In the beginning Dan started out by saying there are millions of good Americans who do not believe in god. He said most of them are Buddhists. It would have been better if Dan supported this fact. It turns out that Buddhists are not atheists, they are non theists. Buddhists don’t deny the existence of God.
Dan mentions that he doesn’t need a god or any authority to tell him what to do. All he uses is reason. He said the only guidance is reason. And that is what enables him to be a good moral person. Dan says “for me the only guide to truth is reason – not faith, not tradition, not authority and not revelation.” In this part he rejects tradition. But this is a weak argument because this implies that he rejects the law of the lands for example the laws in the United States are traditional laws. In fact from a rational point of view it would be absurd for there not to be a set of universal laws. The same way governments have their own laws God has established laws and regulations for his creation.
Another very irrelevant thing Dan mentioned was recommending the audience to read Ibn Warraq’s book about Islam. This had nothing to do with the topic at hand. If he feels the need to talk about a book, he should only talk about a book, if it relates to the theme of the debate. If ibn Warraq had some points about the existence of God, he should have highlighted that specific point by bringing it to the audience’s attention.
Dan made a very interesting approach of trying to convince the audience that God doesn’t exist by showing the similarities between himself and his opponent and then showing the audience that the only difference he has is that he believes in one less god than his opponent. By doing this, Dan makes it seem to the audience that he is more correct and advanced in thinking and belief. The problem with this argument is that it isn’t really an argument, its just rhetoric. The reason is because there is no rational deduction that can be drawn from what he says. Dan says basically that because long time ago people believed in many gods, goddesses and mythological creatures and as time progressed the myths and gods decreased because of scientific discoveries, its reasonable to say that the absolute One God of the Abraham is also a myth and is false. Dan is saying that because in history most people were wrong in their beliefs, it therefore means that to believe in One Absolute God is wrong. This is a very bad induction. It is like saying that because long time ago people’s sciences were wrong; it would mean that our science of today is wrong. The science that we have today did not start of perfect. It was not spontaneously established. The scientific steps and similar concepts evolved gradually. Science started of deficient and then became perfected through trail and error. We see that there is not a single civilization of the past that lacked some sort of belief in a supreme being, a provider or creator, be it gods or goddesses. This is a manifestation of man’s inherent nature to believe in God. Just like how science was perfected through trial and error, the way to the One True God can be achieved through trail and error. Dan failed to provide a rational argument for God’s non existence. It’s not a bad thing to use rhetoric for the purpose of not sounding boring or bland, but to use rhetoric devoid of reasoning is not good in a debate. Rhetoric which is completely devoid of logic and reasoning sounds dogmatic and would therefore not fulfill the purpose of a debate.
Dan then clarifies his position by saying that he is not just a soft atheist (lacks belief in God) but he goes a step further by denying God’s existence; he is a strict Atheist. Dan said he will provide reasons from both perspectives. He said he will show why it’s reasonable to lack belief in God and will also show why God does not exist. By doing this Dan assures the audience of how firm his foundation is in the non existence of God. He is showing the reasoning of the soft atheists and the strong atheists. This is all planned out strategically to lessen the burden put on him by the topic of the debate, “Does God Not Exist?” By showing the reasoning for a soft atheist (which he doesn’t have to show), he will make the statement, “Does God Not Exist?” seem absurd and silly.
Dan quoted a verse from the Bible of God’s evident nature. Then he proceeded to give his first reasoning to show why it is reasonable to lack belief in God. Dan simply says “it is so obvious that God’s existence is not obvious”. In the mind of a skeptic this statement would automatically shatter the question; “Does God Not Exist?” and would make it look weak and unreasonable.
Dan shouldn’t have used a verse from the Bible rather he should have used a verse or verses from the Holy Qur’an since his opponent and the majority of the audience were Muslims.
Dan tells the audience that he does not agree to the fact that the lack of evidence for X’s existence is not evidence for X’s non existence. This is a claim which is not supported by any sort of reasoning.
Dan tells the audience that it is obvious that God’s existence is not evident for the very fact that they is having the debate in the first place. Dan says that if God’s existence is evident why is it there are a number of atheists that exist? Why would there be atheists in the first place? People don’t debate over gravity. People don’t doubt that gravity exists, because gravity is evident.
