In light of this we need to answer two fundamental questions: why has this happened and what can we do to make sure this never happens again?

Why Has This Happened?

There is no right answer here, but we can get close to the truth. The answers from some commentators and politicians so far have been to blame the rotten apples of our society, the criminals, and the minority youth who will always seek to do bad things. Frankly, these answers are irresponsible and fail to understand the dynamics of social influence. These answers are also fallacious, if these youths, come from, and are a product of our society, then why just simply blame the product? This is simplistic and is tantamount of expelling all the pupils of a high school without trying to reform teaching practices. Simply put, it means we are always going to throw away the rotten apples of a bad tree, in the hope of growing good tasty apples. If we don’t deal with the roots of the problems, we will always get bad apples.

So why has this happened? Well, there are many reasons and we can’t elaborate on all them here, but one thing we have to take seriously is the failure of the government.

Firstly, there is an element of disenfranchisement of British youth, half of all 18 to 24 year-olds are not even registered to vote and just over a third believes that politics is a waste of time.[1]
Secondly, drugs and alcohol abuse is common, a staggering 25% of the UKs school age children have tried drugs, with 10% of them using drugs regularly with cocaine consumption rising to levels unheard of elsewhere in Europe.[2] Younger people are more likely to drink heavily, with 48 per cent of men and 39 per cent of women aged 16-24 drinking above the daily recommendations.[3] [4]
Thirdly, violence and criminal activity has become somewhat of a social norm for British youth, young people think that the outlook for knife crime is bleak with 25% of people knowing someone who has been a victim of knife crime. The Youth Justice board has found that one in three young people carry a knife or gun and a crime is committed by a young person every two minutes.[5] Almost 75 per cent of young offenders were reconvicted within two years, and 12.5% percent were reconvicted within 3 months.[6]
Fourthly, there is a lack of education. 30,000 young people leave school with no qualifications each year and a tenth of 16-year-olds left school in 2005 with poor literacy or numeracy skills. Official figures show that about 60,000 16-year-olds did not pass GCSE English or Maths, and one in 20, almost 32,000 teenagers, failed to gain a GCSE in both subjects.[7]
There are other issues facing British youth including homelessness and prostitution, at least 75,000 young people have experienced homelessness in the UK between 2006/7[8] and of the estimated 80,000 people involved in prostitution in the UK, up to 5,000 children may be involved at any one time, with a female to male ratio of four to one.[9]

In February 2009, the Children’s Society launched a report entitled ‘A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age’ and it presented evidence that may be the underlying reason for the above reality of British youth. The report focused on children, and one can argue that if the situation of British children is quite bad, then it will effect later years,

“Britain and the U.S. have more broken families than other countries, and our families are less cohesive in the way they live and eat together. British children are rougher with each other, and live more riskily in terms of alcohol, drugs and teenage pregnancy. And they are less inclined to stay in education. This comes against a background of much greater income inequality: many more children live in relative poverty in Britain and the U.S.”[10]

Mr Justice Coleridge, a Family Division judge for England and Wales, comments on the issues raised by the Children’s Society report, describing social breakdown and fragmentation as a “never ending carnival of human misery - a ceaseless river of human distress.”[11]

Why is the Government to Blame?

Simply put, liberal values are to blame. The Prime Minister’s recent call for a “muscular liberalism”[12] is indicative of why the government has failed. They do not realize that liberal values, which emanate from the disputatious doctrine of liberalism, are the cause of the problem. This is because liberal values emphasise on the priority of individual rights and emphasise on individual freedoms, as the ‘Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics’ states that Liberalism is “the belief that it is the aim of politics to preserve individual rights and to maximise freedom of choice.”[13] So it can be clearly seen that these values are excessively individualistic, and individualism is a major cause of the problem for various reasons:

Firstly, individualism is the consideration that individual human beings are social atoms abstracted from their social contexts, attachments and obligations.[14] This view of the human being is not based on reality, for instance there are dynamic links between society’s values and behavior, and it is not just individualistic, as social constructionist Vivien Burr concludes that key features – or values – of a specific society will affect an individual’s personality. She uses competition as an example, “For example in a capitalist society competition is fundamental; society is structured around individuals and organisation that compete with each other for jobs markets etc…so that where competition is a fundamental feature of social economic life, what you will get is competitive people.”[15]
Secondly, these liberal values which are based upon individualism are non-cohesive values, it is no wonder the Children’s Society report concluded that our social problems are due to “excessive individualism”[16]

But it not just about values. Political liberalism has created this problem due to its principle of neutrality. This principle means that liberal nations do not, or in theory, should not promote any conception of the ‘good life’. In other words liberal nations must allow a ‘market place’ of conflicting and competing conceptions of the ‘good life’. According to this principle, the best conception of the ‘good life’ will emerge due to the assumption that individuals will make the best choices on how to live their lives. The main issue with this is that it does not take into account the effect of influential structures in society and ignores the influence of those who have the power and resources to propagate their version of the ‘good life’. The implications of this are that a negative conception of how to life our lives can become the norm due to these influential structures. For example the materialistic, “bling bling” and “what’s in it for me” culture dominates the market place of competing values that our youth immerse themselves. So in absence of the government advocating a version of the ‘good life’ that will influence our youth in a positive way, they just reiterate the problem by saying we need more liberal values. The point to take here is that materialism usually ties in with identity, if the youth have been influenced by this materialistic social norm; it would affect their sense of self, because they would define themselves by what they own, and what they wear. Therefore, if they cannot afford these things, it would be tantamount of stripping them from their constructed identity, which it would inevitably lead to looting, because they would be trying to get back their identity, which has been falsely constructed by avid materialism.

What can we do to make sure this never happens again?

The answer is simple. Advocate a conception of the ‘good life’ that creates a cohesive, peaceful and harmonious society and by doing so it will create a social norm where the youth can feed into to nourish their need to conform. Youth, just like the rest of us, have a need to conform which facilitates the creation of a social norm. But this begs the questions: what conception of the ‘good life’ can create a better society? Well, there are some conditions, the first condition is that it must transcend social and cultural relativism, meaning what is good is really good, objectively good, so that our youth do not suffer from cognitive dissonance every few years due to the radical changes in social norms. The second condition is that the conception of the ‘good life’ must be based on cohesive values that bring people together and give us a sense of responsibility. Finally, there must be a form of moral motivation and accountability.

In my view the only conception of the ‘good life’ that fulfills these conditions is Islam,

1. Islamic values have a metaphysical grounding that makes them objective. The reason for this is that God is the only concept that transcends human subjectivity, therefore breaks the confusion emanating from social and cultural relativism. In the minds of the youth, they will know what is wrong today is wrong tomorrow because God, who transcends our human difference, said so.

2. Islamic values are cohesive and give us a sense of responsibility, for instance,

Compassion: “What will explain to you what the steep path is? It is to free a slave, to feed at a time of hunger, an orphaned relative or a poor person in distress, and to be one of those who believe and urge one another to steadfastness and compassion.”[17]
Tolerance: “O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).”[18]
Justice: “O You who believe! Be upholders of justice, bearing witness for God alone, even against yourselves or your parents and relatives. Whether they are rich or poor, God is well able to look after them. Do not follow your own desires and deviate from the truth. If you twist or turn away, God is aware of what you do.”[19]
Distribution of wealth: “Feed the indigent, without wishing any return from them, not even a word of thanks.”[20]

3. Finally, Islam provides that framework for moral motivation and accountability. In our ever increasing secular and godless society, there is no divine lawgiver, which has taken away our sense of meaning as Richard Taylor, an eminent ethicist, explains, “The modern age, more or less repudiating the idea of a divine lawgiver, has nevertheless tried to retain the ideas of moral right and wrong, not noticing that, in casting God aside, they have also abolished the conditions of meaningfulness for moral right and wrong as well.”[21] Taylor concludes that without any reference to religion talking about moral obligation “amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning.”[22] Therefore, bringing back that divine command would give meaning to our sense of moral obligation, which would lead to a greater sense of moral motivation. Also, in our increasingly irreligious society, there is no moral accountability for one's actions. The attitude these days is that if someone can get away with it then it is ok. But the reality is that morals are meaningless without accountability. If life ends at the grave, it makes no difference whether one lives as a Stalin or as a saint. As the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky rightly said, “If there is no immortality, then all things are permitted.”[23] However, with a belief in the hereafter and divine accountability, these will provide the motivations to do greater good and provide the psychological barriers to prevent immorality.

