So my topic is how do we fortify faith in these faithless times, that is to say, how do we strengthen our iman in the face of such disbelief in the modern world? So the answer is actually quite simple. The answer is by dedicating ourselves to seeking knowledge. So the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said that seeking knowledge is an obligation upon every Muslim. So there's a reason why it's an obligation. There's a reason why he ﷺ said that. He said everything in the dunya is a person. مَا لَعُّنٌ مَا فِيهَا إِلَا فِيكُرُ اللَّهِ وَمَا وَالَهِ وَعَانِمٌ اَمُتَعْنِمْ اُوْكَمَ خَالَهِ He said that everything in the world is a person except three things. The remembrance of Allah ﷻ and whatever is beloved to Allah ﷻ and the teacher and student of knowledge. There's a reason why the only thing in the Qur'an that Allah ﷻ commands us to ask him for an increase in is knowledge. Which also happens to be the Isidunah College school model. Some universities, they have like Fiat, looks that they're relight from the gospel or looks that Veritas light and truth. That's truth of the capital T. You know, these other schools no longer teach traditional religion nor even objective truth. Now they teach that truth is relative and scripture is archaic and irrelevant, even oppressive. But scripture cannot be ignored, so it must be radically reinterpreted in light of the current zeitgeist or prevailing culture. So let me see a few more things about the state of modern academia. Colleges and universities in the West in particular are becoming total disasters. Absolutely toxic for people of traditional faith. So-called higher learning academia is becoming fundamentally anti-theistic. So at first academia was theistic, right? So like Harvard and Yale and Georgetown, these actually started as Christian seminaries. Education used to be sought primarily for the sake of God. There was a theistic worldview, a metaphysic that was based on scripture and tradition. And then academia became atheistic. There was a theistic term at some point. So there's no God, and if you believe in God, that's your business. Just keep God out of here, out of the institution. But now in this postmodern, post-truth world, academia has become anti-theistic. Which really means two things. Number one, the belief in God, in practice of religion, need to go. Just throw it all out. Or if you insist on believing in God, that's okay, but you must reject traditional religion. You must change your beliefs for the sake of hurt feelings.  There are still a few Catholic colleges that continue to keep it real, as they say. Thomas Aquinas College, I think they make their faculty and students pledge that they are committed to the magisterium, which is the traditional teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church. I think Alma Maria University as well. If you're not familiar with Zaituna, Zaituna College is the first ever accredited Muslim college in North America. Our founders, our pillars of the community, our fundamental metaphysics and worldview are rooted in traditional Islam, Sunni Islam. And we teach both the Islamic and Western tradition, as well as both canons, so seminal texts in both traditions. So students, they read Badali, they read Putemia, they read Suyuti, they also read Aristotle, Platinus, and Aquinas. We teach the Trivium, which is grammar, logic, and rhetoric. So these are the liberal arts, right? You know, when people hear the phrase liberal arts, they often get the wrong ideas. They hear the word liberal and they think of political left. They think Joe Biden or Beto or Bork. They hear arts and they think under water basket weaving. So the word liberal comes from the Latin for freedom. So these are the freeing tools, grammar, logic, and rhetoric. These are tools that free our minds. They allow us to think critically. They allow us to think outside the box. These are the most powerful tools that one can possibly possess. Why? Because they can move the world. The most influential people in history were masters of these tools. As one of my teachers said, the Prophet Muhammad SAW was the most logical human being. He was always grammatically correct and was the most rhetorically powerful person who ever lived. So language is very powerful. And advocates of the current zeitgeist understand this. If they can control our language, then they can control our ideas. Stanford University just released something called the harmful language guide. I don't know if you're familiar with this, but at Stanford University, it is now considered harmful to say the word American. You can't say American. You can't say immigrant. You can't use expressions like beating a dead horse. You've heard this expression?   You have to say a person engaged in sex work and we wouldn't want to offend the prostitutes. The tragic aspect of this is that these free tools are seldom taught anymore. And people don't really value them anymore. There's a reason for this. The elites who imagine themselves in control of this world don't want people to think for themselves. They want people to become cogs in some corporate machine. They put it into our heads that unless we study STEM or their version of the humanities and social sciences, then not only will we be financially impoverished, we will also be socially outcast, cancelled, as they say. So this is what the Shaitan does. He threatens us with poverty.  People are more likely to acquiesce the tyranny if they are alone as opposed to having a spouse and children. So they want men and women to hate each other. This is cultural Marxism. And this is happening right now. This is an epidemic. We have things like the big Tao movement, men going their own way, men swearing off women. We have incels, men who are involuntarily celibate, catapulting spouses. And we have the rise of radical and militant feminism amongst women where they are taught by their college professors to denounce marriage, marriage as being oppressive, even a form of slavery, because everything for these people is power dynamics. They make the false assumption that human beings are constantly motivated by power and nothing else. It's a very cynical worldview. These postmodern philosophies bifurcate the world in the two classes, the oppressed and the oppressor. That's cultural Marxism. And ironically, those who are often labeled as oppressed are actually the oppressors and vice versa. So Toa Ba and Shukur and Toa Dur are thrown out the window. These are the three of the greatest, what we consider to be theological virtues. Toa Ba is repentance. Shukur is gratitude. Toa Dur is humility. So now Toa Ba is replaced with living your authentic self. Hey, just accept yourself. There's nothing wrong with you. If you don't think there's anything wrong with you, why would you make Toa Ba? Shukur is replaced with self victimization. Shukur is gratitude.  Grateful for what? I'm a victim, right? And Toa Dur, humility, is replaced by, off the charts, narcissism. The U.E.s controlling this current zeitgeist want to domesticate men. They want men to work from home, to marry their computers, to get fat, and to eat bugs. Why? Because traditional masculinity is apparently toxic. They want women out of the workforce, not at home managing a household, or raising children. And women who prefer to take care of the home are often shamed and accused of, quote, internalizing their patriarchy. In fact, Rockefeller admitted that he supported feminism for financial reasons. The American government can now tax the other half of the country that wasn't previously working. It was a big money grab.  