The above is just one of Dan’s fallacious arguments. Dan doesn’t understand that in Islam, God is not just evident as in how gravity is evident, but rather God is self-evident, as in the axioms, “the part is lesser than the whole”, “the principle of non contradiction” or “there is a reality”. If people are unaware of such evident propositions then it can be established by just drawing their attention, by observation, or through rational arguments. A person can never be unaware of God’s existence; rather he is unaware of his own awareness of God’s existence. It also seems Dan has forgotten the basics of philosophy. It seems that he has forgotten that there were people who actually negated reality. They were called sophists. They even had huge debates with people concerning reality. The question Dan should answer now is, “How is it something which is so evident like reality ever is debated?” It sure can happen, because it did happen. Reality, if doubted must be established or proven by bringing it to ones attention or through rational arguments. If someone says that there is no reality then one rational counter argument would be, “the negation of reality is its affirmation”. In other words, if someone says that “there is no reality”, he is saying that “there is really no reality” which is its own affirmation or a paradox. In fact a rational argument can be shown on how it is possible for one to doubt God’s existence even though His existence is self-evident. An Islamic philosopher says:
“God’s invisibility is due to the severity of His manifestation; and His remoteness is because of His extreme proximity. If an entity’s manifestation were to be more evident than knowledge, notion, and knower, and it were to be so near that even nearer than a thing is to itself, such a keen manifestation necessarily creates invisibility, and such extreme proximity causes distance. This invisibility and distance is, however prevalent with respect to the eyes which are veiled; because someone who sees himself, he cannot see God. However by resisting the temptations of the ego and liberation from inequities of conceit, man’s inability can be reversed, and then in proportion to his ontological capacity he may view God. And by admitting “We know Thee not, the knowing Thou deserve”, he may refine His gnosis to perfection.”
Dan tells the audience that when people pray to X, that means they feel insecure about X’s existence. He tries to convince the audience by making a joke out of prayers in general. He made the audience laugh but did not provide any reasoning to support his claim. To make the audience laugh is not bad, but to claim something like that without providing any sufficient reasoning just begs for a question; “Why?”
Dan made it seem to the audience that Isaac Newton believed in God just because of the gap of knowledge he had in regards to the planets moving in a single plane. This is probably not true, because Newton probably had belief in God before his discovery. Even if it is true that Newton believed in God because of the gap of knowledge that he had, that is not necessarily true for the audience or for his opponent. Dan argues that man believes in God because of a gap in knowledge. For example ancient people didn’t know where thunder came from or how it was caused and they filled that gap of knowledge with a god, namely Thor. Dan gave several such examples, and then said the arguments his opponent will show will be a god of the gaps type of argument. That did not happen. Dan assumed that his audience believes in God because of a gap in their understanding of the physical universe. I don’t know much about other religions, but in Islam, to allude to God’s existence just because of a gap in the understanding is not in keeping with the style of the Quran or with the Islamic tradition of proving God’s existence.
“The Holy Qur'an never relies for the evidence of the existence of the One God on cases where the system of natural law and order appears to have been violated. It relies in this regard on cases whose preliminaries and natural causes are known to the people, and it cites this order itself as a testimony to God's existence.” (By Mutahhari: Muslim philosopher)
The reason why Islam does not use our ignorance of the mechanism of the universe as evidence of God’s existence is because the ignorance is irrelevant to God’s existence. In fact if one were to allude to God’s existence solely because of ignorance of something then it would be limiting God. For example, long time ago, whenever someone would get the flu, people would say God did it! Then, when it was discovered that the flu is caused by bacteria, those people then said that instead of God causing the flu, God caused the bacteria because “we already found the cause of the flu”. So God takes a step back whenever science progresses. Then when science finds out where the bacteria come from, God would have to take another step back. According to Islam, this concept of God retreating or limiting God to the unknown is actually not acceptable because it’s limiting God. It is like saying because I don’t know the full or complete mechanism of a particular clock, that clock thus has a maker. If I do know the complete mechanism of the clock, it would mean the clock has no maker. Dan attacks straw man by attacking such absurd ideologies. Einstein’s following saying runs parallel to the Islamic ideology.