In light of the above, it is clear that Islam is our only hope. We need to propagate this message in a positively assertive, but humble way, to win hearts and minds, and at the same time mould our communities to be the embodiments of these timeless, transcendent values.

[1] http://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1993977/bcs-warns-politically-disenfranchised-youth

[2] Institute of Alcohol Studies, Alcohol Alert No.1, 2009

[3] http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/drugmisuse09/

[4] http://www.ic.nhs.uk/statistics-and-data-collections/health-and-lifestyles/alcohol/statistics-on-alcohol:-england-2006

[5] http://www.crimestoppers-uk.org/crime-prevention/latest-crime-statistics

[6] TES, 9 June 2006

[7] Centrepoint Youth Homelessness Index, 2004

[8] http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/youth-homelessness-uk

[9] Home Office (2004), Paying the price

[10] Richard Layard and Judy Dunn. A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age. Penguin Books. 2009, page 4

[11] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7331882.stm

[12] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12371994

[13] Iain McLean and Alistair McMillan. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics. Oxford University Press. p. 309.

[14] Marilyn Friedman ‘Feminism and Modern Friendship: Dislocating the Community’ in Shlomo Avineri and Avner deShalit. Communitarianism and Individualism. Oxford University Press. 1992. p 101

[15] Vivien Burr. Social Constructionism. Routledge. 2003. p 33.

[16] A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age. Penguin Books.

2009, page 4

[17] Qur'an Chapter 90 Verses 11-20

[18] Qur'an Chapter 49 Verse 13

[19] Qur'an Chapter 4 Verse 135

[20] Qur'an Chapter 76 Verses 6 - 9

[21] Richard Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1985), pp. 2-3.

[22] Ibid page 7

[23] Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. C. Garnett (New York: Signet Classics, 1957), bk. II, chap. 6; bk. V, chap. 4; bk. XI, chap. 8.

New Video: Hamza Tzortzis Discusses God's Existence & the Qur'an with Richard Dawkins & Professor PZ Myers

2011-06-07T18:42:00.000+01:00

New Leaflet: Do We Have Good Reasons to Believe?

2011-06-03T11:42:00.001+01:00

Below is an extract of a leaflet entitled “Do We Have Good Reasons to Believe?” This leaflet is a useful summary of the intellectual and rational foundations of Islam. The leaflet discusses the existence of God, the Qur'an and the absurdity of life without God. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me via the comments section on this post.

Why is the universe the way it is?

One of the most important questions that almost all thinkers, philosophers and people like you and I have asked is “Why does the universe exist at all? And why is it the way it is?” In response to this question there are those who say that the universe is uncaused, in other words it is eternal, meaning it has no beginning and no end. If this is true, there should be an infinite history of past events. However, the infinite in the real world is not possible as it implies a quantity that is limitless. Let’s take the following examples into consideration: if there were an infinite number of books in a room and two were taken away, how many would be left? The response may be “infinity” or for those who are logically inclined “infinity minus two”. In any case, the responses don’t make sense because although two have been taken away from infinity there still remains infinity! Consequently, we’re not able to count the remaining books left in the room. Therefore the infinite leads to contradictions and simply doesn’t exist in the real world (although it exists in mathematical discourse; however it is based upon certain axioms and conventions). Therefore, it logically follows that the universe must have a finite history of past events, which indicates that it must have begun to exist at some point in time.

The above may sound too philosophical, but it is also supported by scientific evidence, for instance, Stephen Hawking, in his lecture The Beginning of Time states, “The conclusion of this lecture is that the universe has not existed forever. Rather, the universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang, about 15 billion years ago.” According to contemporary cosmologists, the universe began at time zero with the event commonly called the “Big Bang”. The theory postulates that the universe began as a “singularity”, an extremely hot and dense entity that expanded and subsequently cooled, going from something incredibly small and hot to the current size and temperature of our universe. In light of these facts, it is interesting to note that there is no scientific explanation as to what happened before time zero. In addition to this, the Big Bang theory can only postulate what happened 1 x 10-34 seconds after the Big Bang but not anytime before it. What happened before this particular point in time is unknown.

In the context of the above discussion, it can be concluded that generally physicists agree that as a result of the Big Bang, physical time and space were created as were energy and matter. So two premises can be drawn from all the above: 1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause 2. The universe began to exist - Therefore the universe has a cause. How do we get to this conclusion? Well, if everything we know and see that begins to exist has a cause, for example a noise in the room or the pyramids at Giza, then the universe - which also began to exist - must also have a cause.

The Cause for the Universe = God?

Our discussion so far has provided good reasons to believe that there must have been a cause for the universe. However, this doesn't tell us much about what the cause is, but if we think deeply about the nature of the cause - also known as conceptual analysis - we can conclude that it must be very powerful as it brought into existence the entire universe, and it must be...

To read/download the entire leaflet please click here.

Causality: Time & the Quantum Vacuum

2011-05-20T13:10:00.002+01:00

From my experience atheists and agnostics are starting to use the two contentions below at a higher frequency and are popularising them. Hence, I felt the need to provide structured written responses. If you can think of anything else to add please let me know.

1. "You cannot apply causality to the universe. Because causality presupposes time, and since the universe is all of time, the universe cannot have a cause. In other words, causality doesn't make sense outside of time; therefore you cannot ask what caused the universe. The question becomes meaningless."

The problem with this contention is that it assumes that causality presupposes time. There is no philosophical justification that causality only makes sense within time. In actual fact, there is no consensus amongst philosophers on what causality is, so in absence of a consensus the basic definition will suffice, and the basic definition is “something which produces an effect”. If you notice with this definition, time is not pre-requisite in understanding causality.

Additionally, there is a concept called “simultaneous, asymmetric causation” which means that something can be causally prior but not temporally prior (before in time) to the effect. A useful example to illustrate this is by way of a thought experiment. The philosopher Emmanuel Kant gave the example of a heavy ball resting on a pillow causing a depression in the pillow, now the ball and the pillow could have existed from eternity past so that the ball was always resting on the pillow. However, the depression in the pillow is obviously caused by the ball resting on it, it is not the other way round, meaning that the roundness of the ball is not caused by the depression in the pillow. In this example the ball is not temporally prior to the depression in the pillow but causally prior, in other words they are simultaneous with each other, which highlights how a cause doesn't have to exist temporally prior to its effect. Therefore, it is not impossible or incoherent to argue that you can have something that is timeless and related to its effect timelessly. There is no reason why the cause and effect cannot exist at the same time in an asymmetric dependency relation, like a boxing bag hanging on a chain from the ceiling, the ceiling and chain hold up the boxing bag and it is not the boxing bag and chain that support the ceiling.

Even if this contention carries some weight the following questions still remain: how could the universe come into existence with no causal conditions whatsoever? Why did the universe begin to exist at all? To claim the universe began to exist without a cause would be truly absurd. The questioner may respond by saying "Well, what caused the cause of the universe?" and if they do they will be admitting what they first denied, that causality makes sense outside of time!

Putting rhetoric aside a simple response to the question "what caused the cause of the universe?" would be to respond by saying "nothing, it is necessarily uncaused". The main reason for this is that if we say there is a cause for the cause of the universe, then what stops us from continuing this ad infinitum? If the causes went back forever there wouldn't be a universe to talk about in the first place! For example, if I was a soldier with a gun and I wanted to shoot an enemy would I ever shoot if I had to ask the soldier behind me for his permission, and they then had to ask permission from someone behind them to, and this went on forever? No. I would never shoot. This is the same for the cause of the universe, therefore it has to be uncaused.

To simplify a response to this contention, you can argue that time only allows us to recognise that effects are a result of prior causes and not necessarily a result of time itself.

2. "There are many sub-atomic events in the quantum vacuum that do not correspond with causality, therefore it is possible that nothing caused the universe. It could have been spontaneous creation, an idea Stephen Hawking has propagated. Therefore, it is unlikely that God exists."

