Debate on Islamic Monotheism Arguments

Sorry. Goddamn it. I'm here to talk. I'm here to help you.

What do you want me to do?

I-- You're not helping.

Okay.

You're actually making it more difficult-

I'm trying to translate between the two of you

... by making claims that have nothing to do with the prompt.

No, but see, y- you said it had nothing to do with it.

He said, "Oh, I apologize.

I made that presumption." So he maneuvered, and now, now the-

And he went to something else that had nothing to do with it.

Oh, my God, being-- God, can you listen for one second?

Okay. I'm not gonna do that again.

He maneuvered, and then you said, "Oh, no, why are we moving to this?"

We'll go, we'll go to the next person-

And then he maneuvered, and then you said, "Oh, no, why did we do the this?"

We'll go to, we'll go to the next person who actually

wants to debate whether or

not Islamic monotheism is true or agreed with.

I think I've been doing that the whole time. It happened at all.

But the thing of it is, is it's still-

I've been trying to attack-

... his arguments to make. If-

And his argument, I'm responding to and explaining how it has nothing to do

with

the prompt.

All you're saying-- No, all you're saying is,

"That has nothing to do with it.

Move on. That has nothing to do with it. Move on." Oh my God.

No, but I explained, I explained why it had nothing to do with

it.

This is frustrating. I just got fired, like-

I explained why it had nothing to do with the prompt.

The fact that you think it's legitimate that it has-

I'm not saying it isn't. It is. It's all I'm-- Now, hold on.

Okay. So did I give reasons for why it has

nothing to do with the prompt?

Yes, I did.

But the thing is, is you sat here and said, "Oh, you're delusional

if you believe

this, blah, blah, blah."

Yes, exactly.

So I'm giving you the translation and the description of what is happening.

No, but you're, you're defending and sa-- You literally said-

I don't give a fuck what his claims are.

You, you literally did.

I don't care.

You literally did.

Oh my God. Jay.

We can play the tape back where you said-

I don't give a fuck what his claims are.

We can play the tape back.

You are not paying attention to what I'm saying.

We can play the tape back.

All I did was sit here. Jay.

We can play it back where you literally said-

All I did was sit here and give you... Oh my God.

... that what he's saying does have to do with

the prompt.

All right. Then-

Exactly.

All right. Yeah. I'm gonna go take a little break.

I'll take, I'll take over.

You can step in.

Sure.

That's ridiculous.

So what I wanted to do was to attack the idea of Islamic

monotheism by saying it

has to come from either reason or from revelation.

I first tried to attack it from revelation by attacking a central historical claim

about the Quran to say that it cannot be a historical,

reliable sense of

revelation, and that he tries to cite this idea of

like, take an exam, and if you

get one question wrong, then it doesn't mean you're wrong about

everything else.

And I agree that wouldn't make the Quran wrong about everything else, but it does

mean that that exam that has one question wrong on it can't be

the answer key.

And so the Quran cannot be the infallible revelation that you've received.

And so I'm first attacking the idea that you cannot get Islamic monotheism

from

revelation from the Quran. Then he said, "I don't get it from revelation.

I got it from reason." To which then I say,

"I don't think you can get it from

reason either. I don't think you can get it purely from

reason." And he starts

talking about how he thinks he can reason to there being just one God because of

the fact of, like, the creation and the, the contradictions between these two gods

if there were two gods and all of that.

To which I say that you're talking about a cause and effect, and I don't think

purely from reason alone you can get the idea of cause and effect.

And I try to cite Hume, and I would make arguments from Alvin

Plantinga and other

similar, you know, thinkers to say that you need revelation, as you know,

he would

even point out ear- in one of the previous debates,

that a lot of the, the Western

church tradition has said that you need revelation to understand

the, the full

attributes, the full details of God.

And so I say, "Do you get it from revelation

or do you get it from reason?" And I

think as the moderator was trying to point out,

he kind of hopscotched between the

two and thought that neither of my attacks on it were reasonable because when I say

I'm attacking the concept of revelation, I'm saying this is an unreliable source of

revelation. He says it's not relevant, I get it from reason.

Then when I'm attacking the idea that you can get it purely from reason,

he starts

going back to the Quran, and then he kicked the moderator out.

So to me, that's what I thought happened. And the audience can disagree.

I didn't kick the moderator out. The moderator left, right?

So that was a lie, pretty much like half the other stuff he

said, but I'll respond.

So you said that, uh, first of all, the prompt, guys, for everybody listening,

the

prompt is Islamic monotheism is true. So I'm trying to argue why it's true.

They're supposed to argue why it's false.

Providing an argument to why the Quran is not infallible or why the

Quran makes, according to him, a mistake, a historical inaccuracy or mistake is not

an argument against Islamic monotheism being true.

You saying that, "Oh, just because it has a historical accuracy,

that means that we

cannot trust it in terms of what it says about God," doesn't follow.

That's a literally a non-sequitur.

I hope for people who actually have studied philosophy can know and understand

that. And it seems that you haven't because you mentioned

Alvin Plantinga when he

says the exact opposite of what you say.

His whole-- One of his major, uh, contributions to Christian philosophy

is that you

can know and that you can believe and be justified in that knowledge

and belief of

God apart from revelation. That's actually what Alvin Plantinga's

position is.

So you couldn't be any further from the truth.

Now, trying to throw out Hume and cause and effect

and philosophical language to

make it seem like to the audience you know what you're talking about, anyone who

knows anything about Alvin Plantinga is now going to laugh at you because they

know

that you have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

Now, secondly, when it comes to revelation, even

if the Quran is supposedly wrong

about a particular point, it does not mean

that therefore it cannot be relied on in

any sense, including for its knowledge of theology of

who the creator is.

Secondly, w- I didn't think I was debating an atheist, but if I were,

I would be

providing arguments independent of revelation to get to the truthfulness of

there

being one God, to get for the truthfulness of God having,

uh, attributes like

power, knowledge, et cetera, and if I had enough time, I would do that,

but that's

not what the prompt is. The prompt is, is Islamic monotheism true or Islamic

monotheism is true, and a discussion on that.

I think both in terms of revelation, that Islamic monotheism is supported by

revelation, number one, and number two, that Islamic monotheism can be known apart

from scripture, whether that be Quran, Bible, et cetera, in a similar way that

Alvin Plantinga says through knowledge that is not dependent upon scripture.

So once again, I think you've shown that you're-- this doesn't relate to the

prompt, and even when you try to relate it to the prompt,

you don't understand the

conversation. But thank you.