“I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research”
It is because of God man feels encouraged to discover and learn about His beautiful creation. The Holy Quran encourages man to examine and understand the universe for this reason. “Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, and the ships that run in the sea with that which profits men, and the water that Allah sends down from the cloud, then gives life with it to the earth after its death and spreads in it all (kinds of) animals, and the changing of the winds and the clouds made subservient between the heaven and the earth, there are signs for a people who understand.” (2:164)
The Islamic ideology is the ideology Dan should concentrate on and argue about, since his opponent is a Muslim. If not, he would be attacking a straw man which is one of the worst kinds of fallacies.
After that Dan applies the principle of falsifiabilty on God’s existence. He says that in order for the proposition “God Exists”, to even make sense, it must be falsifiable. This law is by Charles Popper which was not meant for it to be applied everywhere. Dan immaturely applies it on God’s existence. The reason why this law can’t be applied everywhere is because if it can, then “reality” should be falsifiable. The proposition, “the part is lesser than the whole” should be falsifiable; but they are not falsifiable. If Dan says that if any un-falsifiable proposition doesn’t make sense and isn’t worth talking about, then he should say that “reality”, or “the part is lesser than the whole” doesn’t make sense or isn’t worth talking about.
Dan then gives arguments for God’s non existence by using this argument: if X has conflicting or contrary attributes, X does not exist. Dan says that because God’s attributes are contradicting each other, God does not exist. For example, In Islam two of the many attributes God has is that He is Infinitely Merciful and Infinitely Just. These two attributes conflict. The problem with this argument is that he attacks a straw man again. In Islam these conflicting attributes are not a problem, because in Islam such attributes are given by God to man for our ease of understanding and for having an idea of who God is. God is absolute and not relative like this world. Creatures compartmentalize things because this is how the relative world operates. God therefore gives us different attributes for it to be intelligible (for our ease of understanding). The attributes are not the Reality of God rather they point to the Reality of God. Relative beings will never be able to comprehend the real attributes of God, because God is absolute. In fact the goal of a Muslim is not to treat God’s attributes as separate. A Muslim starts of to know God with the aid of the attributes given to him. Then as his faith increases, gnosis increases, his knowledge of God increases he will realize that the attributes he was given are actually just relative concepts which point to an infinite/absolute reality. That Absolute Reality has attributes which are totally different from this relative world. The attributes of the absolute Reality are actually together in a way the relative mind would not understand. The attributes are not an accident but are rather part of God’s Essence.
This is part of a sermon by the first successor of the Holy Prophet Muhammed (p.b.u.h), Imam Ali son of Talib (p.h.u.h) talking about the attributes of God given to man and how they are not the actual Essence of God rather they point to the Essence of God (a reality where His (unintelligible attributes are actually His essence) and how when man reaches a high degree of faith he will deny the attributes given to man (relative attributes).
“The foremost in religion is the acknowledgement of Him, the perfection of acknowledging Him is to testify Him, the perfection of testifying Him is to believe in His Oneness, the perfection of believing in His Oneness is to regard Him Pure, and the perfection of His purity is to deny Him attributes, because every attribute is a proof that it is different from that to which it is attributed and everything to which something is attributed is different from the attribute. Thus whoever attaches attributes to Allah recognises His like, and who recognises His like regards Him two; and who regards Him two recognises parts for Him; and who recognises parts for Him mistook Him; and who mistook Him pointed at Him; and who pointed at Him admitted limitations for Him; and who admitted limitations for Him numbered Him.” (nahjul balagha: sermons and maxims of Imam Ali (a.s) sermon: # 1 )
Finally Dan makes a seemingly good point by asking Rajabali that he is a good man and he would have stopped 9/11 if he had the ability, why didn’t God prevent 9/11? But the fallacy Dan makes with this argument is he is equating the goodness of man with the goodness of God. The goodness of man is relative to the laws God makes. The goodness of God is however not relative to the laws He makes for man (for example “do not kill innocent men”). The goodness of God is because of His infinite wisdom/knowledge which man doesn’t have access to in order to judge Him. To use man’s litmus test for knowing whether or not God is good or bad is absurd. Man’s litmus test is specifically for man and not for a different category.
This persuasive speech was formatted well to deal with the debate topic but used fallacious reasoning and arguments. In many places Dan attacked a straw man. Dan is very fond of using rhetoric only. Finally, Dan should be well acquainted with who ever he is arguing against; he wasn’t with Rajabali.
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Excellent points. I thought the same thing when I was watching the debate.
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alhamdulillah, I am glad to hear that.
Dan is just pathetic. he is annoying.
Mujahid Khalfan