Some physicists claim that there are many sub-atomic events that do not correspond with causality. They claim that sub-atomic particles behave unpredictably and spontaneously in the quantum vacuum. So they conclude that things that begin to exist do not have to have a cause, or that things can come from nothing.

Firstly this contention is misleading as the quantum vacuum is not nothing, rather it is a sea of fluctuating energy, it has a rich structure and it obeys the laws of the universe. So it is something. Also, the view that sub-atomic events do not correspond with causality is not entirely true. There are many physicists that are adopting a deterministic view - meaning that these events have prior causes in the quantum vacuum - for instance the David Bohm interpretation being one of them.

Secondly, spontaneous sub-atomic events either mean that the causes are hidden to us, or there is a complete absence of causes. The position that some events “just happen” for no reason at all is impossible to prove, for our inability to identify a cause does not necessarily mean that there is no cause.

Finally, from a philosophical perspective it is extremely difficult for these physicists to justify their conclusions. This is because without the concept of causality we will not have the mental framework to understand our observations and experiences. In philosophical terms causality is a priori, which means knowledge we have independent of any experience. We know causality is true because we bring it to all our experience, rather than our experience bringing it to us. It is like wearing yellow-tinted glasses, everything looks yellow not because of anything out there in the world, but because of the glasses through which we are looking at everything. Take the following example into consideration; imagine you are looking at the White House in Washington DC. Your eyes may wonder to the door, across the pillars, then to the roof and finally over to the front lawn. Now contrast this to another experience, you are on the river Thames in London and you see a boat floating past. What dictates the order in which you had these experiences? When you looked at the White House you had a choice to see the door first and then the pillars and so on. However, with the boat you had no choice as the front of the boat was the first to appear.

Lecture Video: Faith & Reason - Friends or Foes?

2011-04-11T13:10:00.000+01:00

A Radical Experiment in Empathy

2011-04-04T11:48:00.000+01:00

Debate Video: Islam or Secular Humanism - Which Makes More Sense? Hamza Andreas Tzortzis & Dr. Khalid Sohail

2011-03-14T10:09:00.001Z

Debate Video: Islam or Atheism - Which is More Rational? Hamza Andreas Tzortzis and Dr. Brendan Larvor

2011-01-30T21:52:00.000Z

Hamza Tzortzis on BBC's Newsnight - 16 December 2010

2010-12-20T18:49:00.000Z

Lecture Video: Islam or Atheism - Which One Makes More Sense?

2010-12-04T12:54:00.000Z

Leaflet: Was Panorama Right About Islam?

2010-11-30T11:15:00.000Z

Please access the link below to read/download a leaflet briefly responding to the Panorama programme regarding the Islamic penal code and anti-Semitism. The leaflet also includes a summary of the rational foundations of the Islamic world view. If anyone requires further information and is interested to know more please contact the email provided on the leaflet. Click here to read/download.

Press Release: iERA Responds to the “British Schools, Islamic Rules” Panorama Programme

2010-11-23T20:05:00.002Z

On the 22nd November 2010 the BBC aired a Panorama programme entitled “British Schools, Islamic Rules”. This programme aimed to investigate the “disturbing evidence” that some Muslim schools were providing a platform to “extremist preachers” and “fundamentalist Islamic groups”. The programme also attempted to “expose” the extreme, anti-Semitic and homophobic material found within the curriculum of some Islamic schools.

In short, the programme misrepresented established Islamic teachings on a range of issues in a manner that portrayed them as crude and insensitive whilst linking them to social unrest and violence.

In a statement by Saqib Sattar, Vice-Chairman of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (iERA), he said “The attack on Muslim schools as an institution is both ill-informed and misguided. Muslim schools constantly achieve high academic standards with students continuously becoming highly responsible members of society, contributing positively to the public good. No ‘hard’ evidence has ever been presented otherwise. Muslim Schools have excelled in this regard, due in no small part to their ethos which is rooted in the Islamic scholarly tradition which provides an objective and cohesive basis for social values and norms, something which we find lacking in our increasingly secular society. The irony is that most of our social ills stem from the failure of state schools and society at large to provide such grounding, leading ever more conscientious parents to choose private or faith schools for their children’s secondary education. Faith schools and communities are providing that important moral voice for our society, making their presence felt through social welfare projects across the country. The contribution of faith communities should actually be championed and not maligned.”

The BBC has shown that it does not have the ability to convey the reality of the Islamic tradition. iERA condemns such irresponsible and sensationalist programmes. It is obvious that this Panorama programme has been designed to attract viewers without engaging their minds.

Hamza Andreas Tzortzis, iERA’s media representative said, “The attack on mainstream Islamic speakers because they hold established theological views is making the job of community cohesion difficult, as is the constant misconstruing or lack of context with regards to their statements. The programme-makers would have been better served to look deeply into the Islamic scholarly tradition and its historical impact, and they would have found a beautiful model of community cohesion. For example it is a well known historical fact that Islam and Muslims for centuries have been offering protection to the Jewish community. A contemporary Jewish Historian Zion Zohar for instance has written that Jews used to see Muslims as liberators from Christian persecution. There is a whole corpus of historical and theological material that strongly indicates conclusions that contrast with the content of the Panorama programme. Another example includes the Jewish Historian Amnon Cohen who writes that Jewish people, particularly women, used to go to Islamic authorities for adjudication of disputes even though they were always given the option to go to Rabbinical courts.

The reality that Islam has ensured security and peace for the Jewish people is not a historical accident, it is engrained in the Islamic traditional sources. For instance the Prophet Muhammad (peace & blessing be upon Him) said that ‘whoever harms a non-Muslim [under Muslim protection] harms me’. Additionally the Qur’an, the holy book of the Muslims, states in its 60th chapter ‘And He does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with anyone who has not fought you for your faith or driven you out of your homes: God loves the just”. The difference between political confrontation and communal engagement has always been clear in the Islamic tradition. It is very surprising that the BBC ignored this fact, and shows once again that it has prioritised sensationalism over substance.

For many Muslims, Islamic law is an important part of their lives. Islamic law covers politics, economics, criminal law, business, contracts, family life, hygiene, social issues and many more. There are similarities with Western secular law in terms of the rights it gives and the principles and values that it upholds. To reduce Islamic law to criminal punishments is a caricature of a comprehensive legal and social framework.”

Sattar further adds “The decontextualised references to cutting the hand of the thief and other criminal punishments in the programme are the equivalent of claiming that British law is unjust because it has short sentences for rapists without even taking into consideration the social and jurisprudential context of the British legal system. For example, Professor of Law at Harvard University Noah Feldman has tried to educate the west on Islamic punishments. He states “Today, when we invoke the harsh punishments prescribed by Shariah [Islamic law] for a handful of offences, we rarely acknowledge the high standards of proof necessary for their implementation.”

To warmly articulate the Islamic worldview and demystify the negative image this programme attempted to paint of Islam and Muslims, iERA will be distributing their new CD “Another View” and a leaflet clarifying the BBC’s misconceptions across the UK, and also on the morning of Monday 29th November 2010 outside the BBC Headquarters with specific educational packs for the programme makers.

END

Notes to the Editors:

1. iERA stands for the Islamic Education and Research Academy

2. iERA is committed to presenting Islam to the wider society, http://www.iera.org.uk/.

3. iERA will distribute the CD’s and the leaflets at stalls and various outlets in the UK.

4. The distribution at the BBC will happen on Monday 29th November from 7:30am until 10:00am.

5. To contact our media team please email media@iera.org.uk.

6. iERA is a registered UK charity in the United Kingdom, number 1134566.

The Burning Question: What will Bring Peace to the Middle East?

2010-11-10T20:28:00.000Z

Professor Norman Finkelstein & Hamza Andreas Tzortzis discuss "What will Bring Peace to the Middle East?"

The Middle East conflict between Israel and Palestine has been one of the most disputed conflicts of recent times. Thousands of civilians have died in the conflict with politicians, academics and other notable personalities weighing in with what they think should be done - yet, a long standing peace treaty has still not come to fruition.