What a wonderful life. So my advice is don't fall victim to these things. Our tradition works. Our Islamic tradition works. It is tried and tested for 1,400 years. It comes from Allah SWT. Listen to the advice of Allah SWT. Listen to the words of our prophet, Muhammad SAW, when a man came to him and said, Ya Rasulullah, qulif il-islami qawlan la asal wa anku ahadan ghayrak. Tell me something unique about this religion. And the prophet SAW said to him, very short, concise, beautiful, but deep, qul'anan tu billah tu mastatin. Say, I believe in Allah SWT and be upright upon that. So this is why nihilism is on the rise. Nihilism is this belief that there's no meaning to anything. There's no meaning to life. This is why people are depressed. People are drowning in a notion of meaninglessness. But it's okay. Just amuse yourself and social media. Just entertain yourself endlessly with your technology. Nihil Postman, he talked about this in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death. This was a few years ago. But he said that religion, politics, and education are all becoming entertainment. We need entertainment to dull our sense of meaninglessness. This is why we now have a 24-hour news cycle. This is why now we have social media addiction. Like TikTok and Instagram. People spend hours and hours a day on these things. It's a quick dopamine hit. The average TikTok video is about 11 seconds. You just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. Actually, you know, it's an hour later. Two hours later. Three hours later. Right? This is why we have a pandemic of Internet pornography addiction.  In 10 minutes, a 10-year-old child. So our brains are being rewired. These things clash with our fitra, our natural disposition. The result of this is depression on a massive scale. But rather than seek out our true purpose in life, we fill the void with entertainment, with pleasure, with hedonism. What happened to modesty, dystoicism, to discipline, to piety before God? So traditional values are being replaced with just do you and get it and yolo and do what thou wilt. Right? So we have to take this very seriously. Seeking knowledge is all over the Quran and Sunnah that's absolutely central to our tradition. Knowledge frees our mind and freedom is powerful. What was the very first word of the Quran revealed to the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam? It was iqra-ri. Right? I saw a Christian magazine called Christianity Today. And there was an article in this magazine. Written by Christian, the writers were all Christian. And the name of the article was The Greatest Book Never Read. The Greatest Book Never Read. And it was about the Bible. Here's a Christian complaining about other Christians who never read the Bible. And in this article he said that he went to churches at random and he asked Christians coming out of church. So these are people that not only identify as Christian but actually go to church. And he said to them at random can you name the four Gospels in the New Testament? Just name them. And he said 50% by 0% could not even name the four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. People don't read. How many Muslims? So I actually mentioned this to one of my teachers. And he said, I wonder how many Muslims coming out of Salat al Juma can quote one hadith of the Prophet Muhammad SAW. One hadith in Arabic. How many Muslims know the names of the surahs of the Qur'an? If I say surat al-Ankabut, what surah number is this? Anyone? 29. How many Muslims can properly cite iconic ayat?  You ever see that John 3.16? That's their verse. They're sort of Christian theology in a nutshell. We have a verse We have a verse Our prophetology in a nutshell. What surah is this? What ayat number is this? Very seldom of us know these names. Ayat al-Kursi. Where is this in the Qur'an? 255. That was kind of an easy one though. How many Muslims can name the children of the Prophet SAW? Or explain the difference between Fard and Wajid and Sunnah and Mustahab? These are basics. So, Em is Nur. Knowledge is light and light is guidance and Arabic is a sacred language. So it's not an accident that if you rearrange the tri-literal root letters at the word, you get action. Because a true a true knower puts his his knowledge into practice. These terms are related. There are Jewish professors of Islamic studies with double Ph.D. Teaching all around the country are these Of course not. They don't put their knowledge into practice. Now rearrange these letters again and you get which means light, luster, radiance, resplendence, brilliance, t'ajeeb, knowledge plus action equals light. The word Iman comes from the root Amina which means to be safe and secure. The word Iman is a form for infinitive. Form for an Arabic denotes causation. So Iman billah or a mu'min billah is one who makes himself safe billah by means of God. And Allah SWT is al mu'min one of his Asma'u al-Husna the ultimate cause of safety and security. The giver of Iman. So Iman knowledge increases our Iman. And I actually prefer the word confidence as a translation of Iman rather than the word faith. The English word faith unfortunately has been sullied by the new atheist movement. They define faith as belief without evidence. Right? So belief without evidence. Unless you say I have faith in myself or something or I have faith in Bill Gates. But if you say I have faith in God they say oh, faith in God. And so they set up this false dichotomy with faith in God on one side and reason and science and knowledge on the other as if faith and knowledge are diametrically opposed as if faith and knowledge are somehow incompatible or antithetical. And so many people unwittingly indoctrinated by their rhetoric think that they have to make a choice between knowledge and faith. So they choose knowledge and abandon their religious tradition. Right? And so they become atheists and agnostics and deists which means I believe in a creator God but I don't believe in a religion or none. They become nuns, not Catholic nuns. Some of them become Catholic nuns but not really. N-O-N-E-S these are people who check none of the above when it comes to religion. So I say use the word confidence rather than faith. What does confidence mean from the Latin con with fides faith is a safe meaning but doesn't carry the baggage of the word faith does. So if you say to an atheist are you a man of faith? No, no, no. Faith is for people who don't think. But if you say are you a man of confidence? Oh yes. It's the same thing. Here's the point. Everyone has confidence in something. The Quran does not entertain atheism. There's no such thing as atheism. In the Quranic world view everybody worships something. The atheist has confidence in the chef at the restaurant. Right?  The atheist has confidence in the pilot of his airplane that he won't crash the airplane. The atheist has confidence in the in the the architects and engineers of the elevator he's about to get into at the 50th floor of some high rise of building. The atheists will claim however that he has good reasons for being with faith when it comes to these things. And we have good reasons for being with faith when it comes to Allah and his messenger. This is not a a belief without evidence when we acquire knowledge our confidence in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and his messenger increases and becomes stronger. The atheist believes in so the past is great we don't have access to the past. But if you ask an atheist what do you think about this historical event in the past? He'll give his response. He'll give his opinion. That's technically Iman bil Ghayt. What did our master Ibrahim alaihi salam say to his people? We have to read the Quran. So his speech is trans-historical. In other words the speech of the Quran is relevant for all times. Okay this is timeless. There are timeless timeless lessons in the sacred narratives the Qasas of the Quran these are not meaningless fairy tales as the Khufar say. He said You and your father are the same. They are the same. Have you really considered what you worship? Ibrahim alaihi salam is telling his people have you really considered what you worship? So one of our scholars Imam al-Razi he says in his tafsir that these verses are one of the strongest proofs against theological taqlid and for istidlal So make a note of these terms. What is theological taqlid? It is blind conformance. It is uncritical belief. It is following someone without doing inquiry. It is to believe without evidence. So here we can actually use definition of Iman as an accurate definition of theological taqlid belief without evidence. Taqlid in matters of creed or theology is unacceptable. You have to be convinced of your aqidah. You must engage in istidlal. What is istidlal? It means to seek a dhalil proofs and evidences. So in this vein the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam is within that asking good questions is half of knowledge. You have to actually believe what you claim to believe and you should