Atheism Javed Akhtar Debate.

how to read atheist literature, exhibit 125332

atheists claim to be rational and logical but come up with the strangest and stupidest arguments. graham oppy in his "arguing about gods" opens the chapter on "argument from evil" in these lines:



while it sounds profound, anyone can see that it is abject nonsense when analysed properly.

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let us read the same text again with highlighted key words:

Perhaps it is worth saying at the outset that I do not attach very much importance to arguments from evil.
i.e. personal preference.

At best, arguments from evil create problems for the hypothesis that there is a perfect being,
foregone conclusion, casual rejection - even before evidence is presented. notice how at best is contrasted with at least in the following sentence.

that is, a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.
rejection of the proposition before the evidence - and then used as a evidence for the rejection! insinuation.

It is a controversial question whether all orthodoxly conceived monotheistic gods have these properties;
whereas, all the three monotheistic religions believe that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. where is the controversy? this is said only to sow confusion.

at the very least, there is clearly a case to be made for the contention that the monotheistic gods that are described in the scriptures of the major monotheistic religions fall far short of perfect goodness.
the tone employs understatement - the unsuspecting reader will subconsciously assume that there are many such reasons, and the least of which is that a 'case' can be made that monotheistic religions fall short of perfect goodness.

muslims have to be careful here - while he may have a case against the other three scriptures, he bundles islam as well and thus generalise for his benefit.

our response should be: firstly, i don't care what other religions say - just tell me about islam. how is there a "clear case" for your contention? if it is the least - list out five other? and the concept of "perfect goodness" according to whose standards?


But, in any case, I think that there are no supernatural beings of any kind;
personal belief. sweeping generalisation. not even anecdotal evidence. "i BELIEVE" packaged in the softer, intellectual sounding: "i think"


and, moreover, I do not think that I need to have special reasons for supposing that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good supernatural being;
multiple negatives - i am not sure whether he did this consciously, or is just a poor writer.
the above said without negatives: "i think i don't need special reasons to suppose that there is no perfectly good supernatural being." in other words - i say there is no god and that is it. i don't have to give you reasons. special or otherwise.


my reasons for supposing that there are no supernatural beings are, in themselves, good reasons for supposing that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good supernatural being.
imagine if this was said by a believer! dawkins and co would squeal like hyenas at the sheer stupidity of this statement. yet oppy is a cambridge published author.

my reasons: in the preceding sentence, he set up and brushed aside that he doesn't need "special reasons," ergo, the implied meaning is that he has other 'common' reasons. though he did not cite any. the unsuspecting reader is fooled that he has reasons which are being referred to here. even though there are NO reasons he has cited.

supposing: clearly, he did not argue by evidence - he tells it upfront that it is his belief, his faith, his supposition - no reasons required - he feels there is no god. just take it from him and consider it as hard evidence-based, logical argument. don't question it.

good reasons: nice. i don't need to give reasons. i don't give any reasons. and my not giving any reasons, are good reasons.
​

if one is honest one can plainly say without employing sophistry to conceal the deceit and lack of proof:

i believe there is no god - i.e. god who is omnipotent, omniscient and perfectly good god. i don't need reasons to not believe, it is just my faith. i just don't think there is a god and have no reasons for disbelief.​

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this is true of most atheist literature. they expect and demand us to be literal, exact, present logical proofs - but they can dismiss anything without basis, they can say the most absurd things without blinking and make outrageously stupid statements that no sane person can deem valid and still claim to be "rational".