Speakers: Professor Norman Finkelstein and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis

Date/Time: Wednesday, November 24, 2010 / 6:30pm - 10:00pm

Venue: University of Birmingham, Room G31, Mechanical Engineering

likeMEDIA.tv bring forward two of the most popular speakers on the circuit in Professor Norman Finkelstein and Hamza Andreas Tzortzis to address the question - "What Will Bring Peace to the Middle East?". This is also the first edition of 'The Burning Question' - a discussion event where pannelists present their views on a particular subject and answer questions posed to them by the audience.

Tickets for the event are £5 and it starts at 6.30pm (details on how to purchase them will be available here www.likemedia.tv).

Philosophical Reflections: Truth, Success, Purpose, Death, Thinking & World-view

2010-10-24T19:57:00.000+01:00

These philosophical reflections are my thoughts on; truth, success, purpose, death, thinking, and worldview. They were written with the intention to express my initial thinking that led to my current conclusions on life. I have deliberately ended on questions rather than answers, as I wanted to provide a conceptual framework for readers who may not share my worldview, and to seek the answers for themselves. Relevant Qur’anic verses have been included as introductory literary devices to evoke thought and set the mental scene. This approach is a major theme in the Qur’an, as it frequently mentions, “Do you not reflect?”

There is an African proverb that states “He who asks questions, cannot avoid the answers”, so I hope these reflections will evoke thought and facilitate guidance for all those who seek it.

Truth

“The truth is from your Lord, so on no account be among the doubters.” Qur’an 2: 147

“Do not mix the truth with falsehood, or hide the truth when you know it.” Qur’an 2: 42

The question of truth has perplexed the mind of nearly every human being that has lived on this planet. What is truth? How do we get to know truth? Is there such a thing as truth? This type of thinking dates back to the ancient Greek Philosopher Socrates, as a young man he endlessly questioned and sought after the truth. However, in our day and age we do not really think about concepts such as truth. We may have argued, “tell me the truth!” if we suspect our friends of betrayal, or we “swear to tell the truth” in a court of law, but when it comes to our existence, and questioning what it means to be a human being, we forget about truth and adopt skepticism as a philosophy. Skepticism answers in the negative the following question: can we know anything? It essentially implies the belief that the truth about life and the universe will never be known.

Founded by Pyrrho of Elis, Skepticism was advocated and put into writing by the Greek Philosopher Sextus Empiricus who was the first to detail and codify the doctrine. This school of philosophy is common in today’s society, however, its approach regarding truth is unwarranted because we can discover it, and the only way to do that is by endless, insistent questioning. Socrates was great at questioning and by doing so he would bring his opponents to realise the truth, and this is because he believed the truth was already within us. For example, there are many universal principles that we can never deny, and to deny them would deny knowledge itself. For instance, take two planks of wood that are equal in length: do we know they are equal because they are the same length or do we know what the concept of equality is prior to our experience? It is because we have the innate, inbuilt concept of equality that enables us to see that the planks of wood are the same length. Also, we know that half of something is less than its whole, and we know the truth of the fact that all fathers are men. These innate ideas and concepts are known in epistemology as a priori, which means knowledge independent from experience.

From a practical perspective the skeptic’s position is untenable, because we know the truth of the laws of physics that enable bridges to withstand heavy loads, including the laws that keep boats afloat. If a skeptical position was assumed when building our houses, would we agree to implement the architect’s design? The Polish Philosopher Leszek Kolakowski writes “We might say: well, since we know nothing, what is the point of constructing theories that have no foundation? But if philosophers and scholars had seriously attempted to achieve such self-satisfied serenity, would they have been able to build our civilization? Would modern physics have been invented…?” So there are some universal truths that we can feel secure in accepting, and the way to find out further truths is to use these universal truths as a starting point, which is called epistemic foundationalism in the language of philosophy.

The importance of truth has been emphasized by many thinkers past and present. Plato the ancient Philosopher said “And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is? For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are.” So why is the search for truth important? The significance of truth is not only intuitive; it is something that gives us a sense of reality, that things are real. In absence of truth life on occasions can seem unreal and illusory in a certain sense. Additionally, many psychologists have acknowledged that human beings want to be right and seek to learn from social norms when they are unsure about things, this psychological process is known as ‘Normative and Informational Social Influence’, in this view the search for truth is very important as it has the possibility of shaping who we are or the person we want to be.

Another way of looking at this is that not searching for truth is tantamount to lying to ourselves, or even accepting a lie, because anything other than truth will be accepting it’s opposite. So the search for truth would be a means of trying to be more sincere with our own existence, as we would be seeking to establish the truth of who we are and the life we are living. Finally, holding on to the skeptical view that there is no truth is self-defeating, because the claim that there is no truth is actually a truth claim, so how can anyone claim that skepticism is true but everything else is not? This is the inconsistency of the skeptical view; a skeptic would claim the truth of skepticism but would deny all other truths! Consequently no matter what position we hold we still have to accept a truth, and in this light, let the search for truth begin!

Success

“…they are the ones who are successful.” Qur’an 7:157

“Truly, this is the supreme success!” Qur’an 37: 60

One of the best definitions I have found of success is “the completion of what is intended”. For example, if I were to intend to learn how to drive, and I passed my driving test, that would be a success. As human beings we intend to achieve things all the time; to get a promotion; to be our own boss; to be a good father and husband; to travel the world or to write a book. If we achieve or complete our aims and objectives then it can be argued we have been successful. However is this view of success meaningful? I would argue it is not.

If we live our lives to complete the things that we intend to achieve, without even questioning the intention of our own existence, we will have not found any ultimate meaning to our own lives. Therefore our view of success is almost baseless and devoid of real value. If each person completes his life by intending to achieve all of the things we mentioned, and he or she didn’t even complete the intended meaning for his or her life, then can we call their lives successful? We can even ask: does it really matter whether they ever existed at all? His or her life may be of some importance relative to the things they want to complete, but what is the ultimate significance of completing their own lives?

Let’s look at it from a scientific perspective, our children, our actions, our loved ones and everything we do are just arrangements of molecules. Carbon and other atoms in various combinations make up our lives and even the things we intend to complete. From this perspective mankind is thus no more significant than a swarm of flies, or a herd of sheep, for their makeup is all the same. Also, if we follow the scientific line of thought our end is also meaningless, we just die and that’s it. This is true for each individual person. The amazing achievements of the scientist to the advancement of human thinking, the on-going research of bio-medicine to find the cure for cancer, the efforts of the politician to establish justice and peace in the world, all these come to nothing. Even if human beings were to exist forever, the mere infinite duration of our lives would not make them any more meaningful, there would still be no ultimate significance.

Existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus understood the meaningless reality of life in absence of acknowledging the intention of our existence. This is why Sartre wrote of the “nausea” of existence and Camus saw life as absurd indicating that the universe has no meaning at all. The German Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argued in clear concise pronouncements that the world and human history does not have any meaning, any rational order or aim. Nietzsche argued that there is only a mindless chaos, a directionless world tending towards no end.

If we found the intention of our existence, thereby giving our lives ultimate meaning, and we were to achieve and complete what was intended - that would indeed be true success. In contrast to this type of thinking someone may contend by stating that this whole discussion assumes that some metaphysical entity created the whole universe with some sort of purpose. This is true, but by removing this assumption we will only be presuming atheism to be true. Additionally, the logical conclusion of atheism is that our very existence is pointless, which is a conclusion not many atheists would like to follow through due to it being at odds with our innate nature and psychological disposition. So the following questions naturally follow, what is the intention of our existence, and what outlook would make sense of our continuous search for ultimate meaning and success?

Purpose

“So where are you going?” Qur’an 81: 26

“Our Lord! You have not created all this without purpose” Qur’an 3: 190

“God did not create all these without a true purpose; He explains His signs to those who understand.” Qur’an 10: 5

The Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who inspired two of the 20th century's principal philosophical movements, once said, “I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.” Wittgenstein did not have the answer to the perennial question of what is humanity’s purpose, but he did indicate that there must be one, even if the answer could not be discovered intuitively. However, it can be argued that the assumption that there is a purpose may be false, and if it is false, then there is nothing to be bothered about, and we should all just carry on living. As Albert Camus, the French Algerian philosopher and journalist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, explained “You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life”. Camus’ point is not ontological, it doesn’t probe into the nature of reality, and his concern seems to be an existential one, meaning that the important thing is how life works for you, the life of individual; regardless of any truth behind existence. So in light of this we must ask: is it reasonable to believe we have a purpose?

