we're debating whether or not atheism leads to societal moral decay and we are starting right now with Samir's opening statement but first let me read just a bit about Samir to introduce him. Samir is a Muslim by birth then by conviction who describes himself as a person who loves debates because he loves people from all walks of life glad to have you with us Samir the floor is all yours. Thank you very much James first I would like to say hi to everyone in the in the chat and to everyone that's going to watch the video recorded. First of all I would like to and please forgive me if I don't sound like a debater I don't speak fast but I'll try okay so I prepared a little something and I would like that I would like to share with you guys and first I would like to lay the ground for for my position so before I embark in this topic of morality I would like to establish why it takes more faith to believe that we were that that we every living species and the whole entire universe are the result of winning numbers of a cosmic laury explosion that supposedly happened 14.7 billion years ago I would use this series of questions and remarks to make that point number one if we invite 100 of the smartest people on the planet to a certain country and ask them without any prior knowledge of the local culture to go on stage and perform a local folkloric group dance a dance that includes different formations coordinated dance moves different change changes of of dance partners and group formations I would say that the odds of my smart buddies performing the whole 15 minute dance routine without any prior knowledge of it would be exactly zero now if we if we would use the same analogy and replace the smartest people on earth with the dumb newborn particles that just came into being after nothing exploded what are the chances that these dumb particles would know exactly what to do who to bind with who not to bind with when to change states and and what the temperature is outside and how to come together into groups to form larger particles or molecules still blind on what they're supposed to do now they need to bind together again to form stars stars they should somehow have gotten the recipe to make from mother nothing and these stars now of course will know to cluster into galaxies because if of because of if of course mother nothing said because of course mother nothing said let there be gravity oh and if stuck make up an imaginary new force and call it dark energy to help you further these stars will also need to know to resurrect themselves into new stars after they have gone supernova the atheist always mock and ridicule the Quran the bible and the Torah by calling them man-made fairy tales how is this for a fairy tale even if we grant them matter can come into being from nothing which is totally illogical we can't even begin to accept that the information and the laws governing their behaviors will also come from nothing information can only come from intelligence so just like our hundred smart friends would never be able to perform the simple dancing team a billion big bang would never result in laws of physics or even more a fine tune the universe earth did not even uh earth did not even live long enough to set this is premise number two earth did not even live long enough to satisfy the odds of a single chromosome happening by chance the largest chromosome in the human body contains two billion atoms if and this is one of 23 if evolution was trying one combination of atoms every single second for the last four and a half billion years that wouldn't make even a microscopic dense in the odds needed to perform such a task in order to try every single atomic combination and even without ever repeating a previous mistake to make a single chromosome evolution has to test out has to test this out of this universe this has to test this out of this universe number really uh uh if the universe okay so i'm sorry i apologize i have to stand away from the camera and the text is getting smaller try to be a little larger so yeah no problem okay evolution has to test this out of the universe number really it is out of this universe because even the total number of atoms in a visible universe couldn't be a visible entity next to it that is one in two billion factorial odds also to put that into perspective the entire universe is not even old enough to allow for every single combination of 52 playing cards to be dealt uh to allow for every combination of 52 cards dealt to have already happened if somebody was shuffling and dealing an entire pack of cards every second for the past 14.78 billion years the in fact the odds of 52 cards being shuffled into uh a previous order anywhere in the world anytime in history are slim to none and this number is only is only 52 factorial so what do you think about two billion factorial now remember that those are just the odds of making a single chromosome by chance from atoms never mind the odds to configure dumb soulless atoms into a human an elephant a redwood tree or a dinosaur premise number three we are always reminded by astronomers that before t equals zero there was no space no times and no laws of physics everyone heard this and this is a self-defeating statement why because nothing because if nothing was simply sitting there minding its own nothingness it would need at least one law that tells it to go big bang and if that's the case we have at least one law that existed before the big bang and that brings another problem for the 80s astronomer if the law that told nothing to explode was there one of them must have came before the other either the law was established before the nothing that exploded or the nothing that that exploded existed before the law and in either case or in either scenario some something happening before something else means exactly the concept of time already existed this contradiction might cause a big problem for the 80s astronomer but for the theist one the answer is simple god made the law god made the time and god made the matter now that i have established why there is a need for a creator i can proceed to why morality needs to also come from the creator and be objective valid for all times nations of humans across the globe for the god that calls himself just i would expect that by putting us on trial he would set a set of rules for us to follow i would expect he would show the show us the path and the rules and that he did 30 seconds left okay and as a mercy from him i find that the second rule that i found i find that a set of rules that he set for us are filled with mercy and clemency and aim for the greater good for all of us one might argue that some of these rules seems to benefit the individual but what good would that be if that if that benefit is at the expense of the greater community i still have the few more lines to read but i'll stop right here to respect my time you got it we're going to kick it over to randall for his opening as well want to let you know folks if it's your first time here at modern day debate we hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you are from and want to let you know as well juicy debate coming up this weekend you don't want to miss it saturday daniel hakikachu popular muslim debater takes on t jump it is the immovable force versus the unstoppable object movable object unstoppable force it's going to be tremendous believe me you don't want to miss it that's on whether or not atheists are consistent skeptics that's going to be a juicy one so hit that subscribe button so you don't miss it and with that we're going to kick it over to randall for his opening as well randall fridgerton is an atheist activist from british columbia canada who advocates for the equality and normalization of people who don't believe in deities which entails advocating for fair justice freedom and critical thinking he's also the founding president of the canadian atheists and national organization that promotes atheism and agnosticism as culturally common aspects of canadian society we're glad to have you here with us randall the floor for your opening statement is all yours thank you james i appreciate the introduction smear my initial response to your opening statement is that most of it doesn't seem to relate to the topic at hand but i'll proceed with my statement for now and we can get into that after so here goes what is societal moral decay this depends on yours and everyone else's moral standards the general expectations of society at large and whether you lean toward a more pessimistic or optimistic view of how key systems like justice should be applied for example should there be a greater emphasis on punishment or rehabilitation or something else in my opinion examples of the outcomes of moral decay include extreme attitudes of bigotry including racism and sexism social injustice inactivity and acts of coercion fraud violence oppression and other such dreadful behaviors the source of such attitudes and actions are it seems far more varied than this shortlist so to pin all of this on any single ideology or the lack thereof would be an injustice considering the complex nature of modern-day societies which tend to be shaped and influenced by a number of cultures and ideas that represent the diversity of the populace but to even name but to even blame atheism for any moral decay is problematic and for multiple reasons i'll give you five one societal moral standards and expectations are the result of most if not all members and participants contributing which makes it obvious for this fact alone that societal moral decay cannot be deemed exclusive to atheism two empathy compassion and remorse which are three essential factors in moral development are not in the exclusive domain of atheism and by the same token not inhibited by atheism since every individual contributes to society in a multitude of ways three atheism doesn't provide moral direction since it is merely the classification of not believing in deities hence it fails to qualify as influential to morality ultimately leaving every atheist with an inherent freedom to independently determine what is or isn't moral without need for divine interference or some other inconspicuous form of celestial guidance four moral standards which are not objective vary from one society to the next which is why it's necessary to also factor in laws and regulations communities and cultures groups and various associations and most importantly all the individuals of whom the entire populace is comprised five moral standards evolve in tandem with modern advancements including social expectations that are tempered by cultures and politics education of philosophy poverty demographics and economics a plethora of technological advancements including science and medicine and external factors too like the impacts of environmental changes on people's lives that become significant aspects of their own decision-making processes overall on its own atheism doesn't contribute to social morals in terms of demographics however this depends incidentally to atheism on each atheist's level of participation which just so happens to also be the case for all members of society regardless of whether they're atheists too for everyone plays a role however large or small in shaping the