be able to even be a bit discursive in your theology. In other words, you should be able to explain and justify your beliefs even if it's just at a basic level. We don't have to be theologians but we have to know something. So if a teenager stops praying because his father dies or if a teenager goes off to college and stops praying and he was just making taqlid of his father, this is unacceptable. This is not real confidence. This is not real Iman. May Allah SWT guide us. We should be able to explain if only to ourselves why God exists and why he is one and be able to explain why we believe in the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi sallam that he's a messenger of God and why the Quran is a word of God we might use rational and historical and linguistic and scriptural proofs we believe because it is rational. Belief in God is rational and all of God's commandments have a rational component so naqal and aqal which is to say revelation and reason cannot ultimately contradict and sometimes a rationale of a certain commandment is mentioned explicitly in sacred text Allah SWT says that indeed the prayer it prevents and fahshah usually means some type of sexual sin indeed the prayer prevents one from sexual deviancy and wrong action if you have to pray five times a day at different times with ulu engaging in fahshah and munqar become very very difficult and Imam al-Qurtubi and Imam al-Zamaqshali they mention in their tafasir that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam he said of a young man who prayed but was inclined towards indecent acts soon his prayer will prevent him from doing that this is time tested but we have to be patient and constant the prayer comes from Allah SWT and we must trust the process it works don't leave the prayer this is very important but even here with the prayer we don't know the reason for everything why five times a day why four units at bahur three at maughrib at some point we say aslamna we submit the religion is called al-islam it's not called al-yaqeen or al-ma'rifah or something like that you know I used to teach arabic in the masjid the brother came in one time and he said to me in the middle of arabic basic arabic and he said I have a question I have asked numerous mullahs no one can answer my question so okay maybe I don't know if I can answer it it's a tough question so go ahead I'll give my best shot so this is what he said he said why do I have to wash my hands when I pray wind and he said this issue is not allowing me to pray I need an answer I need a rational answer to this and so I said you know Allah SWT oh no no no give me an answer okay so I said in the prayer sort of prepares us the wudu prepares us for the prayer it puts us in the right state of mind no this is what all these mullahs and mullahs give me a scientific answer so I said excuse my crudeness I said you know when you break wind fecal particles fly up into the air and whatever goes up has to land on your hand you put your hand in your mouth you get sick he said ha ha ha ha ha and I was completely joking and he said okay alright and I was just sitting there making du'a don't ask me why we wash our feet the point is that the affl has limitations and has a jurisdiction right what did you have for lunch 18 days ago good luck so in actual fact submission to God is intelligent the true affl the true intelligent one submits to Allah right because Allah is good Allah is God and God is a source of all knowledge and wisdom you know when the Quran were told that when the Bani Israel were leaving Egypt and they came to the Red Sea right they saw the sea in front of them and they flew behind them and they said this is it we're done this is what their akal suggested to them right what did he say he said by no means indeed my lord is with me he will guide me and Allah swt striked the sea with your staff right musa aleyhi salam didn't say strike the sea with my staff what was that going to what do you think about no no immediately he did that right why because he's dealing with Allah swt he's a true akal that is rational the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam he said he said the intelligent one the truly intelligent one is the one who subdues his lower self and works for that which comes after death why is that intelligent because the afterlife is eternal it's everlasting and the unintelligent one is the one who puts his desires who enslaves his desires to his lower self and has vain hopes in Allah swt furthermore there are things that we believe like the day of judgment that are suprarational in other words unseen matters mentioned in safer text these are called seven year yet but even here I would argue sorry my voices I did a four hour podcast today speaking for four hours straight I would argue belief in the day of judgment is rational you see human beings constantly see to establish justice in this world injustice is repugnant to us as human beings this is innate inherent part of our collective consciousness as a species we establish courts and judges and witnesses does anyone really believe that rapists and murderers and oppressors who are never brought to justice in this world they just get away with it I don't think so if people are honest they don't really believe that an atheist once told me well I don't believe that I believe in karma it's about karma I thought you were a materialist karma is a metaphysical process who regulates and controls this process called karma so on atheism it is impossible to be objectively immoral in other words there is no true, right and wrong on atheism because atheism atheists are materialists they don't deal with morality in such a world view can lead to total social chaos on atheism we're just fizzing molecules that's all we are I'm a fizzing mole I'm fizzing right now we're just carbon based monkeys we're just atoms colliding into each other stone rolling down a hill a stone rolling down a hill atoms colliding with atoms colliding with atoms is there a moral component to this? is this moral or immoral? no it's just atoms colliding with atoms fizzing molecules if I take a knife and stab a man in his heart what's the difference? atoms colliding with atoms murder is just a breach of subjective societal norms in atheism it cannot be objectively wrong there's no higher standard of morality on atheism you know there's a book by David Berlinsky called The Devil's Trap and this book just lays to waste Dawkins' God Delusion but people have never heard of this book David but they heard of the God Delusion but anyway Berlinsky and here we quote say philosopher from a few centuries ago and the philosopher said a theist who believes in God he said imagine you have a magic button and if you press this button all of the wealth of the world will come into your possession but there's a catch there's a caveat one human being in the world will fall down and die and it could be anybody right? it could be your own mother it could be a stranger in a different country so the philosopher says to whom will you entrust this button to an atheist who doesn't believe in ultimate accountability on some day of judgment or to a theist who doesn't believe in a day of judgment so this idea that if you just get rid of religion and turn all these churches and synagogues and mosques into Starbucks and Hooters and Chick-fil-A's then everything's going to be okay we'll hold hands and we'll be peaceful no no no the main thing that is preventing people from doing harm is religion is the fear of God this is just a fact it's what Imam Ghazali said we should never refer to atheists as intelligent it doesn't matter if an atheist has a 200 IQ disbelief in your creator is the apex of idiocy right? and so Allah SWT says the messenger said to their people is there really a doubt about Allah SWT the originator of the heavens and the earth right?  