To answer this, take the following points into consideration:

You are probably reading this in your bedroom sitting on your chair, and you are definitely wearing some clothes. So I ask you a question: for what purpose? Why are you wearing the clothes and what purpose does the chair fulfill? Since these are rhetorical questions you don’t have to answer, because we all know the answer. The chair’s purpose is to allow us to sit down by supporting our weight, and our clothes fulfill the purpose of keeping us warm, hiding our nakedness and making us look good! Now from your bedroom let me transport you to a forest somewhere in the world, now this forest obviously has trees and on a particular tree there is a moth. This moth is on this tree drinking its sap, underneath that moth there is another moth and its role is somewhat bizarre, it drinks the excrement of the first moth. This is because the first moth almost instantaneously removes its waste while drinking the sap. You are probably thinking where I am going with this, well; firstly let us discuss what the purpose of the second moth is. Its purpose is to clean up the excrement of the first moth in order to prevent it trickling down the tree so that ants, and other insects, would not be encouraged to travel up the trail and in consequence eat the first moth. So in simple terms the second moth is the first moth’s insurance policy!

Now take this into consideration, you probably didn’t know anything about this moth three minutes ago, in fact if moth genocide were to occur, you wouldn’t really care – well most of you anyway. However, we attribute purpose to such an insignificant creature, and coming back to our clothes and the chair, which are inanimate objects with no emotional and mental faculties, we attribute purpose to these too! Still, we do not attribute purpose to our own existence? Is this not absurd?

Believing that we have no purpose is not only irrational, it is practically problematic because it presents an indication that a lot of the things we have achieved as humans beings most probably would not have happened as many of the people who have accomplished amazing achievements, including the discovery of penicillin, would not have had the drive to attain what they did. This is because these very people had a purpose driven approach to life, without which we would be just like animals obeying our instincts, in other words chemical robots wondering around waiting for the battery acid to dry up! The realities of a purposeless existence was also highlighted by the Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who claimed that the world is bankrupt and there is no reason to rejoice in its existence, he even argued that it would be better if it did not exist and questioned whether suicide was a plausible solution.

So why is it irrational? Well, it is irrational because if everything complex and designed that we discover seems to have a purpose, including the insignificant moth, as well as the things we develop and create, then it logically follows that we have a purpose too. To deny this would be tantamount of believing in things without any evidence, as there is no evidence to say we have no purpose, on the contrary we have evidence to say that things have a purpose and we can infer that about ourselves too. Even scientists indicate that it is irrational to assert that our universe is impersonal and the product of blind chance. Interestingly they have explained that the physical processes in the universe have some sort of purpose, for instance the Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle described the universe with the attributes of God, and the physicists Zeldovich and Novikov asked why did nature choose to create this universe instead of another?

Finally, we can argue that without a purpose we do not really have a deeper profound meaning to our life. For instance if we take the logical conclusion of an apathetic scientific view on our existence, we are on a sinking ship. This ship is called the universe, because according to scientists the universe is going to suffer a heat death, and one day the Sun will destroy the earth. Therefore this ship is going to sink, so I ask you, what is the point of reshuffling the deck chairs or giving a glass of milk to the old lady? As Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the Russian writer and essayist said, “Without some goal and some effort to reach it, no one can live.”

Various contentions can follow from this discussion; firstly a purposeless worldview gives us more freedom to create purpose for ourselves. To further explain, some existentialists have argued that our life is actually based on nothing, and from this nothingness we can create a new realm of possibility for our lives, and therefore create purpose for ourselves. This philosophy rests on the idea that everything is meaningless and that we should create a new language for ourselves in order to live fulfilling lives. The flaw with this approach is that it uses meaning to claim meaninglessness; it also represents a self-delusion as they deny purpose but create one for themselves. Additionally it implies that there are no objective moral values and truths because an ontological foundation is absent. This is counter-intuitive and opposes our cross-cultural consensus of our moral thinking. The philosophy of war is a good example to show this type of moral consensus, for 2,500 years there was a cross-cultural agreement that poisons should not be used in war, even if you were being defeated. Although in practice people did not always conform, but they did however agree to this rule.

Another contention includes the evolutionist’s stance that our purpose is to propagate our DNA, as Richard Dawkins in his publication ‘The Selfish Gene’ states that our bodies have been developed to do just that. The problem with this analysis is that it relegates our existence to a random accident via a lengthy biological process, in essence the value of our life loses its meaning and morality is relegated to individual taste, as Michael Ruse a Philosopher of Science states “Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth… Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory.” The evolutionary perspective creates more problems than it solves as it cannot provide an adequate explanation for consciousness and the presence of our rational faculties. Taking consciousness as an example, how can a subjective immaterial reality come from a material substance? Consciousness is not a physical thing; it is not contained in any cell or biological structure. The most unchallenged and intuitive reality is that we are all aware, but we cannot describe or explain what this awareness is. One thing that we can be sure of is that consciousness cannot be explained biologically or chemically, the main reason for this is that evolution doesn’t discover consciousness; it’s actually the other way round. For evolution to try and explain the truth of consciousness would be tantamount to arguing in a circle! Even scientists recognise this, the physicist Gerald Schroeder points out that there is no real difference between a heap of sand and the brain of an Einstein. If those advocating a physical explanation for consciousness, bigger questions would need answering such as ‘how can certain bits of matter suddenly create a new reality that has no resemblance to matter?’

So if consciousness cannot be explained physically then the next question must be asked, ‘how did it come to be?’ The history of the universe indicates that consciousness just spontaneously arose and language emerged without any evolutionary forerunner. Even the neo-atheists have failed to come to terms with the nature of consciousness or its source, because no physical explanation is coherent enough to convince. Even the neo-atheist Richard Dawkins admits defeat concerning consciousness, he states “We don’t know. We don’t understand it.”

In conclusion there are more reasons to believe that we have a deeper purpose rather than the other options of purposelessness and the cold valueless propagation of our DNA. Realising that we have a purpose is the best explanation via the inferences we make concerning the universe and the things around us. Even the Scottish Philosopher David Hume was attributed of saying “A wise man proportions his belief to the evidence”, so in this case, it would be wiser to conclude that human beings must have a purpose, and let us not forget that it nourishes us with a more significant explanation for our existence. However, the following question naturally arises: what is our purpose?

Death

“Every soul is certain to taste death.” Qur’an 21: 35

“Death will overtake you no matter where you may be…” Qur’an 4: 78

Death is something we as living beings do not enjoy thinking about. It creates the realisation within us that all of the attachments we have built in this world are no longer going to be. Significantly, it awakens us to the brutal fact that we will no longer exist on the planet. There have been many philosophies on death, for example thinkers discussed that death is an interruption to life, like sleep or a disease, only permanent. Others explained that death is to be considered as part of life, something which every person has to come to terms with in order to live well; part of what is involved in accepting our finitude. Some thinkers claimed death is to be considered as a transition from this life to an afterlife, the eternal life of bliss or pain.

Whatever our views on death are, one thing we can all agree on is that it is something that we do not think about enough. This may sound morbid but there is a profound value of reflecting on death, it brings about the actualisation that we are all human beings with a short life. Our egos will no longer seem that important, our attachments and desires to the material world are put into perspective, and our lives are questioned; all of which is a source of great benefit, as the 11h century Theologian and Philosopher al-Ghazali said, “...in the recollection of death there is reward and merit.” Contemplating about death provokes thought and give us that window in our lives to really reflect on the ephemeral nature of our existence.

In light of death, how should we view life? What does it tell us about the importance we attach to things, and how does it deliver meaning to our existence? If we view life through the lenses of death we seem to be in an emotional and intellectual space where we can really assess our situation on this planet. How did I come to be? What should I be doing here? Where am I going? Death is the driving force behind these critical questions, because the moment we recognise that this life is short and that we will breathe our last one day, puts everything into perspective.

So let us reflect on death; imagine you are here one minute and the next you are no more. You have probably experienced loved ones that have passed away; how did you feel? Was there not a sense of loneliness, emptiness and lack of attachment to the things we used to take so seriously? Now if you were to taste death right now, as every human being will, what would that mean to you? What would you want to have done differently if you were given the chance to go back? What thoughts and ideas would you take more seriously? And what would your outlook be if you could re-live your life once experiencing the tragic reality of death?