moral landscapes of the societies within which we live and hopefully prosper in a myriad of ways because societal morals continue to change continually change due to the ongoing choices and influences of all members of society from the powerless to the powerful from the poorest to the richest from the ignorant to the educated from the youngest to the oldest from the simplistic to the cunning from the thoughtless to the wise and so on the only logical conclusion rests with the obvious fact that atheism cannot be held responsible for societal moral decay thank you thank you very much for that opening statement Randall and we're going to kick it into open dialogue want to remind you folks as mentioned hope you feel welcome no matter what walk of life you were from and if you haven't have a question for the q&a you can tag me with at modern day debate in the live chat as well as if you want to do a super chat we push those to the top of the list and with that thank you very much samir and randolph the floor is all yours for open dialogue well samir i think you mentioned you just had a few more sentences to read from your opening statement if you wanted to continue with that i'd be okay with that yeah sure thank you so much i appreciate that so i said as a mercy from god i find that the set of rules set for us are filled with mercy and clemency and aim for the greater good for all one might argue that sometimes these rules don't seek to benefit the individual or a certain individual but what good would that be if the benefit is of the expense of the greater community subjective morality on the other hand tend to be influenced by personal needs wants and desires subjective morality allowed for slavery when the slave owners found it convenient that other people are going to work for them while they sat and smoked their pipes and and they justified that by the mere fact that these people had a different skin color and that morality was driven so that morality was driven by selfishness the conscience of of this subjective moral person is then appeased by a by a self-lie that those were inferior humans and we've seen this throughout history whenever some people conquer other or torture others subjective morality so no problem with having sexual relationships outside of the marriage this led to many problems in society young mothers with children who can no longer focus on their schools or work because they have to single-handedly raise those children and it's also and it also results in children who grow up who grow up without the meaning of a complete uh parenthood thousands of lives are ruined every year by this phenomenon yet the subjective moralist finds it okay because as long as there is as there is a selfish treat in the beginning for him no one cares about the consequences the examples are too many to count but i will move on to the next premise if morality could be subjective then there is no escaping morality being progressive and that is a problem on on itself because if morality was to be progressive then it would progress at different speeds and bases uh based on geographic locations and communities and uh cultures and and and why is that a problem because if moral and ethics are different everywhere on the globe then that leads to judgment a term that is usually that usually most ages don't like to hear but often like to use i also think also think about this if someone else's objective morality seems foreign to you then you should then you shouldn't be offended because according to you what is subjective what is objective to him is just subjective to you so it should be just another uh uh subjective morality to you his objective morality should at least stand an equal chance of consideration by yourself that is if you are really advocating for subjective morality the opposite could not stand to be true because someone who believes in objective morality does not believe in subject in the subjective one and i give you the back mic okay you've brought up a lot of points um you're making a number of assumptions i think i'll start with this one you just covered you're talking about the advantage you're talking about morality if it was subjective and then there'll be morals and different ethics that vary all around the globe from different societies i agree that's a fact that's what happens and i see that as as a progenitor of of more progress in our thinking see if as see with philosophy when you have when you don't have consensus which is common in philosophy you have a lot of disagreement this disagreement brings up opportunities to to progress the ideas to make them better but if everybody's conforming to the same ideas and always following it and and following it and never questioning it never changing it a lot of opportunities i feel are are missed for for human progress for intellectual progress for philosophical progress and all this you know with science experiments trying new things and trying to improve on things all the time getting us to better health care getting us to more efficient machinery that uses less fuel and things like this this is all beneficial to us because of all this variation this incurs judgment now you talk about judgment as if it's a bad thing the atheists i know aren't having any problem with judgment i i hear this typically come from religious people who are saying don't judge so and there's there's nothing to atheism that says don't judge judgment is something that we do naturally judgment is actually essential to our survival in my view but i'm curious why you are considering judgment to be a bad thing and and then i want to move into morality and to find out more about your thoughts on it being objective because you did mention about atheists seeing it as subjective what a god puts out that it almost sounded like you're saying that was objective so why is judgment yeah i can easily respond to that okay i'll give you an example even though i don't agree with this but let's use this as an example because this is this is the result of subjective morality and the evolution of morality throughout the globe uh we all heard people complaining about why women couldn't drive in Saudi Arabia up until recently now they can't drive so supposedly it was a problem for them it was a way where they could attack that culture that had a different set of moralities so if morality is subjective and one would would actually bind you to his own set of morality based on a geographic location where they live why would they you see that judgment now sometimes leads to more than a judgment it needs to attack it needs to insult it needs to it can lead straight up to what George Bush said let's if he wants to free the Iraqi people so so this is what i'm talking about when we talk about judgment judgment could lead to other things other consequences and so are you suggesting that people shouldn't be using their mental faculties to judge no what i'm what i'm saying is that if we use subjective morality it has to be some boundaries to where that subjective morality is valid we have even a bigger problem because even within those boundaries we're going to find many different sets of subjective morality yeah for example just the age the age of consent within the united states is different from one state to another okay and uh and what is what is what is legal in north Carolina or in Utah might be outrageous in new york and california so so you don't need to travel through the time and go back to the sixth century to find something that you disagree with you might find it right here with so my problem with this with the subjective morality is that not only it could be split up into different states or cities or upbringings or neighborhoods or even individuals it actually creates this boundary between people because now they have no common grounds on which they can communicate and this would result would result into into some other things that we see in the society for example like a introversion where people just want to cut ties with everyone so everyone else around them because they just i mean even introverted people would have some confidence some friends that agree with their with their sets of morality but there is not many of them so they can't be social they can go out in the public and and live their life with everyone else because everyone else since morality are different so this is the problem with subjective morality this is one of the problems so you think that being an introvert is a bad thing no i don't think it's a bad thing i'm trying to understand why you're talking about intro because you talked about it like it was something that's a problem no here it's it's it's here like i'm extrovert okay and at times and i find myself having to be or to become introverted at times because the the sets of moralities that are around me at that time are not exactly mine some things that i do not agree with for example when i with my own family i try to i try to have that objective morality and raise them from rights but then in the society out there there are different sets of moralities that would actually attack you and label you for example i'll ask you i'll ask you a question uh and this is a topic that i would never bring in a single in a in a in a regular conversation so here i am about to bring it in in a this is not a regular conversation this i mean and no i no i said i would not even even bring it in oh okay but here i am gonna find myself using it using it in in a youtube live do you agree with the fact that even though you grant everyone the freedom to whatever to do whatever they want with their life and you say i'm not getting involved in your life in whatever it is okay do you agree that do you find it normal that if you try to raise your kids to be straight based on the objective morality of your religion are you talking about sexual orientation yes based on based on the objective morality of your religion which is which is somebody else is just another subjective morality so if you want to raise your kids that way uh you find it okay that somebody will call you a homo this is a very strange question uh first of all first of all any any in my view any parent who raises their children to be a particular sexual orientation is cruel because uh the the child growing up and is going to basically figure this out for themselves and there are so many cases throughout history even this particularly recent more recent contemporary history where people have been keeping the term coming out of the closet is is something that comes up because people are afraid to tell their parents about it when they're younger because they know their parents will be very upset with them and possibly kick them out of the house there's there are cases where this has happened this is not a problem with sexual orientation the problem here is with the bad parenting where people are trying to get their kids to live a certain way and be a certain particular sexual orientation so no I don't raise my kids to be straight definitely not that's up to them to determine for themselves and whatever happens I support it because when people can um and this has been shown time and time again when people are not feeling hindered to express themselves uh in the sexual orientation that feels natural to