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after the analysis above, read the same passage without interjections:

Perhaps it is worth saying at the outset that I do not attach very much importance to arguments from evil. At best, arguments from evil create problems for the hypothesis that there is a perfect being, that is, a being that is omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. It is a controversial question whether all orthodoxly conceived monotheistic gods have these properties; at the very least, there is clearly a case to be made for the contention that the monotheistic gods that are described in the scriptures of the major monotheistic religions fall far short of perfect goodness. But, in any case, I think that there are no supernatural beings of any kind; and, moreover, I do not think that I need to have special reasons for supposing that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good supernatural being; my reasons for supposing that there are no supernatural beings are, in themselves, good reasons for supposing that there is no omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good supernatural being.
​

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Shaykh Nadir Qadri is SPOT ON on atheism - in the present day, it's squarely an attack on Islam more than anything and a colonial tool. yes, we know they existed even in Imam Ghazali's or Imame Aazam's times and the mutakallimoon have refuted them, however, the present day shade of atheism is primarily a yahoodi project aimed at Muslims. a lot of atheists are closet yahood or on their payroll. this is why atheist intellectuals will talk against Islam to their heart's content but won't dare talk about judaism or the talmud and so on. leave that, they won't even dabble into the abject silliness of buddhism or hinduism or sikhism. it's only a fallout of the project that atheism spilled uncontrollably in the christian world in the form of woke leftism for the obvious reason of them being their useful idiots - and now the conservative white christian "right" finds itself in the mess that it is in, and seething in anger at Muslims and immigrants when they should be looking elsewhere for the reasons of their woes!

 

I saw that in the clip and alhamdulillah that i didn't watch the clown show of a debate.

Devbandis have this super-jahil habit of this filmy bollywood "piety"... khajlat par fana ko mujahade se ghalib kar diya!

Any sensible Muslim with shame wouldn't take the "blessings" of a self-confessed atheist he has just debated. Both are retarded homo sapiens!

 

i had to drive for more than an hour for some work, and i got to listen to the debate for about 1 hour - until the cross-examination round begins.

while awaam may be impressed, there is nothing for even students of kalam and especially those who have some experience in this field. my own reading on atheism goes back to well over three decades, and having read authors paine, darwin, hume, nietzsche, russell, sartre to the new-age atheists, hawkins, dawkins, dennett, hitchens, harris among others and numerous articles and webpages. maybe some day i will write a book, in sha'Allah, but for now, i believe it is more important to translate kalam works than refute xtian-centred atheist objections. most of these atheist arguments work against christian polemics and not islamic belief system - and especially the method of the classical kalam scholars. i have been refuting atheism sporadically, and friends would know that i do it in private messages etc. i am working on an overall reader on atheism, its arguments - a handbook for muslims - but it would be only one half of the job done, if it does not have accompanying kalam texts on how our ulama dealt with this topic. and yes, it will be unabashedly, muslim-centric and be written from the PoV of an orthodox sunni muslim and for the benefit of sunni muslims. i am not really interested what dawkins or his fanboys think of it. in sha'Allah wa bi tawfiqihi.

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concerning the "debate"

it was a disappointing show right when it began. in fact, i would never agree to a debate where i would have to just defend the idea of "God" in general without being able to speak from the perspective of any religion. this was one of the rules of the debate as the moderator explained. this severely limits our ability to refute the objections of atheists. in fact, when JA brought up some such objections of roman and greek gods, to his credit nadwi tried to tackle it, but couldn't do it openly due to the constraints. in sha'Allah, i will try to answer JA - as if i were on the opposite podium.

nadwi started out with strawmanning - and succeeded in boxing JA in the 3 or 4 arguments and JA being neither trained in debate, nor atheist arguments (he seems to have read a bit of russel and dawkins - as he quoted them, though i have to check how accurate he was). he himself confessed that his knowledge of science is limited and that his ability to grasp english terms was also limited. so JA was anyway a walkover. if this was any other atheist who reads english books, he could make nadwi sweat. i will also point that out - in sha'ALlah - so that muslims do not follow this methodology and paint themselves in a corner. for example, JA could have said - "i expect you to take refuge in the cosmological (i.e. the "contingent" that has gained notoriety on social media) or a teleological argument for the existence of God - and i cannot allow you to use these arguments because these are fallacies and then reel out objections to these arguments. what would the nadwi do then? when your opponent is clueless, you can ride roughshod over them - but an intelligent or erudite opponent will give you a run for your money.

in fact, JA did present russell's justification (the universe is just there) but i don't think he realised that he was positing one of the objections to the cosmological argument. also, even though he didn't understand the term "infinite regress", he presented the standard response when nadwi explained to him - "why not?"

this is why we need the basics of kalam to tackle such objections. while some get defensive, our approach should be "why not?"