The sad thing about death is that we can’t go back to change our perspectives, or to think about life, or to challenge our outlook and detach ourselves from the empty nature of worldly life. The good thing though, something that we can begin to do is to take the brave step to deeply reflect on death, and best of all we could make all of these changes now, right this minute.

Thinking

“…for those who reflect.” Qur’an 10: 24

“…and he taught Adam the names of everything…” Qur’an 2: 31

“Do they not use their minds?” Qur’an 6: 32

“Do they not reflect within themselves?” Qur’an 30: 8

How should we think? How can we understand the world around us? What methods should we use to gain a true understanding of the world? These questions have puzzled the minds of many great thinkers throughout history. Our human tradition is full of debates and discussions trying to find answers. The likes of al-Ghazali, Ibn Taymiyya, Locke, Hume and Kant, and many others have tried to provide answers to shed light on the perennial debate concerning our understanding of the world. Some of these thinkers, such as Locke, claimed that our knowledge of the world is limited to our perceptions only, in other words knowledge is dependent on our sense experience, also known as a posteriori in epistemology, which forms the empiricist tradition in philosophy. Locke argued that our minds were a blank sheet, a tabula rasa, waiting to be written on by experience. Other thinkers like Leibniz argued, in his 'Nouveax Essais sur l’entendement humain', that as human beings we have innate concepts and ideas that are necessary to understand the world around us, known as a priori in epistemology, which means that knowledge can be gained independent of sense experience, and forms the rationalist tradition in philosophy. Leibniz’s view seems to be a stronger position as it is makes more sense, however some philosophers and scientists deny this and claim that you can't think of examples of things we can know independent of our sense experience. This is not true; take the following examples into consideration:

• Circles have no corners.

• 4+4 = 8.

• Time is irreversible.

• Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

• The whole is greater than its half (just eat half an apple!)

• Causality

Let’s take causality as an example to illustrate that we can’t just rely on sense experience. Causality can be known without experience because we bring it to all our experience, rather than our experience bringing it to us. It is like wearing yellow-tinted glasses, everything looks yellow not because of anything out there in the world, but because of the glasses through which we are looking at everything. The contention that this is just an assumption is not true because without causality we would not be able to have the concept of the real world, and we would not understand our sense experience. Take the following example into consideration; imagine you are looking at the White House in Washington DC. Your eyes may wonder to the door, across the pillars, then to the roof and finally over to the front lawn. Now contrast this to another experience, you are on the river Thames in London and you see a boat floating past. What dictates the order in which you had these experiences? When you looked at the White House you had a choice to see the door first and then the pillars and so on. However with the boat you had no choice as the front of the boat was the first to appear.

The point to take here is that you would not have been able to make the distinction that some experiences are ordered by yourself and others are ordered independently, unless we had the innate idea of causality. In absence of causality our experience would be very different from the way it is. It would be a single sequence of experiences only: one thing after another.

So it seems that the correct way of forming conclusions is by using our innate ideas and the experiences of the world around us, in other words using rational thought or what some people call reason. Just relying on our experience of the material world would not be sufficient as a method of thinking as it would not be able to confirm political truths, moral truths, mathematical truths, logical truths, and let’s not forget to mention a fundamental truth like causality.

Though we can understand the world around us using rational thought, how can we formulate an argument or verify our conclusions? Well, this lies in the study of logic which essentially means the principles of reasoning, with particular emphasis on the structure of our arguments. Let’s illustrate the use of logic in the following example: if our friend Mary says “John is coming to dinner tonight”, and David says “Mary is not coming to dinner tonight”. Is what they say consistent? Well, logic would tell us that if they are referring to the same person and the same day then no, their statements would not be consistent. However if they are referring to a different person or a different day then yes their statements would be consistent.

So let’s combine the two processes. John says “Whatever begins to exist has a cause and the universe began to exist, therefore the universe has a cause”. Now from a logical perspective it is a valid argument as the last statement “therefore the universe has a cause” logically follows from the first two statements. But this doesn’t mean it is rational or reasonable. In order to find out that it is reasonable we would have to investigate using our innate ideas and our sense experience to see if the first two statements are true. If they are, then the conclusion will not only be a valid argument but it would also be a sound argument. Just relying on empiricism would not give us an answer as it would lead us to suspend judgment on whether the universe has a cause or not because it cannot be sensed. However this would be equivalent of denying the existence of your great great great great great great great Grandmother, because there is no empirical evidence for her existence. You may argue “but I wouldn’t be here today!”, that is true, but that would using rational thought to form that conclusion, as you would have deduced that you must have had a great great great great great great great grandmother as all human beings must have had a grandmother in order to exist.

This is how all of us should start to think about life and the universe, so we could form the right conclusions using valid arguments.

World-view

“…But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And God Knows, while you know not.” Qur’an 2:216

Live and let live, don’t harm others and you’ll be fine. This makes sense, right? Even to the point that it shouldn’t be questioned. But why is this? Why do we automatically accept some ideas and reject others? Why do certain viewpoints seem agreeable to us yet we disagree with others, all without really thinking about them?

The answer lies in the concept of a world-view. A world-view is a philosophy of living that enables us to make sense of life and our daily experiences. The world-view we adopt affects the way we process ideas, and allows us to understand society and our place in it. A world-view is important in particular association with our society today - this is because the contemporary world has had a huge effect on human psychology. We seem unable to deal with the unpredictable changes and increased complexity of life - subsequently stress, uncertainty and frustration become common and our minds are overloaded with information. A world-view is the framework that ties all of this together, and allows us to understand life’s complexity and unpredictability, it helps us make the critical decisions that will shape our future and our own selves, and it aids us in providing a picture of the whole.

World-views vary and can range from being shallow to comprehensive. A shallow world-view is one that just gives us the framework to react to day-to-day experiences, such as work and friendships. This type of world-view is usually formed via our previous experiences in life and it develops by creating templates of understanding the world by contemplating on our history with it. This type of world-view is problematic as it obstructs us from progression by maintaining an inflexible fixation on the past, with no possibility of viewing the world in a positive or different way that will enable our transformation. It is limited in its scope as it becomes only as comprehensive as your experiences, and individually our experiences are very limited.

A comprehensive world-view, as discussed by the philosopher Leo Apostel, encompasses everything in life and it includes various components, for instance it provides a model for the world by answering the basic question “who are we?” In addition it provides an explanation usually answering “why is the world the way it is?” and “where did we come from?” Another important part of a comprehensive world-view includes extrapolating from the past into the future to answer the question “where are we going?” It should endeavour to answer “what is good and what is evil?”, in other words to include morality and ethics, while giving us a sense of purpose, direction and goals for our actions. Additionally, the answer to the question “what for?” may help us to understand the real meaning of life and a comprehensive world-view must answer “how should we act?” thereby helping us to solve practical problems. Lastly a comprehensive world-view should answer the question “what is true and what is false?”, this is equivalent to what in philosophy is called “epistemology” or “the theory of knowledge”, therefore it would allow us to distinguish between what is correct and what is incorrect.

To give you a practical example of how world-views affect our outlook on life, take the following scenario into consideration: there is a boat in the middle of an ocean full of passengers. The captain is faced with a dilemma, 30 people out of the total 300 passengers have to be thrown off the boat to drown for the majority to survive. Now, imagine you are the captain, what would you do? Well, if you considered yourself a humanist for example, adopting the humanist world-view, you would throw, and therefore kill, 30 passengers in order for the majority to live. This sounds reasonable, right? For a humanist this may be a plausible solution, as a key humanist value is the preservation of life, as our life is all there is to experience and we have no purpose other than the one we create for ourselves.

Now say you were someone who adopted the Islamic world-view, you would not throw anyone off the boat and would leave the consequences to follow naturally. This may result in everyone dying, however it would not be due to your own actions. This solution to the dilemma is due to the fact that the Islamic world-view perceives the fulfillment of our purpose as a key value - which is to worship God and therefore to be moral. This is justified as the person adopting the Islamic world-view would argue that if our existence is to worship God and in order to preserve our existence we have to break our purpose for existing, then what is the point of our existence in the first place?