I trusted Allah and he said hobble her down then trusted Allah s.a so the function of the akhala is to control both the emotions and the appetites and Plato spoke about the tripartite division of the soul and Plato was right about this the rational soul the emotive soul and the appetitive soul the rational soul must be in the driver's seat as it were while the emotions and appetites are on the back seat the point is not to kill the emotions or appetites that's not our tradition you don't kick them out of the car no emotions and appetites are healthy right so we have to hobble them to control them to discipline them for the sake of Allah s.a so that the intellect takes precedence in our lives and this leads to a happy and fulfilled life so there are millions of people right now in the world in major existential crisis there are millions of people in the world right now whose entire world view is being turned on its head by the current times their own common sense their own common sense is being questioned their own conscience common sense fundamental principles of being language definitions objective truth all of this is being challenged and as I said this new generation of children are steeped in nihilism this idea that ultimately there is no objective meaning or purpose to human life if your life meaning any meaning that you want that's what they say existence precedes essence this is their apida existence precedes essence this is what Sartre said a philosopher and his consort Simone de Beauvoir one of the founders of modern feminism she said one is not born but rather becomes a woman a rejection of human nature of human essence this is called existentialism or you can make your own reality right there is existentialism as a philosophy and there is existentialism as a lifestyle so get ready for meta the metaverse is coming in a few years billions of people are going to be living fake lives married to fake spouses living in fake houses raising fake children it just reminds me I took a picture of this in a builder bear oh yeah this is a picture from builder bear workshop this is what it says they wrote this on the top for the kiddies you know you aren't born a bear you've become a bear this is parody Simone de Beauvoir a radical militant feminist existentialism is all about you so a traditional theocentric life a life of rubudia to Allah which is our purpose according to the Quran which is the high purpose when the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam heard the Quran recited back to him and he was referred to as abd this is the highest title of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam in the Quran I am the servant of Allah this is our purpose to worship Allah this is being replaced with an essentially ego centric like ego centric rather than the theocentric rather than God being at the center the ego is put in the center the nos it's a very subtle type of idolatry it's actually called egalatry the worship of the nos it's a very subtle type of idolatry it's actually called egalatry gallantry, the worship of the nafs. And this happens when people impute the unique nature of Allah upon themselves. This is just shirk, right? Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, I raita man itta khadha ilahahu ha'la. Have you seen the one who takes his own desires as his god? This is all related to this revolt against normativity and objectivity and this movement towards queer identity. What does queer mean? Unique, different, special, individual. You can't define me, my identity and gender. I am the undefinable and I'm fluid. I can change whatever I am, depending on what I want to be. I decide what I am. I am whatever I want to be. There's nothing like me whatsoever. This is just idolatry.  And so he goes around these college campuses and he goes up to college students that are dropping 100k on an education. Anyway, so he goes up to the man and says, can I ask you a question? Yes, am I a woman? And they say, yeah, sure. He's already sure about that? Yeah. And he says, okay, am I a 6'5 woman? And they go, and he goes, what's wrong? Oh, nothing. Yes or no, am I 6'5 woman? He says, okay, yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. And then he says, am I a 6'5 Asian woman? And they say, yeah, sure. And he said, what's wrong with you? What is going on? You have children in elementary school identifying as animals. They're called furries. So they start, you know, so-and-so, what's the answer to 2 plus 2? Meow. And so the teachers are saying, no, you have to answer the question. And then the student goes back to their parents and the parents complain to the school, my child identifies as a cat. This is really happening. I'm not making this up. And so the teacher has to entertain this delusion. And one of the student's parents actually said, you have to put a litter box in the girl's bathroom. This is real. This is what's happening. They start very early. Allah says, the people of essential understanding in the Qur'an. What did they say? You did not create this for nothing. Glory be to you. So save us from the punishment of the fire. So perhaps the central message here is that existence has objective meaning. Your life has objective meaning with Allah SWT. Even if you're not on social media, even if you don't have any friends, even if two people in the world don't know your name, you mean something to Allah SWT. And Allah SWT suffices us who must not let this world deceive us. The only opinion of you that matters at the end of the day is the opinion of Allah SWT. This is it. The only opinion that matters is the opinion of Allah SWT. On the day of Taif, the Prophet SAW, he was stoned out of the city. He was bleeding. They were abusing him, insulting him, right? And he sat under the tree. We know the story. His only concern was what is the opinion of Allah SWT about me right now? This is his only concern, right? So he made that beautiful du'a. If this is happening to me and you're not angry with me, falaaubali, then I don't mind in the least. If the whole world is against you, but Allah is for you, you win. So life is too short to be a salaf. We shouldn't be salafs. It's too short. Life goes by quickly. Anyway, I think I should stop here, Insha'Allah. We have a couple of minutes. I think we pray at eight. So if there's any comments or questions, insha'Allah, take them. Yes, sir, with the masjids. Right? So my question is, you know, what are you talking about? You mentioned many times, it's all about submission, submission, submission, right? Submission to Allah SWT. However, in the Holy Quran, in many occasions, they always mentioned Ya'iqat-l-Ladina, amen. Not Ya'iqat-l-Ladina aslam. Ya'iqat-l-Ladina, amen. However, in Pharaoh, in many occasions also, mention all of the NBs, wakanim, and muslim. But the conclusion is, it's all about submission. All the prophets, alaykum as-salam, are muslim. But and then, when Allah SWT talked to the human, Ya'iqat-l-Ladina, amen. JazakAllah. So, you know, I mean, I don't know if I caught a question, but I would say that, I would say that submission to Allah SWT is intelligent. That's the point I was making in my talk, right? That it's not a type of submission without any type of reason, right? It's a submission that's based on Dalaqat, on Istiqlal, that it's intelligent to submit, right? It's intelligent to have imam. And imam does not mean blind faith. That's not our definition. That's the definition of these, so far, okay? Our definition of imam is safety through God, safety by means of God. And this is intelligent. And we can provide evidence that this is intelligent. So that's what I'm saying. You mentioned in the talk about the religions of people provided. But looking at the history, I mean, there is a lot of wars started by religions, just haunted even between the Sunni Christian and Christian Christians, Christian muslim Christians against you. So how can we answer that, especially for students? Yeah, so I think it depends on your definition of religion. So I would say that radical ideology is really what people, is really the sort of champion of the ideology that's claimed the most lives, is just a radical type of ideology. So not necessarily a religion as we understand Judaism, Christianity as well. Because if you look at the 20th century, we have secular war, right? We have millions and millions of human beings, innocent human beings, right?  So these people are asias. And that might be true, but I think they believed in a radical type of ideology. So if you want to call that religion, I would call that a type of religion, right? So we're really going to compare things. We have to look at, you know, you look at Islam, you look at Christianity, you look at Judaism, yeah, there's been conflict in the pre-modern world.  