them you get a better quality society as a result so if somebody was to call me you said they were going to call me a name uh you're going they're going to label me as a homosexual well it's not a homosexual I said I said they would label you as a homophobe as a father who's trying to teach to raise their kids based on their religion teachings and uh and uh basically growing up a boy growing up as a boy or girl growing up as a girl so the key here and you remember the new kids you're only raising them at the age of 18 and then they're according to the subjective morality of of the legal age at 18 then these kids are making their own decisions after that but during parenthood you wouldn't believe that you have some guidance over your kids and you could use your morality to raise your kids rather than the society or the outdoor morality so we raise our kids and our kids will usually adopt most of the moral moral standards that the parents have um there is somebody's coming along and I'm having trouble understanding your question because you're covering issues that I think are not really uh indicating any kind of a an inherent problem with the with societal decay here um people being free okay so people who are trying to I can wording you used was based on religious teachings and that's very different than strictly adhering to religious teachings and I'm glad you use that term because it's important to be flexible every person as an individual is different and is recognized under human rights charters all around the world that there's going to be variation with people so again any parent who's trying to impose these kinds of things on their children especially when the children don't have a choice about who they are that just happens to be who they are is being cruel you know imagine you're a child and you're you have an interest in you want to do art or music or something you want to go to some classes and you want to do that and your parents are telling you you must not do that that's terrible thing to do for whatever reason and then I want you to study some other kind of academic topic some kids just aren't interested in the technical academic topics and uh there there's this idea some people have that the observation some people make that certain parents are trying to live their relive their childhood through their own children and uh unfortunately that robs the child of their own intellectual development and autonomy and you know raising a child to me what's the most important thing is to raise my kids to have the opportunity to be free thinkers and develop their own ideas and be the best people that they can be the way they envision themselves and my job as a parent in my view is to support this not to dictate to them that you must follow all this religious teaching or follow all of that kind of teaching sure we teach them responsibility and things like that practical things and we make sure that they understand the importance of doing chores and stuff like that but if one of my kids was to come to me and say that they're gay I don't have problem with it that's up to them that's their choice and I support them on it and every parent should have that attitude I think and and to me I consider the religious morals that push against this sort of thing to be sorely outdated and they're they're just not applicable in common in modern times where we have a better understanding of human psychology than as a species that we did maybe 2000 years ago and and I would say even back 1400 or 2000 years ago or whenever that a lot of these religions being imposed on society it's the same kind of thing this is to me problematic you talked about you're talking a lot about subjective morals do you believe that objective morals are a real thing I don't okay so that's I'm gonna try to marry that with a little revolve to what you just said sure yeah yeah okay so now I'll I'll ask you a question because I just just to know you will help me better phrase myself are you are you atheist or agnostic do you not know out there what's out there or you know that is nothing okay I'm both I'm agnostic because I don't know for certain that there are no deities whether they exist and I'm an atheist because I don't believe in any deities so I'm both I'm in both classifications okay so now now that won't I mean why ask this question is because this subjective let's say let's call the objective morality I like to call it subjective to the person that doesn't believe in objective morality because it would be just another subject well let's call that's what I'm saying okay so let's call that subjective morality I don't believe that but I mean to meet in the middle ground so let's say there are over four billion people on this planet more than half people on this planet believe in God well different deities and then there's different denominations okay so this is over this is an over statement of the situation okay okay me as a Muslim I believe that the Christians were right that the Jews were right that every the Gavi religion from all the way from Adam and Noah and Jacob and Joseph and they were all right so I and I know that in my book tells me there was 124,000 prophets so I'm not I cannot be atheist to the Buddhism God or to this God because I don't know because only 25 of them were mentioned in the Quran but I was told that there was 124,000 so I leave that window open so so I'm talking about people that believe in creation that makes it easier okay so these people that believe in creation they all have one thing in common is they're trying to get to the afterlife and by trying to get to the afterlife they have these sets of moralities that they all call objective moralities and those objective moralities are supposed to save them you see we don't use the word save a lot in Islam but my friends the Christians they use the word save a lot so I agree so they want to save everyone else I'm pretty sure if you met a Christian person and had a conversation he would have an open heart and try to save you they feel that they feel that they want to save you oh yeah so so it is cruel to tell somebody who believes that the way is God the way is God by God tell him that he cannot teach that to his children because he believes that's the way he can save them so if if somebody's going on in the street trying to save other people I mean it wouldn't be immoral according to our objective morality not to be able to save our children I'm not talking about any single topic I'm talking about anything that we believe goes against our belief when it comes to our children otherwise I would be a hypocrite if I believe that something might cause God to be unhappy with my child and and I assist them not even a system I mean like the I mean it could be anything but we're like we talked about homosexuality and and and and this this is like it feels like to me like like it was it's like almost like as as old as the new wave of atheism the new way of of homosexuality is old as the new wave of atheism like that was it so it it feels like they they're born they're both in their youth those two waves they're both in their youth and I feel like the propaganda has pushed it more to become more of what it is than it was if that makes any sense so if you're referring to a new wave of atheism I think what you're noticing is that there's a lot more people who are willing to state publicly that they are not part of a religion that they don't believe in deities that they don't know if deities exist the unosuses and I don't have any problem with them yeah so it's and the reason this is the case is because there is greater a greater agreement throughout the world that human rights are important and must be respected and then that people should not be thrown in prison for thought crimes this is actually an advancement this is not moral decay this is quite the opposite of it in my view so and I did my question that I asked you is like do you believe objective morality is real yes 100 every every theist person believes that can you give me an example of an objective moral that would be applicable in this debate for example in Islam it says you are not considered a Muslim unless you treat others unless you love for others that what you love for yourself okay this is not treat others like you treat yourself but actually love for them that what you love for yourself so you're referring to what the Christians call the golden rule which comes from the holy bible as far as I know and then there's been other societies had different variants on it as well I actually think that there's a serious problem with the golden rule because I think it's flawed especially in a heterosexual relationship where moments of intimacy might be a very strong example where you're having where the golden rule says treat others the way you wish to be treated that's not going to work in a moment of intimacy in a heterosexual relationship I can assure you there is there are other things too people have different preferences on how they wish to be how they wish for people to treat them and regard them and this is this is the diversity in the world the golden rule tries to bring about in a subtle way a sense of conformity I suggest that there should be an a better approach to this that is that we should strive to treat others in accordance with their preferences and some people will immediately say oh that's the golden rule no it isn't it's very specifically different because the golden rule is based on the assumption that everybody wants to be treated the same way so I see that as a failing in objective morality because individual preferences are varied as you know there and you're talking about sexual orientation earlier and that I think is a fantastic example of how people's preferences vary some people are bisexual some people are homosexual some people like myself are heterosexual and the list goes on there are people are asexual they have no interest in at all there are people who are sapiosexual they're only turned on by intelligence and there are different things so these preferences are all over the board and the list goes on so the golden rule doesn't work very well in a lot of these scenarios unfortunately you see I'm sorry I feel like what what you described is different than what I said because I did not well you did talk about something that sounded like the golden rule no what I said is that you're not a muslim and you love for others that which you love for yourself okay there is no treatment here there is no application of anything just in my mind I you don't have to abide by it you don't have to follow it just in my mind to be a true believer I have to love for you that which I love for myself okay if you're I don't know if if you're playing a game I would wish for you to win if if you die I would wish for you to go to heaven if Islam tells me that I'm not a muslim that if in my heart I wish for you to go ahead so that is different okay so like the examples that you said do not apply to watch are you are you saying that it states that to be a muslim you must not want other people to die and things like that is that right yeah you must wish must love for others what you love for yourself and so that what comes to mind for me there that disagrees with that is this chapter 4 