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name dropping was a good tactic - and JA didn't seem to know these terms and fallacies, so he had to let nadwi walk over him. (am just around the 1 hour mark.)

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JA repeatedly generalised between various beliefs of different religions and clubbed together for his argument to deny God. nadwi, successfully sidestepped it and said that we do not consider such a being a god - because of contingency.

if only he took it further - and said:we do not consider a being that can have a flaw as a god. thus, if a being has a flaw or a potential flaw, that being cannot be God, because God is free from flaws. falsehood is a flaw, and therefore God is free from flaws INCLUDING falsehood. nadwi sahib could become misbahi in the blink of an eye!

as a muslim, my response to some of JA's objections on religion would be: surah kahf, 18:29



jo na maanay aap saqar gaya,
kahin nur hai kahin naar hai

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let me find time to listen to all of it and maybe in sha'Allah offer my comments.

Allah ta'ala knows best.

 

You need to change the setting for "audio track" to "Urdu Original". Sometimes your local settings can go awry.

 

Is it dubbed in AI translated english?

 

There's no shortage of reaction videos. I won't post it all to avoid overwhelming users.

There's a decent series by Madani Raza

Radd-e-Baatil channel (whose clip was posted yesterday) has uploaded a new clip - showing how shamail nadwi went over to JA at the end of debate to take his blessings (bowing and putting JA's hand over his own head) and later sat down for dinner.

For those enamoured by Nadwi, they only need to watch his videos defending tariq masood after latter's kufriya utterances earlier this year.


This is another sensible one from Nadir Qadri, although some would deem it "salty". His point is that had a Qadiani prevailed over JA/atheist, it wouldn't have proved that qadianiyat is on haq.

Deobandis are "crowing" over this event as some validation of their putrid belief.

 

they wouldn't dare pit an atheist of a hindu name against someone like sri sri ravishankar. even zakir sweeped the floor with him, and the only time he could speak against zakir was when he was in exile, to other hindus. face to face with zakir - he was thrashed. this event was nothing more than a useless & wasted attempt at attacking Islam

Sunnis need good orators with good public speaking and debating skills - not just on masail to Muslim audiences, in urdu (and a generous langar afterwards), but with a wealth of general knowledge on the world around them, and who can carry conversations in english, arabic, french etc. (like Asrar Rashid and some others)

we need ulama who can communicate effectively at "civil society" level and can connect to the youth from all of the lower, middle, and upper classes, the latter two being more english-medium oriented.

 

Anyone who knows me in real life knows im not Sufi Kaleem's fan, but I fail to see how the videos in post #21 or 22 are Sunnis crying sour grapes! I didn't listen to Sufi Kaleem video in full, but he's actually being quite humble and realistic in there.

zakir nalayaq did that and they hindus went after him! Interestingly, at the peak of zakir's "career" in india, devbandis too said the same things that Sunnis are saying now - bashing hindus and atheists in arguments doesn't mean he's on the right maslak in Islam (coz nalayaq was decidedly anti Hanafi and got up the nose of devbandis too back in the day)

 

I must say that you haven't heard the clip that you posted (nor the one I posted) in entirety. Or if you did, you failed to comprehend. Listen again and cite the actual bits of the clips that you find problematic. I understand that you have an axe to grind, but be fair and honest.

Both the speakers in the clip congratulated Nadwi for prevailing in the debate. They said that winning that debate against a limp atheist was a forgone conclusion and not a big deal. They also answered some of the social media chatter about the debate proving the superiority (and veracity of) of deobandis. Their answer to such points is valid and needed. Sufi Kaleem admitted his shortcomings and mentioned that there's no lack of our own ones (like Shaykh Asrar Rashid, Saqib Shami etc.) who could do better job.