This was a status quo of the pre-modern world. The status quo of the pre-modern world was one of warfare, right? So it's a very different type of world we're living in. So that's why if you read, you know, Fatah of pre-modern scholars, they talk about Darul Islam and Darul Harul. They bifurcate the world into these two, these two divisions, because that was a status quo of the world back then. Nowadays, this bifurcation doesn't really work, because wait, now we have nation states that have borders. Now we have international peace treaties. The status quo of the world should not be one of warfare. So it's a completely different world, right? But even with that said, in the 20th century, you have radical ideologies that do not espouse Judaism, Christianity, and Islam who are killing millions, millions upon millions, right? So that's how I would understand it, that it's religion, but it's false religion. And I think that we have to go for a shot. Let's go ahead and talk to Dr. Elia Cai. A shot, of course, 8 p.m. in the prayer hall. In one quick announcement, tomorrow we have a game day, because it's a rainy day, and we want families to come out. We'll have board games, we'll have lunch, bring a snack to share with the board games, and come enjoy the day at Elia. Are we going to have a lecture? Yeah, the devil's trap, yeah. Berlinsky. Devil's trap, the devil's delusion, something like that. David Berlinsky. If there are more questions, are you okay to come back after a shot for like 10 minutes? Yeah, sure. If there are more questions, but can I just get a quick hand? Are there more questions on the audience? Okay, you're off the hook. I'm off the hook then.


Hey guys, welcome to this video about conquering Kubernetes test-based challenges. So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Bruno, I'm the product leader of a really interesting project called TestQ, which is a test framework for Kubernetes. My background is in software development, the science, and DevOps as well. And for the past years, I've been managing Kubernetes products. Mainly, the biggest one is TestQ, but we are going to talk just a bit today. But mostly on this video, we are going to go over today's challenges in testing Kubernetes and what are the big advantages of adopting a more cognitive approach to testing, which is not commonly adopted today, like these processes are a bit old still. And by the end of the video, we are going to have just a quick look into TestQ to give an idea of how can you improve your testing in the cloud. So we can start with the challenges of testing in Kubernetes. The first one we can go through and you can analyze is that the large majority of testing frameworks are not built with Kubernetes in mind. What does that mean is that each testing tool, like for example, we can give an example of these ones, they are made to solve particular issues with testing, like for a certain use case. In the case of Q6, it's really built to solve load testing, so I press like UI or end to end and Postman API. These tools do a job and do it very well. She's no do their own type of testing. Postman is really good at API testing. But the common pattern we see here is that they are not built exactly with Kubernetes in mind. So after you create the tests, you have a big issue on making the transition into OK. I wrote the test, now I need to run them. And that part of running an orchestration gets more difficult because the tools are not meant for them. So what happens is that when you try to automate and make these tests as part of your development lifecycle and you build your code, you want to test it, and then you want to release it to your customers. When you see and you think about automation is, you think of CICDs, and they can really increase in complexity the more tests you have and the different tests workflows you have there. And it can become a point where it's very difficult to manage. You can have many people just to manage the automation of tests. So you become less willing to try new tools, to change your workflows, to expand a bit, and that can really become a blocker and also impact your quality. Because when companies don't feel very willing to implement these workflows because the cost of implementing them and maintaining them, it's high compared with the perceived value, especially from business, then people won't do it. And that's, no, the cost of the software is going to be poor. And another issue is that then the test gets hard to debug. So imagine in a cloud environment where you have multiple environments with multiple tests and many different microservices, right? Then the test fails. And then you want to know what happened, which environment, what are the logs, what might be the issue. It gets very hard to track as your project goes more in complexity. If you have just one application, simple application running on a container, it might be fine. But if you have Kubernetes clusters and or multiple ones, especially in many microservices, that's definitely an issue. And the other thing is your environments usually are not accessible everywhere, right? You have sensitive information that you don't want to share either public or even with all of your organization. Maybe it's just a thing you don't want to give access to everyone, that environment, it can be for the data issues or you just don't want everybody to mess up the system, right? So you just give some people access to that environment so that you don't have anybody that might not know how to use it properly break it, right? So you sometimes just receive the access and just put it on that side. And another thing is, those environments are not easy to set up, right? Especially because they need different nodes, different configurations. So it's not that your testers can do this. Usually it needs people that make their job creating clusters and environments and set up the environments. So it's not a straightforward. So let's go into what are the three pillars of cloud native testing and what they mean. So there are certain advantages of having a good mindset when you start implementing testing on the cloud. You can use the old days of having everything on the pipeline, creating custom scripts, and do everything from there. And sometimes you might think of testing as an afterthought, like something that you can do just a bit just to make sure that your code is tested just as a sanity check and you don't care much about what goes to production. Of course, that's the implications. And if you implement testing from the ground up in a good way and you have a good methodology and processes, you are going to find that you gain time. So the earlier you implement a good testing process, the more time you save along the road. Of course, you should not go crazy with it. Otherwise, you might spend more time on thinking about testing than actually building your product to your customers. So that's why the cloud native approach is good, because it's supposed to be scalable. You are supposed to have an easier time integrating it with your testing tools. So your testing tools should be something that works seamlessly on the cloud. You should not spend a lot of time just making your tests work in a cloud environment. And of course, they should run fast. It should be fast to create them and integrate them into your development workflow. The second pillar, let's say, of cloud native testing, it's orchestration. So one thing is just executing the tests right in a scalable, easy way. The other one is the complexity of your workflows. So having one test is one thing. Having, let's say, a test that needs to execute before several different tests. Let's say you might do load testing, then API testing at the same time, and then you do UI testing, and you can have different workflows and different tests running at the same time. Adding things like advanced test orchestration, it's super important to have it figured out on your cloud environment, right? So it should be quick. You shouldn't spend a lot of time here. The more time you need to spend in testing, the less time that you spend developing a better application. Of course, you just want the results of having good testing, but the time you spend there, you shouldn't take a long, a lot of time here. And it should be flexible. You