verse 89 of the Qur'an that instructs killing people who don't believe in Allah you're familiar with that I'm sure okay I don't memorize the whole Qur'an no no problem I I don't know I want to look it up yeah that's fine so you said 81 yeah chapter 4 verse 89 89 okay yeah and I debated this recently with on this channel with a modern day debate here with a fellow a gentleman named Mir Nadir Ahmed and I'm probably not pronouncing his name exactly right but I'm trying I apologize Nadir if you're listening to this he he went on tried to argue that the next two verses serve as a spot check and to me that sounds like this part of the Qur'an the Islamic teaching is in disagreement with what you just told me and I think this is a pretty powerful defeater for your your claim that that qualifies as objective morality uh myself somebody who doesn't believe in Allah you know I of course have a big problem with that part of the Qur'an and my hope is that people don't follow it unfortunately I look at extremists out there who follow it and take it seriously and try to exercise it that is a problem so I think this influence Islamic influence in society this chapter and verse in particular is a contributor to moral societal moral decay okay uh I want to again that takes that takes the spotlight off of atheism because it's the atheism is not the exclusive arbiter of morality which you're you're stating by saying that objective morality is is real uh okay uh so it sounds to me like you're you're not making the case here no it's uh okay uh I gotta correct you and and and what you said because uh yeah please do uh because if you pick and choose to the Qur'an you will probably we even say that in Arabic uh we say okay so uh basically what it means is that what it's saying it's saying that that a a bad D it is for prayers who are distractors distracted from their prayers okay so but so like when when the time calls for the prayer I'm supposed to go and pray so now we say that you cannot use half the verse you can say wait a little more slowly uh a sin for the prayers so so every verse has to be uh you have to know the context the context of that verse and know who was said and if you read the verse before that I was talking about the Munafiqin okay that the the the Munafiqin which is the hypocrites okay that pretended to be with the Muslims in al-Madinah but they were actually they were actually with the with the other side so those were called how is that how is that uh a good moral standard to put them to death instead of just excommunicating them saying you're you're a hypocrite no the no the the the the verse asked them asked them to evacuate okay but they actually were were coming back and fighting okay so that's what God said that in that specific verse but if you read the whole Quran God in the Quran specifically said specifically said that God does not for that God does not uh remorse you or or uh or blame you for those who did not fight you and did not kick you out of your homes to be kind to them and be good with them or good to them or something uh I because I'm translating from my head there's no problem so a verse is clear God is telling you that the people that are kind to you people who don't fight you and don't kick you out of your at your homes basically your land or whatever God tells you that God does not does not tell you not to be kind to them as opposed to that he asked you to be kind to them and and be good to them yeah it's me 489 seems to be focused on the act of killing rather than acts of kindness that's the problem I have with it and it's it's good that you're mentioning context and whatnot it's just that being there I the next parts bring up what I called three annoyances that there's three parts where it specifies the conditions in more detail it elaborates on them saying if one of these if these conditions are not met then then you can kill them it's giving them a license to kill for three things that annoy them so of course you know I won't ask you we're not I was just gonna say no that's okay because we're not really here to debate the Quran yeah exactly unless you're trying to use the Quran as an example of objective morality no I would use the Quran as as a let me let me emulate this because I'm sorry you just talked a little bit more than I did so I had little chance to to reply the number one I would like for you for anyone to take the verse like the example you said chapter four the verse 89 I would like for you to go to the scholars that explain the Hadith that tells you the historical because every verse in the Quran there's something we call S7 the reason I wasn't talking about Hadith so I was just talking about what's in the Quran no no I'm saying every verse no every verse in the Quran has something that we call S7 the reasons the reasons of the revelation and those reasons of revelation are very specific to like specific circumstances for example for example for example to read that if you if you read the verse from Quran that says God is innocent from those you have made peace with you would say wow what is that but if you if you read what what was it about because the Muslims have made peace with these people from from from Arabia and back then it was no it was the wild wild west if you think that that was a thing in the 1800s in the west you gotta think what it was in Arab in arabia in the 6th century okay so they made a treaty with them and they came at night and they killed the whole town and God that was the only verse that came without basmala which is in the name of Allah the most uh the clement the most musical code is because Allah was not happy the verse just started God is innocent from those which with whom you have you have made peace we have made the made the treaty so you gotta understand the context the context of where the verse have come and you gotta read the whole Quran i mean you can't you you can't read just a few chapters or or few chapters that have been passed around to judge the Quran or the bible or the Torah for the for that matter so i mean i don't understand what is the problem why people can't grab a book and just read it a whole book i mean they need Harry Potter they need everything but they talk about Islam more than they talk about Harry Potter but yes they're willing to talk about Islam and just Islam without without even knowing what the book says okay so uh uh i'm sorry you asked me a question before that yeah it was about uh whether objective morality is real and uh you did answer yes and and then you uh referred to something under Islam as an example when i'd asked you for an example of objective morality so i would i would have used i would have other uh other religions to point out because i believe in Christianity i believe in Judaism i believe in every reason that preceded Islam so but unfortunately i'm uh i'm not well versed in uh in uh in uh in their books so i would not be able to to do that but i will defend them as well because we'll just talk about what i'm defending here i'm defending that that that the god that made the universe made a set of rules for it okay those set of rules you might disagree with them at times as an individual you might talk about the natural laws now right or you're talking about objective morals okay i'm talking about everything that that accounts for for the laws for everything for like when god made his universe he made god in the Quran says okay so okay so god in i think like in the seventh seventh verse of that chapter he says he has raised the heavens and created the scale the scale which is basically the balance the law for everything to to happen so god for his universe he has these set of rules we don't have to get involved in the Quran we were told that every one of god's creators has refused this responsibility to take the test and we did accept that and when we did accept that i accepted it and you accepted it and he accepted it everyone on earth accepted that they're going to take the test where they will be given the choice where they're not going to worship god by by by necessity but they will actually be given the choice and they will worship the god and then if they win that test then they will win something that is great which is heaven for eternity it's a tough test and god said that human has transgressed against himself by by by taking on that change so okay so let me just ask you first we for the second chapter 4 verse 89 does give people a choice to believe or not with a consequence attached to it if they don't believe then they can be killed so that sounds like coercion to me which is one of the things that i listed in my opening statement as as an issue with as an example of a cause of a societal moral decay so i do think that that's problematic that verse is a problem that's it's a serious problem and unless yeah like i said unless you go back and read the context let me let me let me ask you a question yeah sure uh okay uh do you believe that polygamy is wrong what do you mean do i believe in polygamy no no i don't believe in polygamy i mean do you believe you believe it's immoral nope um as long as all the people involved in it are consenting adults i don't have an issue with it you know um in fact it is i think robert uh sapolsky's talked about this he's he's a scientist who talks about a lot of evolutionary biology i believe he talks a lot about biology and and how where morals come from and things like that it's a very interesting person to to listen to he's um he's talking about i was just listening to something the other day where he was talking about how uh multiple people involved in a relationship non-monogamous relationships were not uncommon in the past and he's comparing DNA the bonobo population the bonobos we share about the same amount of DNA and genes with them as we do with chimpanzees the bonobos are quite peaceful and they have polygamy it's quite common whereas the chimpanzees are more more kind of competitive and quite hostile to each other and he was saying that we've got a little bit of each of them and it makes us a very interesting species but polygamy is something that there are people who practice it and practice it in a healthy way um there are monogamous relationships that people also practice in a healthy way um then with both of these groups there are people who practice them in unhealthy ways and that are creating a lot of problems so um i can't put a blanket statement on it and say it's all good that's why i put the condition there that people have to be do realize that do realize that's one of one one of the top 10 list of things that islam gets attacked that islam what gets attacked for it does yeah like i know that islam limits so that a woman can only marry one man but a man can marry multiple women up to a certain number yes and that was the reason and it is discouraged it is it is sexist it is sexist okay and that's that's a form of bigotry that's also contributing to um uh societal moral decay in my view this is not an atheistic thing this is an islamic standard no but here's the deal uh in the Quran it is discouraged and the reason that polygamy was allowed if you listen to scholars is because back in the back in those times it was often wars and after the wars are over it was very few men left in in the in the towns