Apparently, few Muslims are going ga-ga over the fact that JA was so overawed in the debate that he was shaking. The speaker in the clip rightly pointed out that JA is an old man and his tremors don't signify much.

If this debate gives debandis a chance to gloat, so be it. It doesn't prove anything. Don't read too much into this "event". Mind you, there was one ex-Muslim pitted against a Muslim for this spectacle (with a hindu as a moderator).

If Nadwi (or any deobandi) had defeated a hindu guru in debate (and thus humiliated the hindus), then it would be something to celebrate. Would such a debate ever take place on national media?

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Few well-meaning brothers here are habitually self-critical of our own ones - but that doesn't mean that this is an occasion to self-flagellate either. Those who're unable to fix/right things on their own but are happy offering criticism of us are just naive.

We, ahl-e-haq, are not here to win popularity contest. Nor is the number of followership a metric for our success.

 

Again being unbiased. The nadwi didnt present good proofs and explanations.

Have you heard what Sufi Kaleem sahab said in the clip below?
While im not a too great fan of Sufi Kaleem, I have to agree with him here. There are great ulama in the subcontinent but they lack english literacy. Of course there isn't any excuse for them to be behind as any person who would have put his head down and studied the language would have become decently good atleast in communication. However its important for them to warn the gullible sunnis who will become prey to shaytaans tactics and draw them close to deos. I mean look at the likes of Sh. Yaqubi, them being Arab ulama became prey to the likes Hanson and others then what can we expect from the laymen if Great ulama like these have changed?

I said before and I will say again. When you enter the subcontinent, especially india, you will realize the level of Jahaliyya there is in the community. Desi ulama have alot on their plate and honestly there is so much improvement that I have seen where many ulama who aren't on social media are giving it their best to uplift the community. These poor ulama go unnoticed as our focus is on the social media ulama.

Khayr. One thing is clear from Sufi Kaleems clip below is that they are realizing the pit they are in. Peer culture is being called out and debates or social media events like this one are opening the eyes of the sunnis as they stand and observe the popularity of deos. So atleast Insha Allah they will try to divert their attention to these issues as well.

Its time sunnis still follow Alahazrats advice and prepare topic based specialized ulama who can guide the sunni awaam on such topics.

Allah guide us and protect our imaan.

 

Just look at it from purely an optics point of view.

An Atheist debates a Muslim.
(The Muslim being a deo doesn't matter because the majority of people are looking at the debate as 'Atheist vs Muslim).

The Muslim does well in the debate against the kafir who hates Islam.
Then Barelvis, who are notoriously known for being sectarian, downplay the success of the Muslim. It doesn't look good in the slightest. If you can't understand this perspective, then to proceed in this conversation is futile.

I can't be the only one who views it like this.

 

What's your point? Everything that's been said in reaction is valid.

What kind of reaction from the sunni/barelwi scholars is the most appropriate one (in your view)? What will satisfy you?

 

I have to be honest, a lot of the reactions coming from sunni scholars from the Subcontinent is just cope. They're trying to downplay the success of the Nadwi scholar. It's just sounds very salty. It was better if they didn't comment in the first place

 

Sufi Kaleem Razavi's reaction to the debate:

 

Case in point is Russell-Copleston debate broadcast live on BBC Radio in 1948 & 1959. Bertrand Russell was very famous mathematician, logician and philosopher (author of celebrated Principia Mathematica, which builds the foundation of Mathematics from basic axioms), while Copleston was a jesuit priest. Despite Russell's unparalleled mastery of logic, he refused/failed to answer questions on cause of Universe.

In one widely cited exchange, Copleston asked, "So, your general position is that it is illegitimate to even ask the cause of the world," to which Russell replied, "Yes, that is my position" - to concede his inability to answer.