From the above scenario we see that for one situation there are various possible outcomes all of which are dictated by the world-view that someone adopts. Therefore it can be concluded that the only way to know if any approach is right, the underlying world-view must be scrutinised to find out if it is correct or not. In other words, and in the case of the scenario, the following question must be asked “are the foundations for humanism truer that the foundations for Islam?” Instead of discussing the actions, or fruits, of a world-view the basis for the actions should be challenged and validated. So the world-view that is more correct or has stronger intellectual foundations should be the one to adopt.

This is why when looking into Islam the primary focus should not be an assessment of women’s rights, clothing and on instances sensationalized by the media, because the assessment of these will be biased and skewed in line with your existing world-view. But rather, the intellectual foundations of any world-view should be assessed for its truth, and the one with greater reasons to believe in its truth should be the world-view to adopt, because it will be in line with the principle of: whatever comes from truth is true.

So let the journey begin.

Next Debate: Is the Belief in Allah Rational?

2010-10-14T18:47:00.000+01:00

The BIG Debates presents the university debate of the year: Is the Belief in Allah Rational?

The renowned physicist Stephen Hawking recently argued that there is no need for God to fill the gap in our scientific knowledge. His statements provoked a lot of responses, and they reasserted the popular idea that the concept of God is just a fairy tale. In this light what good reasons do religious people have for holding on to their beliefs, especially the belief in God?

Is the Islamic conception of God more reasonable? Or are all conceptions of God doomed to fail under intellectual scrutiny?

Don't miss this debate where the Chair of the Humanist's Philosophers Group and Best-selling Author Peter Cave takes his revenge on Hamza Andreas Tzortzis from their last exciting and all-thrills debate "Can We Live Better Lives Without Religion?"

Register: To register your free seat for the debate please email info@thebigdebates.com, http://www.thebigdebates.com

Date & Time: 4th November 2010, 6pm
Venue: University College London, Harrie Massey Lecture Theatre, 25 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AY

Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=167077646637178

Hamza Tzortzis on "The Link" - Press TV

2010-09-27T20:02:00.000+01:00

Watch Hamza Tzortzis on "The Link" discussing 'Burn a Koran Day', freedom of speech, Islamic and Western values.

Here is Hamza's contribution:

You can access the full video here.

An Example of Muslims Positively Responding to Controversies: Burn a Koran Day

2010-09-21T12:25:00.000+01:00

See below the positive response to the “Burn a Koran Day” controversy that was supposed to be held on September 11th in remembrance of the fallen victims of 9/11 and to stand against the “evil of Islam”. This positive response shows that Muslims should not only express a strong message against such controversies but also follow it with action and positive engagement.

Expressing a Strong Message Against the Controversy

Here is are some excerpts of the Press Release that was sent out:

iERA’s media representative Hamza Tzortzis states “This whole campaign reminds us of the book burnings in humanity’s dark history. For instance in the 1480s Tomas Torquemada promoted the burning of non-Catholic literature, especially the Jewish Talmud, and in October 1526 William Tyndale's English translation of the New Testament was burned in London by Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of London. iERA believes that people should read and positively engage with other people’s heritage which is in line with the Qur’an’s injunction ‘so you may know one another’”

Saqib Sattar, Vice-Chairman of iERA says “With the distribution of thousands of these books on the Qur’an in the world’s international capital, London, we hope this will be a symbolic move to show that the Muslim community is proactive and seeks to positively engage with the wider community. If people do not understand the Qur’an or have questions our organisation is dedicated in clarifying and demystifying our way of life.”

Click here to read the whole press release.

Action & Positive Engagement

Here is the video showing Muslims responding positively on the same day that the burning was supposed to take place. They distributed thousands of books called “Quran: a small selection of verses” across London and had a literature stall on Oxford Street presenting Islam to the wider community.

Comment: The Stephen Hawking Delusion

2010-09-03T17:14:00.004+01:00

Let me get something clear from the beginning, I haven’t read Professor Stephen Hawking’s new book The Grand Design, as it will be available to purchase in 6 days. Therefore, this comment is based on the specific excerpts taken from his book concerning the existence of God and cosmology that appeared in the media.

In the Professor’s new book, an extract of which appeared in the Times newspaper, it states that “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing…spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist.” The Professor continues “It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”

From these excerpts alone it seems to me that the Professor is claiming that things can pop into being and that the universe spontaneously emerged from nothing. The Professor makes these conclusions as he seems to be holding an indeterministic view of physics. This means that he believes that there are many sub-atomic events that do not correspond with causality, because some physicists claim that sub-atomic particles behave unpredictably and spontaneously in the quantum vacuum all without any perceived cause!

However there are two main problems with this view:

1. The quantum vacuum is not nothing, so the claim that the universe came from nothing, because of the observations made at the quantum level, is misleading. The vacuum is actually something; it is a sea of fluctuating energy with a rich structure and obeys the laws of the universe. This is why many physicists are adopting a deterministic view of the observations made at the quantum level, for instance the David Bohm interpretation being one of them.

2. Philosophically speaking how can these physicists, like Stephen Hawking who adopt an indeterministic view, justify their conclusions? I don’t think they have a strong argument because everything we perceive in the universe comes into being via a cause, things change and events happen because of causes. This is the undeniable default position to take because the collective experience of mankind has never experienced or witnessed things coming into being out of nothing, and without the concept of causality we will not have the mental framework to understand our observations and experiences. In philosophical terms causality is a priori, which means knowledge we have independent of any experience.

Some philosophers and scientists deny this and claim that you can't think of examples of things we can know independent of experience. This is not true, take the following examples into consideration:

• Circles have no corners.

• Fathers are male.

• 4+4 = 8.

• Time is irreversible.

• Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

We know causality is true because we bring it to all our experience, rather than our experience bringing it to us. It is like wearing yellow-tinted glasses, everything looks yellow not because of anything out there in the world, but because of the glasses through which we are looking at everything. The contention that this is just an assumption is not true because without causality we would not be able to have the concept of an external reality. Take the following example into consideration; imagine you are looking at the White House in Washington DC. Your eyes may wonder to the door, across the pillars, then to the roof and finally over to the front lawn. Now contrast this to another experience, you are on the river Thames in London and you see a boat floating past. What dictates the order in which you had these experiences? When you looked at the White House you had a choice to see the door first and then the pillars and so on. However with the boat you had no choice as the front of the boat was the first to appear.

You may be wondering how this relate to God’s existence. Well, if spontaneous creation from nothing was true and that causality did not make sense in the quantum vacuum, then from a scientific perspective God could be out of the picture. But since causality is true and spontaneous creation out of nothing is false, then we have a strong argument for the existence of God. Take the following premises into account,

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause

2. The universe began to exist

3. Therefore the universe has a cause

Since premises 1 and 2 are true, it logically follows that premise 3 is true. Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe must also have a cause. However, to believe that this cause is God can be perceived as a leap of faith rather than a rational conclusion, because this cause could have been a mechanical cause or necessary pre-existing conditions. In light of this how can we justify that this cause is a transcendent immaterial being?

Using conceptual analysis, we can conclude that it must not be subject to time because it created time. This cause must also be uncaused due to the absurdity of an infinite regress, if the cause of the universe had a cause, and that cause had a cause ad infinitum, then there wouldn't be a universe to talk about in the first place! The cause of the universe must also be immaterial and beyond matter because it created the universe, and the universe is the sum of all matter. Significantly, this cause must have a will because since this cause is eternal, and it caused a finite effect, in other words the universe, then it must have chosen to do so, and choice indicates the existence of a will. Since this cause has a will it can interact and have relationships with personal agents, like human beings.

This analysis gives good reasons to believe in the Islamic concept of God, as the Qur’an – the book of the Muslims – eloquently summarises these points,

“Say: He is God, the One and Only! God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begets not nor is He begotten. And there is none like unto Him.”

In conclusion, it seems to me that the Professor has placed himself in a self-defeating position, because to claim something comes from nothing and that causality is not true at the quantum level would be tantamount to saying that his book The Grand Design was not written by him, rather it spontaneously appeared into existence without any cause, and came into being from nothing!