so one so for for these women not to recourse to i don't know other sources or whatever or not be able to marry someone or something they were allowed to they were allowed to do polygamy to for a man to have more than one wife you can imagine how many people die in the war where people face each other with a sword and only the the winners will come back so you can imagine the few that are left that flee and go back to the town whatever it will be fewer men everywhere and even even the winners will be fewer fewer men so the women it was it was when you say it's a sexist thing that's i mean that's subjective that's in your opinion yes it is my opinion yes right okay okay so just a moment i want to jump in really quick is that in just a couple of minutes we'll kind of let you guys wrap up this in the open discussion and then just a couple of minutes we'll have to go into the queue or uh before the q&a the closing statements and then the q&a okay so so i was saying i said it is it is it is just in your opinion and something else to tell you is that most people don't agree with the most most people that actually uh uh subscribe for the subjective morality actually don't subscribe to to the opinion that he just gave a polygamy okay and now let me let me ask you a further question what i was talking about the polygamy i was talking about polygamy like within the marriage like where where where where the where the woman is actually because i don't i don't think in Utah a woman can marry more than a man oh yeah it's a problem it's got the same problem so okay so so so let me so let me ask you a question uh is it okay for polygamy outside the marriage is it okay is sex outside the marriage okay for you if all the people who are married in the marriage agree to it then yes it's okay um that's uh but there are people who have a very black and white authoritarian uh perspective on this because they think that certain rules must always be followed no matter what um i'm through this conversation uh you've not been able to provide me with objective morality an example of it um you've not successfully anyway i don't think and it's the the subject of this debate is if atheism leads to societal moral decay and i i don't think you've really made any argument to that effect um you know we've got a little bit of time left i'll give you time if you want to make a not an argument for it you know i mean i i i i tried but uh you you got admitted you went on some derivatives and and uh and you did not uh you you did not answer the questions like what i what question i don't answer go ahead ask me okay so when I ask the last question is that it sounds like Samir does that sound good okay sure so sex outside the marriage leads to so many problems in society we have kids that are born without with without fathers we have kids were born with unknown fathers we have kids kids were not we have kids who are not were living in the family where where what there is no father figures so these kids tend to tend to grow up a lot of them these are just the statistics this is not what I wanted to be but a lot of them end up end up growing to follow some they either grow up to be into drugs or into crime or into this one to that because it because they just started they just started wrong foot without without it being anything of their fault but that's actually a wrong assumption the in the fact where we we have social programs where there are parents who are matched up with these kids to help them there's a lot less of that goes on there's it does happen I won't deny it but there are all kinds of really good programs in certain countries where things get turned around and are a lot better so where a family unit falls down this is why it's so important that the society is there to to pick up and and keep things going and keep everybody safe because the fundamental role of a government is to ensure that all its citizens are protected and and one of the ways that a government can go about protecting its citizens its populace is to make sure that there are safety nets in place for people who fall outside of the expected norms of society and then they can also have a good opportunity as well but you have a question for me right yes so why not just I do have to just before because we we have gone for the open dialogue for a while I is that as not sure if we got to that question it we didn't get to the question yet no it's imperative some of your if we if you if you gotta just ask the question in like eight seconds and then let Randolph respond and then we got to go to the closing statements okay well I believe that subject to morality but I believe isn't like a question I need you to ask the question because okay well like I've tried to move us into that next mode several times okay I apologize if I didn't say what I'm supposed to say no worries okay thank you James so here's my question why should we allow for something wrong to happen to try to pick up the crumbs and I don't know about how it is in Canada but I'll tell you I live in the United States and I'll tell you that the problem is not being fixed by the government as much as you think I tell you that there are so many of these what they call a baby's daddy or baby's mama or whatever would you want to say when these kids are I mean how is the government is just it's just stepping into maybe maybe offer them offer them some some food stamps or something or some school supplies or whatever to which I say but it does not replace the father figure the question is why allow for this morality that allows for the section outside the marriage that creates whether the person is married it creates a problem in his marital life whether the person is not married then he can create problems in the society that have to be picked up by the government why why even go there in a monogamous marriage if the parents are abusive physically emotionally sexually etc that also creates serious problems in society so regulating and legislating I think is what you're hinting at legislating marriage so that people absolutely cannot go outside of the marriage is it's going to happen anyway people will have affairs unfortunately and or people will agree to or people will or people will agree to be swingers or things like that these things are fine you know again this is I don't I'm not under any illusion that the government can fix magically fix all the problems in society but the government can put social nets in place to help increase the the chances the probability of people coming out better in the long run and having a better quality of life down the road a lot of people who've been through these bad families very often want to create families of their own later on in the future that don't make those same mistakes so they still learn from it and this is very important so you see you're asking me about a good time especially I'm okay with paying into so just 30 more seconds changed I'm okay with paying into a system that provides more social nets for people because I know that more people will benefit in society the society is better as a whole this might be a good opportunity Samira will give you a chance to respond in the closing statement so we'll give you about two minutes to respond any closing statement and then we'll give Randolph two minutes for his drawing together the threads of this debate as well on his side and then we'll go into that Q&A so folks if you have questions feel free to submit them and want to remind you folks our guests are linked in the description so if you'd like to hear more from Samir if you'd like to learn more about our guest views there'd be Samir or Randolph you can by clicking on their links below and with that Samir will give you a chance for your closing statement okay thank you so I'll tell you make it fast the my point is that I don't I don't expect the government to pick up the crops I don't expect the legislation to come in and fix those are not the morals I'm talking about the morals within each individual I don't need the government to guide me to tell me not to cheat on my wife or to have a sexual relation outside of the marriage or even worse an unprotected sexual relations outside the marriage those are individual morals that lead to that and they have a lot of consequences and it feels to me that atheism that that that is almost almost asking for this world where where there is no right and wrong which is a defeated statement because if I believe that it's wrong then I'm wrong to believe that that is right and wrong and and so if I'm wrong that there is a right and wrong that it makes it that is wrong because I'm wrong and if I'm not wrong then I'm right that is right so so my point is what the point that I'm saying is that we cannot allow for this we cannot allow for uh for problems to happen based on this open mindness to just let things happen and then we're going to pick up the crumbs we can't say that we're going to have slavery and then we're going to go and fix it later we can't we can't we can't say that we're going to have sex outside the marriage and then somehow we're gonna we're gonna have programs soon to to fix things after I mean the religion the religion is objective morality prohibits all that prohibits you from from from slaving people and from prohibits you from from having sex outside the marriage prohibits you from from all kinds of these things that are that are supposedly becoming becoming a everyone's free will and choice like everyone now has this this choice to create his own morality which is fine by me I mean if somebody wants to live by them walls I don't I don't I'm not obligating to live by mine but what I'm saying is that I believe I can't I can have a position that the subjective morality does not work because it is ought to be progressive morality and it will progress at different places around the globe and around history and it will create a chaos in especially now in the 21st century what we're communicating what the whole world is communicating together you don't need to travel for a month to get to Europe now you can be in Europe if you always you can be in Africa and two hours to be so the whole world need to have some morality that that binds the world together we cannot have we cannot have this world where there is this subjective morality where it's different everywhere else in the world it creates a problem and that leads to that leads to consequences and my fear with that is the way it's going and the way it's leading it's going to be a time when the atheist progressive moralist is has the upper hand I'm pretty sure it would be persecution of the theist objective most time thank you that's my fear kick it over to Randolph for his closing as well the floor is all yours wow covered a lot of topics there atheism is not asking for no sense of right or wrong it's it's an incidental factor this is up to individual atheists who want to live well in society and will abide by the laws of that society or try to improve them usually some people try to make them worse which is why we need to have open discussions and people think about the decisions that are being made one of the the greatest ideas for making laws has been from John Rawls in his theory of justice look up the veil of ignorance I won't review it here