shouldn't see big blockers and obstacles in trying new tools. One thing that we observe in the trains that the companies that talk with us at TestCube is that they have some tools that they use to test their code, but the notion of having another testing tool means that the testers need to know how to use it. They're automation engineers and DevOps people need to know how to automate it and don't integrate it on the pipelines. So it's not as easy decision, right? When you take a cognitive approach and everything is containerized, that won't be an issue where you can adopt new testing types, new testing tools and do work flows in a way that is not costly for your company. And regardless of testing type, things work similar, almost the same thing. And the thing you need to see is that all of these tests and all of these process should speed up your deployment process. You shouldn't add testing steps to your pipeline and then realize that you deliver less times and your development life cycles increase. So instead of delivering, let's say every week because you are so focused on having to test these things that then you release less steps to your customers. You should test more, yes, but without making your life cycles or release cycles longer, it's possible to have both. So that's something that you can take into account. And the last one, last but not the least is observability. So you have these complex workflows with many tools and different environments, different microservices, and it runs in the cloud, right? So you need to give a really good access to everybody on the team to see what's the status of the test, what's the status of the applications, the environments, everything, you know, running well, is anything broken. It should be easy to debug what happens. So if a test fails, if it's having access to the logs, having access to the pods, like see what happened there, it's very important. And also on top of that, not only for development environments, but for production itself, you should have observability on all your production environments are actually running. So you should have also some tests there. Of course, they are not the same ones that you do when you run them on staging or development clusters, but you should have some there, definitely encouraged. And analytics as well. So especially if you have testing teams that have been creating tests for your product, like for several months, you arrive into a time in place where you want to analyze basically the performance, like is your test making your development life cycle longer, like as I said before, can we improve our test somehow, which tests are flaky or not flaky, like you can definitely analyze all your testing and their performance. So that's also something that is very important because it's not just about running the test, you want to know exactly how they are running and the time they take and et cetera. So with these characteristics in mind, it is a challenge that we spoke about. That's why we created TestQ was to solve basically testing in the cloud and to be the Kubernetes native test orchestration and execution framework so that developers and testers are not blocked with testing and they can test in the C on the cloud. So if you are a developed person, that is just wants to automate your system and give everybody in your company access to creating tests, running them in Kubernetes and have visibility on it. This definitely like something that you can take a look. So yeah, we are a CNCF Silver member. We have more than 30,000 downloads and now each week more and more. So yeah, if you want to give us a try, let me explain a bit how these concepts of no cloud native tests work, especially on if you have an automated system, like you run your test from a CICD, the traditional method is that you build and you have different steps even before you deploy, right? You can do links, you can do code analysis. So at some point you are going to, you want to deploy to an environment, to a cloud environment where you can run test them. So, and what you do is after you deploy on the traditional way, you run several steps where you have scripts that kind of orchestrate to them, prepare the data for the environments, they do a lot of stuff around the test. And then of course, if the test pass or fail, the pipeline will fail too. But everything, all the complexity is implemented on the pipeline and then the cluster is just have the application and then all the complexity lives in the pipeline which is very, will be hard to change with time. So the cloud native approach is that your tests become kind of part of the cluster so you run it kind of in a GitOps manner. So it comes from your, the states of your tests come from your repository and your cluster and your pipeline just says, just this size, is they want to run the test or not and they are not in charge of having all the complexity there on the pipeline. In case of test queue, you will start the test in the cluster, the test has started the Kubernetes CRD and then from your pipeline, for example, you can just trigger the test. So basically your pipeline talks with test queue and test queue runs everything for you. And because test queue runs inside the cluster, you can run in a more secure way because you don't have to expose your applications, you leverage test Kubernetes to scale everything because everything runs as a Kubernetes job. So you don't have to worry much about scalability or performance issues there. So the best way to understand it is basically to have a look at it. So I'm gonna do a quick demo for you. So this is the test queue dashboard that you can experiment. So you can just go here, like if you have GitHub or GitLab can just log in using your credentials. So I'm gonna continue. So here I already have one organization prepared for us. So as soon as you log in, you have an organization prepared and you have like an environment that you can deploy. So you can deploy these to your cluster using an L command or RCLI and then you have like a pod running on your cluster that is going to run all the tests for you. Here I already went ahead and deployed these on one of our clusters. So now I have these environments. So I have these UI connected to an agent running on your cluster. So we just come here and add a test. So here I'm just gonna create a simple key text test except ABCB and then a selected pipe. So here, test queue already provides support out of the box for many different kinds of executors like different test types. Just gonna select key six and then gonna select where's my test file. So you can select test queue to go into your Git repo and then fetch the file from there. You can upload a file or you can even place a string like a really a JavaScript code. So because of key six because it's a scripting language I'm just gonna, for the demo sake I'm just gonna paste the test. So I just wrote some JavaScript code that tests an endpoint and it fails after the time. So just a simple thing that I can create. So I just created a test. Now let's go ahead and run it. So as you see here, now test queue just scheduled a Kubernetes plot and now the Kubernetes schedule is probably putting the pod in one of the nodes and then running it. So here you get the logs in real time of everything that happened. So you get the logs directly from the testing tool and then you can click see what's happening there. You can run it multiple times. So you get to them all the insights about the pass file ratios, the execution duration and along if your tests passing or failing. So you can run as a lot of them all of them and all at the same time and test queue just makes sure that everything runs seamlessly and gets the results for you. You can run this from your CICD system. So if you want to trigger the test we have integrations with any CICD system. And from there you basically connect to test queue and you can run this from your computer you can run this from CICD system as well and you just trigger the test and do everything. As you see here, all the tests are defined as CRD. So if you copy this and deploy to a cluster it will show up here. And we deeply encourage all the people to start the tests in their Git repos and apply them. So you can provision or the provision Kubernetes clusters at will and you can just deploy