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Longer exchange here:

C: The series of events is either caused or not caused. If it is not caused, then it is sufficient to itself and therefore necessary. But it cannot be necessary, because each member is contingent. And the totality of events is not a reality separate from its members. Thus, it cannot be necessary.

R: This is an unwarrantable extension. Physicists look for causes without thinking that they will find them everywhere. The idea that the world itself has an explanation, in my mind, is a mistake. I don’t see why it should have an explanation.

C: So, your general position is that it is illegitimate to even ask the cause of the world.

R: Yes, that is my position.

C: Well, that makes it very difficult to discuss it then!

R: Yes, let us pass on to something else.

 

Agreed. I don't think anyone is suggesting the deo is an amazing debater but the fact that they 'got there first' is just symptomatic of trends over the past few decades. There's no reason why a sunni philosophy grad couldn't have wiped the floor with him, much less someone with proper kalaam grounding

I don't think asrar rashid popularised this amongst anyone except maybe the barelwi contingent and I think even that's debatable. Hamza tzortzis and others had already racked up millions of views debating people like Lawrence krauss and at the same time, William Lane Craig was smashing up Sam Harris, Christopher hitchens and others. Asrar rashid wasn't really on the scene at this point which isn't his fault- it's mostly an age thing.

Not to take anything away from him but mostly to emphasise the point that being behind the times means we struggle to impact the common person. When people are already confounded with nouman Ali khan when it comes to balagha, or hamza yusuf when it comes to madhabist sufi type rhetoric or Hijab when it comes to debates with Christians and atheists, it's hard for us to come along and point out the error of their ways because the ordinary person is too far in on the cult of personality and thinks these people are revolutionary mujaddid type figures.

Even in Pakistan, hamza tzortzis and others have had debates on atheism with local atheists, albeit in English. The English speaking people who are interested in this topic will gravitate towards them, the urdu speaking ones will now gravitate towards this deo and that yasir nadeem guy... It reminds me of how zakir naik got popular on the basis that he could speak English and was a medical doctor just because no one else was doing what he was doing.

In these things, you have to either be first or be better... And it's a lot easier just to be first.

 

Nadwi debate is only getting traction and views because of Javed Akhtar's celebrity fame and the use of popular platform (lallantop), not because of Nadwi's quality or scholarship. But, fairplay to Nadwi for taking on JA in public. Nothing to be jealous about. It's just a good spectacle and nice publicity, without much impact.

Even though JA is poster-boy for atheism (and rationalism) in India, he can hardly be described as an intellectual by any standard. All he has done his life is write bollywood screenplays and later write Urdu poems (tarkash, his book of poetry is mediocre at best). He has debated hindu godmen such as jaggi vasudev etc. to good effect. But it doesn't take much to subdue a hindu (and that too charlatans and fake godmen).

Dawkins, for all his fame, has a very long history of being thoroughly humiliated and defeated in most of his debates with christians, Muslims etc. Most atheists will lose debate because their talking points are very limited and they can't defend creation/causation without getting trapped/tied up within internal inconsistencies and without violating self-defined principles/limits (singularity etc.).

 

Can anyone suggest me more books like Islam Answers Atheism and Subhan ar Rahman anil jism wal jehat wal makan.

 

The debate drew considerable attention owing to the widespread popularity of Javed Akhtar among large segments of the Indian public, coupled with effective promotion and an academic format that was free of overt ad hominem attacks.

The Indian viewers were impressed by the technical terminology and conceptual frameworks deployed by the Mufti; however, I'd argue this reaction stemmed from the novelty of these terms and concepts to that particular audience.

By contrast, audiences in the West are already familiar with much of this vocabulary due to its popularisation by Shaykh Asrar; from this vantage point, the Mufti did not introduce anything groundbreaking, nor did he exhibit particularly exceptional debating prowess.

Nevertheless, his performance was competent and coherent, and sufficiently persuasive to secure the support of millions of viewers (Muslims and non-Muslims alike) worldwide, thereby winning the popular vote.