because it'll take too much time there's I just want to clarify one point too in case anybody has the wrong idea about it I am not making the assumption that any deities exist here I just it's not really the topic of this debate so I'm not I haven't been focusing on this angle of it I don't have a problem with people believing in deities I'm not trying to stop it or anything Samir you mentioned that everyone has a choice to create their own morality and that you're fine with that I'm glad that you are and then you turn around and you talk about how this won't work because it will lead to chaos I already specified earlier in the debate that I think it's like with philosophy where if you don't have consensus you have this progenitor of improving ideas if more people can discuss these ideas and debate them like we are hopefully we can find better solutions to things you indicated the whole world needs morality I I agree with that in a general way and you mentioned that we can't have subjective morality because it leads to consequences well and then then you're I disagree with that yes there will be consequences but I what I disagree with is that there'll be bad consequences what we've seen throughout history is different moral standards coming in and people taking bits and pieces from different philosophies and different religions and different ideas and putting them all together and coming up with a better system overall so that's where I think things need to be the you mentioned about atheists having the upper hand this is not a race if that's how it turns out because more people are leaving religion then maybe it's time to ask if there's problems with religion and I'll just quickly read one quick thing from my opening statement here that I emphasize that everyone plays a role in society no matter how large or small in shaping the moral landscapes of the societies within which we live and hopefully prosper in a myriad of ways this is a common attitude that I encounter with both many religious people and many atheists this is an individual thing and I think in a general sense we can all have agreement but when it comes down to minor points that's where we'll see variation thank you very much thank you very much Randall as well and want to remind you folks our guests are linked to the description so you'd like to hear more about their positions you certainly can by clicking on their links below and that includes if you're listening via the podcast we put our guest below our guest links in the description box below at the podcast episode as well so want to encourage you you can check them out as well as forgot to say folks if you enjoy controversial debates I highly encourage you you probably have a friend out there who enjoys them as well hit that share button and share this debate with them as they probably enjoy it and with this one or I should say this Q&A the first question comes from Oflamio who says atheism is not a religion Samir it is a response to a single proposition what is your religion Randolph I don't have a religion I never have and I don't see myself having one at any point unless something convinces me we run a stream every two weeks every fortnight asking people to give us a convincing to convince us that deity exists so far nothing's happened so I'm I'm still an atheist you got it and bitter truth says Muhammad married a child there's a coming after you Samir so they're pressing you they say Muhammad married a child she was six and when she was nine had they consummated the marriage they say do you think this is a good way to take childhood rights and old man is this uh I think they're saying like is this okay for a child an old man to be together is this really a moral system okay uh this is this is what we talk about subjective moral and uh let me let me explain to you that not long ago here just in the US in the state or another the the legal age was was 10 years old okay so if you go past the then if you go past the legal age in the 20th century just past the legal age then the rest with your subjective morality you don't have any problem with the with the with somebody being 20 years younger 21 folder of 30 years whatever that's what I say so we established you don't have that problem but right here you don't have to go back to the sixth century where everything was different you can look at what's happening right what was happening right now in the 20th century just few I mean just 20 years ago and and then and then decide what the circumstances are number one uh we're we're talking about marriage okay so okay because this is a sensitive point and I feel like a lot of people don't like to talk about it because they uh I mean a lot a lot a lot a lot a lot of last debate I did dropped it but this debate I yeah I like the grounds of the debate I'm not looking at the chat so maybe that's keeping me positive uh okay so the point I would like to make is that in that time the thinking or before that the Quran tells us that uh I just got to press you just because we were running out of time for this question okay okay I'll try to make a quick time to this okay okay at that time people got married and the divorce rate was very low and it was it was known that both males and female got married younger that was an exceptional case that was an exceptional case because it was a it was a prophet and that girl was had the honor to be married and and and associated with with God's last messenger so it is something totally unique and different you you don't you don't see it in that time you don't see that somebody's marrying a younger girl but what what do you see I mean you you can you can you can go anywhere anywhere you would find that that girls underage are having sexual relationships and they're even having babies their whole life getting getting ruined from that and they're getting nothing from that they're not getting protected they're not going to inherit they're not going to get a divorce uh uh a judge to give them the house or the car or whatever because there is nothing on paper because everything was outside of the marriage so you go ahead quick point I want to make James uh Sudan um the youngest age a girl can get married is 10 and the youngest age boy can get married is 15 unless they get judicial permission to go younger and there are other countries like that it's abhorrent in my view this one coming in from avias mando says samir why must someone who is trans and bisexual be persecuted by objective morals that label label me as haram or haram let me know if i pronounce your right and then they said Randolph cool stash man you rock it okay uh okay so now i would like to uh to emphasize i said that in the beginning of this interview i said these are things that i would not these are topics that i would not even be having in the regular conversation with someone and here i am having this debate on youtube and having to bring up some of these points uh i want you to know that for that person who has a transgender or or or who's a lesbian or who's i want you to know that not me not just me every feast to them they love for you what they love for themselves which is heaven okay so their point they still they still love you for who you are there is nothing they don't hate you as a person there is nothing against you as a person and they have nothing against any single human on this planet all seven billion long okay and i'll tell you every muslim will tell you and every piece will tell you but having to say what my religion says for me and my religion tells me that each one of us is a shepherd in each one is responsible for it's early okay this is my what my religions tell me so my herd is my friend that's my first herd and then the bigger herd is everyone else i can talk to people about different things it doesn't have to be sexual orientation it could be anything that i that i believe is my opinion if they welcome the conversation if they don't then they don't for example right now here we're in debate and we're both agreeing that we're gonna discuss some topics that we probably couldn't just discuss if we met in a park or whatever so i want you to understand that i have nothing personally against i would never be for or even hint to the persecution of anyone for their sexual orientation gotcha and this one coming in from do appreciate your question bitter truth says where islam says humanity is above than religion but it is teaching hate provoking to kill innocents and not allowed to ask questions on its philosophy so they're saying that it's teaching hate and provoking to kill innocents i don't know if they mean what they're referring to in particular but i give you a chance to let's my uh guess is they mean maybe like the alleged throwing off of people off of a roof in some countries if they happen to be gay i'm just okay okay uh i lived the first half of my life in a muslim country and i never heard of things like that there is there are some extremists in every part of the war there are extremists here in the u.s there is a guy that stood that that stood on a on a eleventy fifth floor of a hotel and started shooting at some people those exceptions should not be used as a rule the quran does not tell us to kill anyone the quran even said that if you kill someone he said whoever killed a soul without a soul it's like if he killed a whole humanity so uh the the quran does not ask us to do this and i and i hope that he would not that he would stop using the the extremist uh examples to apply and and and and and and the whole religion and all the two billion of us who are not doing that just like we're not judging uh uh europeans i mean germans by hitler we're not judging belgians by uh uh what's his name the the the guy that that that killed six million people uh or we're not judging americans by the guy that stood on the road and started shooting at people i ask you the same thing do not judge the muslims for what somebody did in in either in some extreme country or some extremist guided in in the country which is not experienced either gotcha i remind people to look at chapter four verse 89 instructs killing of infidels sorry james no problem this one coming in from do appreciate your question bitter truth says samir why do you keep let's see they say islam is teaching of course islam is spreading hate and they didn't uh have a question per se attached to that but this one coming from jeff solstice do you believe in noah's arc which i say they jeff says as a a myth i do i do i'm sorry for you samir because i don't think okay do i believe do i believe in noah's arc not uh okay yes i believe in no azark but no azark was not in our version it wasn't a global flood like it is in the uh christian version and uh it was a local flood god flooded the region uh whether you want to believe it or not uh it's up to you you can be agnostic to it but you cannot say that it didn't happen because i believe in my religion because i have great uh reasons to believe the whole scripture then i am uh ought to believe that noah's arc didn't happen gotcha thank you very much for this question coming in from cameron hall says samir if a la told you to mary a nine-year-old would you do it okay allah told me to uh listen to allah and listen to his messenger and listen to the people