the tests and you have all the tests set up always prepared to run things. Another example is like, so this is like how do you, is it good test, right? So here I'm going to give you an example of how to run a test suite. So my test suite, ABCD. And then when you have more complex workflows you might want to have like different tests like one after the other. Let's say you want to run multiple tests in parallel. This one is like just to put a lot of testing and then you can have like one test after the other. So this can be any type of test, can be no API test, UI test, et cetera. So here I'm just going to add a few. I'm going to add like a few more steps here and then I'm going to press save. So now we can just come here and you can run the test suite for us. And now everything is running like being orchestrated by Test Cube. So you can see that these three tests are running in parallel. Then when these three finished we are going to run these two ones and then we are going to run this one. And then of course you can click on any of the tests and you jump right into it. And you see like all the tests in size, like what happened here. And yeah, you just see all of the executions at time gives you a really good overview of what is happening basically on your cluster. And for any test type that you don't see supported here you can just go to our docs and create a container executor. So what you have to do is just create a docket image with your testing tool added to Test Cube and it will work for you. So yeah, so that's like the quick introduction to Test Cube. We have like a lot more features here that you can use even like one recent one that we released where you have AI inside. So we allow people to see like what's happening there. So for example, you can just click here instead of going to the logs and basically tells you that the status codes is not returning 200 and gives you suggestions on what to do. And you have like many more features for integrations like webbooks, like status reporting and all of that. So yeah, it's pretty much a tool that is easy to use for any testers, the DevOps people that really wants to test in Kubernetes and wants to speed up their development workflow. So yeah, like give us a try, go to Test Cube.io. If you have any questions about Test Cube and how to use it, go to our Discord channel. We pretty much are there all the time answering questions or if you want just send me an email or book a call with me and I'll be pretty happy to answer your calls.


So if you've been watching my videos for the last few weeks you probably know I'm kind of addicted to a show called love is blind and if you're not familiar with the premise of the show This is a show where the reality TV show, which I'm not a big fan of To show where people are put into pods men and women are put into pods They can't see each other in these pods Because there's a barrier wall and they talk to one another getting to know each other From the blind perspective and then if there was a true connection with the other person The next step is to the man asked the woman to get engaged And if they both agree then they meet and then they eventually go on like a little mini Vacation and they have to spend three weeks together and then decide if they're going to get married and what's interesting about this show is I think there's 10 or 15 Contestants on each agenda. It's hard to figure out with the show I think there's 10 and they are Multiple communicating with many people Until they begin to narrow it down based on you know the connection that they have and then they work They basically are communicating with one or two or three people at the same time And I thought to myself and this is part and primarily the reason why I watch the show is this is no different than our current online dating Method and what I mean to say is people could be communicating with multiple people at the same time Or they could be dating multiple people at the same time because in a way in the show They are dating multiple people at the same time and When the person makes a decision to get engaged He complete that basically there's they are cut off from communication from everyone else And I feel like that's kind of what's happening in the dating realm today Is the minute the minute someone begins to engage with another person? They oftentimes cut off all their balance of their communication and this is true for men and women alike And I thought to myself well, that's almost like being ghosted You know and while on the show the the women will go tell the other women They just got engaged it still could feel like an abandonment it could feel like being discarded if you actually began to develop feelings for one of the people in the pods if you will and that's no different than ghosting today and and and I don't believe it's always Intentional from men to ghost women. I mean certainly there are Some valid reasons why someone might not continue communication with someone or might not continue to date someone But for the most part I'd say I don't believe it's totally intentional and then there are many cases where it is But it can feel like an abandonment. It could feel like you're being discarded and I think Unfortunately when we have to look at the dating marketplace today with the understanding That it's not like it used to be when we met people organically although You know, it's interesting. I'll share with you something that happened. I think I've shared this before my son had met someone at a Dance Hall if you will and he met a woman who are who we really connected with she insisted on giving his her phone number to him He followed up with a text. He followed up with a phone call He followed up with another text and basically she disengaged with him And it was kind of sad because he really thought he hit it off with her and that I can see how that kind of affected his self-esteem And that was just such a minor incident if you will and I know certainly back when my dating Experiences when I went to clubs nightclub nightclubs bars restaurants that sort of thing and I met people organically They could give your phone number and it could be a totally wrong number That affects us when that happens and it's kind of sad and we'd like to think that there is a level of civility that there is a level of care and yet Unfortunately, we have become somewhat of a disposable Society and I think we have to recognize that It's important not to get overly attached to an individual or an outcome Until we've actually to establish the deep roots of trust This is one of the things I talk about in my private coaching When I work with women one of the elements is to really focus on the deep roots of trust That need to be built to actually sustain a healthy happy Relationship and sadly the dating marketplace is more of a hook-up marketplace than ever before Because there's no real level of Commitment necessary to actually engage in a physical relationship with someone. That's right There's no level real level of commitment even, you know monogamy and exclusivity isn't that much love that isn't Much of a level of commitment because that can change at any moment You know, many of you know, I'm in a relationship now and we live together Well, that was certainly a gigantic commitment. We made to one another. We put each other on the lease Because we chose to get a separate place not where we're currently, you know, we chose not to live in either one of our current Homes It's a huge level of commitment and in that we're together because I work from home and she's retired. We're together 24 7 While I'm sharing this with you I don't really believe we truly get to know another being another human being until we actually live together and The today's dating marketplace is so drawn out and what I mean to say is if two people aren't fully Committed early on a relationship can drag out for a very long period of time In fact, you know, I recently read somewhere It takes an average of two and a half years for a man to even consider marriage Which is kind of ironic when I think of this show because they have to get married within four weeks and the other show I've been we've binged watch is called married at first sight where they have to decide if they want to stay They get married right, you know