But we all know out of nothing, nothing comes. This is why the Professor seems to have contradicted himself by saying it was all possible because of gravity. Then I would like to kindly ask him, “where did gravity come from?” If he responds “from nothing”, well, I would rhetorically reply, “so did your book”.

Lastly, I must add that I am looking forward to reading the Professor's book to find out what exactly he means by spontaneous causality and that the universe came into being from nothing, because for me it just doesn't make any sense!

New Publication: Liberalism & its Effect on Society - An Introduction

2010-08-14T20:59:00.002+01:00

Liberalism is the world’s most predominant ideology[1] with almost all western nations having embraced its fundamental political values and ideas. Liberalism represents a global force that seeks to transform societies in accordance with its values and practices, and under the banner of the ‘Liberal Project’ the United Nations regime on human rights is an attempt to enforce liberal values on non-liberal nations[2]. Emeritus Professor John Charvet in his book The Liberal Project and Human Rights comments that,

“…liberal states must recognise that the liberal project for world order is unavoidably a long-term one, which they need to pursue with patience and persistence and not to be seduced by tempting short-cuts…”[3]

Liberalism however, has not always sought to export itself from the west via peaceful, and some may argue, covert means[4]. The various contemporary military expeditions, including Iraq and Afghanistan, have attempted to impose Liberalism using force, as well as trying to fulfil the goals of strategic dominance and the acquisition of much needed resources.

The effects of Liberalism are felt not only in the political arena but at the social level as well. Influential economic, political and social structures are used to propagate its values, but this has directly contributed to a number of social problems. These problems range from child abuse and neglect to violent crime and rape. A common trend in liberal societies, such as the UK and US, is that social breakdown has become a norm, and has shaped academic and popular cultural discourse. Professor Daniel Bell, lecturer in Political Science at the University of Singapore, states,

“Liberalism, it is claimed, contributes to, or at least does not sufficiently take account of, the negative social and psychological effects related to the atomistic tendencies of modern liberal societies. There is undoubtedly a worrying trend in contemporary societies towards a callous individualism that ignores community and social obligations, and liberal theory does not seem up to the task of dealing with this problem.”[5]

As an ideology Liberalism is hard to describe. It can be best portrayed as a broad political philosophy that considers and emphasises individual freedoms, and the primacy – or priority – of individual rights. Liberalism has various intellectual strands however these fundamental political values are shared by all types of Liberal thought.

On the superficial level these political values may seem attractive, however under intellectual scrutiny they are found to directly affect contemporary societies in the most negative way. It is the scope of this essay to highlight Liberalism’s negative effects on society using historical, philosophical, legal, practical and social research arguments. This essay will finally draw attention to a potential solution by discussing the Islamic perspective and contrasting Liberal and Islamic Social Models.

The arguments are summarised as follows:

1. Liberalism is purely a European product. Liberalism’s political values are the outcome of specific social and historical conditions, subjected to a specific type of analysis. Therefore it must be asked, is Liberalism an 'absolute' alternative to other ideologies, or is it historically and geographically bound? If Liberalism is found to be historically and context bound then it can not have any relevance in today’s modern society.

2. Philosophically, liberalism’s political values rest on the premise of individualism, or what some political philosophers call atomism.[6] This essay will argue that individualism is ontologically false, in other words, it is an incorrect premise to base a political philosophy.[7] The logical conclusions from this are that the results of individualism – and therefore Liberalism - will also be incorrect.

3. From a practical and social research perspective modern liberal societies, specifically the UK and US, exhibit signs of increasing social breakdown and social malaise.[8] This essay will argue that if the most predominant political values propagated in western societies are Liberalism’s political values, and these societies are showing signs of social decay, then it naturally follows that Liberalism is a key contributing factor to modern social problems. This argument rests on the premise that there is an established link between propagated values and a society’s behaviour; this essay will bring to light social research strengthening this premise.

4. This essay will argue that Liberal values are not conducive to good legislation. This will be explained by showing how legal pornography – violent and nonviolent – can cause rape. There are many factors that play a causal role in the crime of rape, however this essay will bring to light overwhelming evidence that strongly indicates pornography is a major factor. It logically follows from this argument that, if what is legal in Liberal societies facilitates crime, then Liberal values should not be a basis for legislation – as they are seen to provide impetus to social anomalies and criminal behaviour.

In the last part of the discussion this essay will exam how Islam’s view on humanity does not rest on a false premise and that its core political values are cohesive, in contrast to Liberalism’s non-cohesive values, and that they have produced a cohesive society in the past. This essay will argue that if Islam has a correct premise and it has produced a cohesive society, it - at least - must be investigated and used as a reference in the dynamics of political discourse. This essay will also contrast the Liberal and Islamic social models by highlighting and discussing some of their key features, in the hope to demystify aspects of Islamic law and demonstrate that in actual fact the Islamic penal code is founded on a workable model, which has produced positive results and has a greater capacity to achieve a cohesive society.

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[1] John Hoffman and Paul Graham. Introduction to Political Theory. Pearson Education Limited. 2006. p164.

[2] See John Charvet and Elisa Kaczynska-Nay. The Liberal Project and Human Rights. Cambridge University Press. 2008.

[3] John Charvet and Elisa Kaczynska-Nay. The Liberal Project and Human Rights. Cambridge University Press. 2008. p 285.

[4] https://blogs.fco.gov.uk/roller/miliband/entry/liberal_interventionism

[5] Daniel Bell. Communitarianism and its Critics. Oxford University Press. 1993. p 7.

[6] Charles Taylor ‘Atomism’ in Shlomo Avineri and Avner de-Shalit. Communitarianism and Individualism. Oxford University Press. 1992. p 29.

[7] Communitarianism and Individualism, p 2 – 4.

[8] Ibid.

Comment: Ramadan - The Month of God-consciousness

2010-08-14T12:55:00.000+01:00

The month of Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. This month is a very special month for Muslims, because it is a month of fasting and spiritual focus. The significance of this month has been highlighted in the Qur’an – “O you who believe! Fasting has been prescribed for you as it was prescribed for those before you, that you may become God-conscious.” 2:183

As the Qur’an brings to our attention, the main objective of Ramadan is to attain God-consciousness. God-consciousness is central to the life of the believer; its definition includes the constant reference, awareness, fear and mindfulness of God, in addition to ensuring that everything the believer does is in accordance with God’s pleasure.

This consciousness is not static, it is dynamic. The level of God-consciousness is dependent upon how close the Muslim is with His Lord. This personal relationship is established and strengthened by following a unique program of activities that have been prescribed by God Himself. This ‘spiritual’ program is also an effective means to change the negative traits and habits of the Muslim. Some of these activities include remembrance of God, prayer, giving charity, meditation, reading and reflecting upon the Qur’an, memorising the Qur’an and daily supplications. All of these actions are increased and intensified during the month of Ramadan.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) emphasised developing a good character by engaging a constant practice of prayer, meditation, remembrance of God and other activities, as these actions change the heart and thereby bring one closer to God.

“Indeed in the body there is a piece of flesh. If it is sound, the body is all sound. If it is corrupt, the body is all corrupt. Indeed, it is the heart.”

God-consciousness is an essential element in Islamic spiritual practice. Without it, the Muslim’s behaviour and attitude are corrupted. Unlike the secular view, Islam has a unique perspective on spirituality as it encompasses all aspects of the Muslim’s life. In Islam all actions that are referred to God are spiritual, and these actions include the supplications we utter before we go to bed to implementing justice via Islamic governance. God has prescribed certain actions that develop positive characteristics as well as bringing the Muslim closer to God thereby attaining God-consciousness. This state achieves many things including God’s love, closeness and divine assistance. The month of a Ramadan is a platform to launch the believer’s God-consciousness to the next level.

Fasting in the month of Ramadan constitutes one of the five pillars of Islam. During this month spiritual activities intensify, as mentioned above, however some social actions are recommended such as forgiving people, establishing brotherhood, spreading peace, accounting corrupt and oppressive regimes, and feeding the community. Ramadan conveys an extraordinary sense of emotional enthusiasm and religious eagerness among Muslims of all ages, and it is the month that makes the believer feel alive, and allows him to reconcile his existence with his divinely prescribed purpose – the worship of God.