who are responsible uh who are in charge of me so which means the government okay so uh so even if i had such a desire which i guarantee you i don't okay even if i had such a desire the crown instruct me to follow the people who are in charge of me which is now the laws and regulations of the country that are living okay and uh let me ask you i would like to ask a question to to the crowd in exchange i don't know if this ever happens since what since the subject is morality and uh uh i don't know maybe uh james can testify because he read a lot of my comments who have different topics that are fully unrelated to religion or whatever i was always respectful and uh kind to everyone i tried to be uh the the best i could conduct myself during those uh the questions or whatever so now i ask if the more if we're talking about subjects wrong if my objective morality tells me to try to be kind i want to ask some people that insulted me in the last video just for talking like this when i didn't insult anyone i want to ask him did this subjective morality tell him to attack me and is it only because i'm not because supposedly now we're just talking i'm talking for all three religions major religions and i'm talking about for objective morals and ethics uh against subjective morals and ethics so i wouldn't understand why the people will carry their hate to me is it because i'm muslim or because i got a little channel that usually or so i'll ask you that what is your what is your subjective morality i hope you put that in the suit this one coming in from bitter truth says there's no humanity in islam explain if this is wrong but let's see don't lie i come from a muslim family myself so you can't fool me they're coming after you tonight we'll give you a chance to respond no i i rule i i i rule as the the attack would be uh will be an islam i mean i can't expect it i can't expect it that because uh things like this will happen all the time i mean even when tiger woods uh decided not to play in a tournament in Saudi Arabia i was reading the comments and uh and twitter and i was just like wow what is all this hate what was all this hate hidden so uh so it shows you that supposedly that's a religion that's supposed to make me hate other people you would realize that the people that are coming from these religions were supposedly thought to hate you actually are the ones that love you and the one that's one tried to spread the message to you and i'm talking about our religion whether whether it's us the questions of the of the jewish we're all trying to turn our hand to you and tell you let's come find the way to god but then instead for you you will always find that way where you can uh where you can attack us for our religion and especially muslims for some reason you got it and i think you're james uh just check the zoom chat when you got a chance you got it this one coming in from do appreciate your question this is from bitter truth says Muhammad raped a child age of nine that hadn't reached puberty by aisha in sahi al-bakari is this i don't even like uh well no this this is just an insult because uh Muhammad did not rape a child that's that that is just the question is phrased in the way to be insulted so uh i don't know if he should even answer this want to give uh randolph a chance to respond someone in chat had said atheists can't base their morals on anything namely they're saying that there's no foundation randolph want to give you a chance to respond to this idea yeah there's uh nothing in atheism that restricts us from uh taking morals uh moral ideals from other from different philosophies uh humanism is one example that's quite common secular humanism but there are good things that can come from religions and different philosophies that we we will draw from and usually we will first and foremost mostly atheists i know will work within whatever legal system in the society that we're we're working with if we see a problem just like any member of society if we see an issue we will try to uh encourage our government to make changes through whatever uh means that are available to us thank you thank you james yeah my pleasure and this one coming in from mark read says amazing job randolph samir failed i they say samir i think you failed to show in any way how atheism would lead to society decaying got a critical there and then bitter truth says my vote for randolph richardson he's clearly the winner and then let's see mercedes f1 fans that why did the prophet request his prepubescent bride to scrape semen from his garments this has come up in past debates is this in the Quran or is this in a different uh text samir because i know that some people don't some muslims don't hold to text outside of the Quran but i don't know what this is from to be honest i can't remember from the last debate okay uh the that part is this from the Quran was was that your question or your question i'm sorry just the last part of the they're asking why did Muhammad request his prepubescent bride to scrape semen from his garments okay uh i'm not i'm not aware of such hadith this is not in the Quran i'm not aware of such a hadith and i don't know what uh how is the translation or whatever uh get to them but i cannot comment on it because it would be unfair because i don't know this one from dark indeed says samir if you believe every religion before islam why does it not make sense to be a Mormon why because Mormonism is not before Islam sorry i couldn't hear you because Mormonism is not uh did not come before islam and is would thought that islam is the last religion the last message and warning from god for his creed got you this one coming in from bitter truth says samir you guys take the Quran from god which is telling fireballs or meteors angels shooting on jinn i think they're saying that fireball of meteors according to the Quran or angels shooting on jinn or if i remember right that would be demons isn't i was hoping the jinn would be alcohol they say isn't this a great insult of creator if he exists okay let me uh i will ask you i will answer you with the question number one you believe that there is other life on this earth that is invisible to us like uh demons or or jinn or spirits or that are dropping every in every other topics but they're okay to be brought up in every other topic except for religion and i'm saying again whether it's i see christianity being attacked to this and judy isn't being attacked for this god said he created those beans so how he deals with them if god created the whole universe believe me there is there is no supernatural for him it might be supernatural for you but there is no supernatural for him okay so when god tells me that he that that that he garnished the lower sky with with the with the planets okay and he tells me that the next star the next sky has the stars okay so now i start to think and then i start to realize okay there's a first sky okay but my immediate surroundings the solar system outside of that that is the stars in my galaxy and up to 19 i believe 28 we didn't even know that was something outside the galaxy so now we'll step into the third sky so just wait maybe science will be at best enough to let you know that there is seven heavens like all three visions so we're up to three now keep coming gotcha this one coming in from do appreciate your question as well mark reed says samir an attack on islam is not an attack on you personally do you think that reliefs should be above question if so then why question atheism uh there's okay here's the deal the deal that the uh the approximation that i'm going to give you probably all heard the same that says do not throw stones if you're glass made out of glass so now i'm going to ask you how do you feel because i feel like most attacks on religion by atheists even if randolph is not attacking religion i mean i do a little bit but okay i try to focus spin on the idea i'll give you i'll give you a state you're you're you're i appreciate it okay thank you i appreciate it so so most attacks on the religion are based on the principle of i can't throw stones on your on your glass house because i'm homeless whether your glass house is religion is islam uh Christianity Judaism whatever it is because i'm homeless you cannot come back at me and tell me this because i do not believe in any of that so so i'm just gonna break down your foundation and i have no foundation for you to break down that's that's why how well i think you're reflecting on that where the atheists are coming from not having some kind of religious like position so there's no avenue attack against us because we're not coming from the foundation of making any claims about deities or anything i guess that's kind of what you're referring to no i mean i'll tell you i'll tell you randolph you see the the reason the reason i said i like the way you're approaching the topic because it's approaching for the respect but when i look at some i mean you gotta realize that we all us theists we hold our god above ourselves above our parents above our children it's something that is very sacred to us okay so just like my objective morals are telling me not to insult the other person for their parents i wonder how the subjective atheists or some subjective atheists think it's okay to insult someone's god in front of them at their presence so everyone has different communication everyone has different communication styles and no i don't i don't believe i don't believe that assaulting should be should be all right well i am an advocate for uh free expression and even though i try to have really good conversations and i greatly appreciate you noticing this about my approach so thank you for for that i do appreciate it a lot is that even if somebody's doing something that may be distasteful what's more important to me is uh understanding what the underlying message of what they're trying to get at is i've i've encountered some theists who are extremely hostile to me and to other atheists and yet instead of firing back with other insults i still try to i strive to understand what it is they're really trying to say because then i can address the points and and more than 50 of the time i find it turns into a reasonable conversation and we can actually make some progress so i find this works well for me other people prefer to use a more bombastic approach you could say and that works better for them i guess um it's just not my cup of tea but you see i'm not going to say they should not be allowed to say something that somebody else will find insulting um when they're criticizing their religion what i what i do discourage is making personal attacks on an interlocutor that's that's a thing this one this one coming in from bitter truth this one's for you samir they say muhammad likes his daughter-in-law and a la announces now she's muhammad's wife she was his stepson's wife don't you think this is muhammad don't you think this is muhammad karan i'm not sure what they mean by that that's what they say though okay uh i think there may be one you gotta number one you gotta i recommend if if if you can come up with that question from the hadith which are which there are thousands of hadiths i'll tell you that the karan is a much smaller book and i want you to go read the karan and