They don't meet each other until the altar and they have to decide if they want to stay married after eight weeks Yeah, did these relationships work out most of them don't it's a very low success rate But I think I would I think the advantage of watching these shows in particular is to understand the human dynamics And what it takes to create a successful relationship? It takes a level of commitment and trust it takes a love it takes good communication skills and good conflict resolution skills and a Sense of emotional maturity that you can lean into this This is why when I work with women, it's so critically important to vet for emotional maturity Because what you don't want to end up is one of these long drawn-out type of relationships that tend to go nowhere And so is it any wonder that today because we have such a disposable society that we've created this That ghosting is so prominent and yet what I've often said dating triggers the number one emotional health issue Most human beings face and that's I'm not lovable. I'm not likable. I'm not good enough It's kind of sad and and it's important to do the inner work to prepare oneself This is why I wrote my book what the heck is self-love anyway a journey of personal development self-help and spiritual work I wrote it as a vaccination to emotional chaos and Dating triggers emotional chaos like nobody's business I think it's imperative to do the personal development self-help and spiritual work So you can stand into your power you can be in your sovereignty your self-worth your self-esteem your self-confidence because the reality is is 95 people out of a hundred you meet are probably not a good fit for a variety of different reasons But imagine the emotional wear and tear That happens if you actually met 95 people and it doesn't go anywhere This is why I'm such a big proponent of being radically honest by vetting a person before you invest too much And certainly before you invest your heart That's why I always recommend the book eight dates by doctors John and Julie Gottman And while it's probably designed for a younger generation of what I mean as younger people chapter one about Commitment and trust is so critically important To understand because sadly I witnessed too many women get attached to men that they barely know and then they suffer as I Said before the consequences the emotional consequences and after a while that can wear on our self-esteem And then eventually what I say really excuse me not eventually Frequently I witness women become bitter and jaded If this happens too much, I think it's really important to learn how to vet another human being Before you give your heart to them. Is this sinking in this is resonating? Please let me know All right, so you've been ghosted and the after effects. Yeah, I can wear on you But remember you are a solid human being and you have the capacity to attract an amazing relationship God universe spirit I am in a juicy delicious relationship where we have mutual chemistry together And we have the and we communicate consciously effortlessly in a free-flowing style And we can we our lives are so blendable with one another that it works with ease and we Shend our values are so aligned with one another that being together feels effortless and we have built the deep roots of trust That allows us to support a fully committed relationship together God universe spirit. I'm experiencing this now Why set it in the present tense is an invitation to lean into That space of attracting an amazing partner and knowing it when you meet this person So you don't have to be so worried about being ghosted when you are in your sovereignty your self-worth your self-esteem and your Confidence because you've done the inner work Through self-love All right, I think you get to just to where I'm going here today If you find value in the group, please tell your friends about midlife love mastery send them to my website Jonathan as a calm have them click the group coaching button so they can join our fantastic group And I'm gonna sign off this video as I always do first off give myself a big gigantic Jonathan bear of self-love I'm gonna reach into the camera and give you a hug of love if that's okay I'm gonna ask you to turn this on when a pat a teddy bear pillow and give it or that I'm a hug of love Because hugs are a great source of love and let's face it. We could all use more love in our lives Thanks a bunch. Bye. Bye now. Bye. Bye


I guess Tom got my first slide done. I work for Moodle HQ, look after all of the core infrastructure, and I also am part of the Moodle Cloud team. So I've been working with Kubernetes and Docker and virtualization for a while now. So quick brief history of computers. We had really big ones, and they did one thing. Then we had a whole lot of little ones that did individual things. Then we decided to bring them all together into larger computers and cut them all up in little tiny pieces with virtualization. And more recently, we've been using something called containers to do something similar to virtualization, but a different way. So why would we want to virtualize? Computers became too powerful to run a single application. And so we allowed more efficiency by running more applications on a single system. Graphic there shows the three different apps as an option, each one notably having a guest OS running, which takes up resources. They keep the application secured and isolated, mostly for security and resource allocation. Containers are a different way of doing it that have come in recently. Containers give you a lot of advantages, but also don't have multiple copies of the operating system, so you don't run a whole lot of resources and waste them. And there's a lot less performance penalties. One other thing that's very useful in my line of work is standardized images and the quote dev ops workflow, where you can create an image and replicate it. Why not? Security in containers, you could argue that it's not as good. Their containers have a much more complex configuration. And virtualization, on the other hand, is slower. There's more overhead costs as far as performance. And individual VMs becomes complicated. There's a concept of cows versus pets in this world, too, where in the VMs and individual operating systems, you end up having pets where you manage them and deal with them individually. At Moodle HQ, we've got a bunch of servers that have fancy names and you have to figure out which service is running where and it gets complicated. In the cows with containers, you've got a herd of them. You manage them as a herd. You don't manage individuals. They don't get names and you don't get to keep them for long. So here's the slide with the overview of the differences between the two. The big difference is that replication of the guest OS and the overhead involved. So Docker is the containerization standard that is the winner right now. There's an installation URL there and there's a course that I prepared about getting started with Docker and building out a development environment for Docker. A Docker file is fairly simple. There's three lines there that'll create a web server for you. The first line says, grab a web server. Second line says, grab an index page. Put it where it belongs. And the third one says, here's what port you listen on so it actually is a web server. This is what you see when you build it. You can see all the three steps. It does each piece. It creates layers. That creates the container. And then if you want to run it, you run it with the publish flag that tells the host which one to listen on. And then you can see a PS. You can see it running. I said Docker gets complicated when you're using containers because of the numbers of these cows in the herd that you have to deal with. What we're running is Kubernetes. It's an orchestration framework that deals with keeping the cows alive, making sure that the traffic gets to them, making sure they scale, and making sure everything stays working, even if you have servers die or anything else. So these are some of the orchestration frameworks that are out there. It's complicated. That's the point of this slide. And that's really about all I've got in my presentation. I don't know if we're taking questions, but if you want to talk to me after, we can get more detail.