read the chapter of nisa okay and i want you to read who are who you are legally are allowed to marry and who you are while you're not legally allowed to marry and some people and and some i mean some uh some women that you know some men that you're not allowed to legally marry you can marry them if certain circumstances happen so this is just another example of subjective morality and it's also just another example of picking and choosing you got it this one coming in from do appreciate can you canusa pack says samir have you heard of the scandal myria quibitia and muhammad uh no i have no idea what you're talking about gotcha and this one last one i want to get one of these standard questions in because michael mccaffrey asked this question really early on and has stayed in the entire debate so michael were thanks for being so engaged says question for randolph do you accept the premise that our society's morality is in fact decaying in general like in other words like do you think regardless of whether or not it's due to atheism or a religion do you think that society's morality is even actually decaying i think that's uh the kind of question that there isn't a straightforward yes or no answer to and the reason is because i do think that there are parts of society where things are decaying morally and other parts where they're improving and uh the this is going to vary the the the ratio is going to vary from one society to the next so it's i'm sorry it's not a straightforward answer i'm doing the best i can hear for you i i think it's a mixture you got it thank you very much from or i should say from me to our guests as well as to all of you out there for your questions and for making the live chat lively and want to say though huge thank you samir and randolph it's been a true pleasure to have you guys folks their link in the description i don't know what you're waiting for if you want to learn more about their views you certainly can by clicking on their links below one last thank you though samir and randolph it's been a pleasure to have you thank you so much thank you james it's been a pleasure as always and uh it was uh fantastic to meet you as well um samir right yes thank you thank you samir it was thank pleasure speaking with you i i want to talk with you for a moment afterwards so hang around yeah sure thank you likewise i uh i really enjoyed the conversation i'm glad uh it had mutual respect and uh and uh i hope that uh i have properly used my uh fourth language to uh to say to convey what i needed to say so i apologize if i missed we had a bit more time we could have got into the astrophysics stuff you mentioned at the beginning the big bang and whatnot but that's okay thank you james um and thank you to everybody who's tuning in i appreciate it my pleasure and we'll be back i'll be back in just a moment folks with updates on upcoming debates so stick around for example that one that i mentioned daniel hook he could you and t jump the why is this phrase i'm blanking on this phrase what's the phrase the immovable object the unstoppable force collide this saturday that'll be a fun one so stick around i'll be back you go ahead shouldn't he be an immovable in an immovable chair that's true in the immovable chair that's good i like that so i'll be back in a moment with updates about upcoming debates like that one folks stick around ladies and gentlemen thrilled to be with you want to give you a quick update about some of the upcoming debates going on at modern day debate so in particular first hope you're doing well folks thanks for hanging out with us i see you there in the old live chat and want to mention i had already mentioned this big juicy debate coming up this saturday daniel hook he could you and he jumped debate on whether or not atheists are consistent in their skepticism you don't want to miss it good to see you there in the old live chat i've got to do a really quick post credit show we want to say thank you guys so much for your support seriously michaelo thank you for coming by i see you there in the old live chat as well as a a good to have you again and mom and mon thanks for coming by good to have you air church thanks for your support who says like and share thanks for that we're almost up to a hundred likes we can totally get there folks we are at 78 so 22 more likes we have 144 people we can easily get 22 more likes to get us to that 100 mark but want to say thanks for being with us as well edward j peter is good to see you and dylan moats good to have you here nicky good to see you again mark read glad you made it and let me tell you about some of these upcoming debates so in particular if you look at the modern day debate home page we have our upcoming debates is the top list or the top playlist on our page and you can see one of them is islam is islam dangerous to the world apostate prophet versus muslim apologist you don't want to miss it that's going to be another juicy one as well as king croc aduck versus david mcqueen so king croc aduck has been debating on the youtube world for a long time he has uh but been around for many many years on youtube he's an old school one and so that will be a really fun debate you don't want to miss that one either but yeah i gotta tell you folks want to say thank you guys for being with us i see there are a lot of tornadoes i see there in the old chat as well as james wolf good to have you with us bison brick glad you made it cameron hall glad to have you here randoy prime happy to have you brian steven's good to see you amy newman good to see you as well of course christopher happy to have you here and nicky good to have you i hope you're doing well sammy hampari let me know if i'm saying it right we're glad you're here sammy dark indeed thanks for coming by says thanks guys i have to say all credit to the guests they are the lifeblood of the channel they make this fun and so randolph and samir are both linked in the description speaking of randolph good to see you randolph happy to have you i see there in the old live chat and let's see here hillary's emails happy to have you with us and perfect one good to see you there the irresistible force meets the immovable object the immovable let's see the unstoppable force meets the immovable object glad to have you with us i want to say folks i'm sorry i got to run i've actually got to get up super early so i can't do the post-credits show very long i do want to say though thank you guys for your support as i mentioned earlier if you have friends who enjoy topics like this controversial or even offensive topics hey there are not a lot of channels out there that are willing to host these things our hope is that we'll let a thousand flowers bloom and that the best arguments will win out that's what we believe and i think that's actually a good empirical case can be made for that but i want to say like i said if you enjoy juicy topics controversial and even offensive topics you probably got friends who do too i i bet you do and i'd highly encourage you to share this debate with randolph and samir with those friends you can click on that share button below and share the link into let's say a twitter thread a group thread or a facebook group you name it maybe even just a good old text message you can share the link and samir far saying thanks for your support appreciate your super chat said peace and love to everyone i hope i wasn't unpleasant or heavy on your hearts thank you james for the opportunity thank you samir for your kind heart seriously we appreciate it both thanks for your support through the super chat as well as your kind heart during the debate we appreciate your demeanor and your goal of loving everybody at samir seriously i really did appreciate that when you told me that in the twitter uh conversation we had earlier today when you said that you'd like that to be a part of your introduction namely that you really do love everyone you want to welcome everyone because this is the cordial discussion this is nice that you guys weren't interrupting or calling each other's names it was it was a good refreshing kind of debate we uh we hold no judgment over the old blood sports out there sometimes things get rowdy and you know different strokes or different folks but we do appreciate it it is nice when it is calm and you could say a civil discourse like it was tonight so thank you guys so much for your support we love you guys thanks again samir and randolph for making this a great debate and a great night we appreciate you guys and again folks both samir and randolph are in the description box you can learn more about their views by clicking on those links below and that includes if you're listening via the podcast we put their guests our guests links below in the description box there too so thanks everybody and thanks for all of your support as we strive to provide a neutral platform so that everybody on youtube can make their case on a level playing field thanks everybody we love you we look forward to seeing you at the next one this friday we're planning on having a political panel on whether or not there are two genders or more so you don't want to miss that one looking forward to seeing you guys and thanks for all of your support love you and see you next time amazing


Welcome back. It's Jeff Frick with Silicon Angle, where we go out to the events, extract the signal from the noise, find the smartest people we can talk to, ask them the questions that you was that you could ask them so we can get you the information. So we are at it, Accelerator in Mountain View, California. Again, we're here for the launch of their new enterprise platform launch. We've talked to a bunch of people from Accelerator, but it's always good to talk to customers and partners to kind of get the real story. So I'm here with Summit Reina from Popcorn Apps. He's a CEO and founder, obviously a partner of Accelerator. So welcome to the Cube. Tell us a little bit about why this announcement today is important. This is a big announcement both for Accelerator and their partners. So for us, it is, you know, they're talking about all the new product features and all the capabilities that the product has and we are the guys who are using it to realize both our vision and the vision of our customers. So if we are working with CIOs or business leaders on their mobile strategy and executing that strategy with one app, two apps, and in most cases it's a multitude of apps which really translates into about the first app is done, that's where this platform comes into play in a really big way. Multiple roles, multiple people that use this platform and they really are enabling essentially a mobile story that's a mobile first story. So why is the Accelerator platform as a methodology for building these apps better than the alternatives? It's the only what I would call a full service platform. What I mean by that is it's got core components of four main things, right? So it does cross-platform applications. So people these days are not really saying that I'll do only an Apple or iPhone app. I'll do an Android as well. I'll do tablets as well and multilingual, multi-currency. So it's all done across platform that is much beyond what people have seen before, right? Second thing is it provides the capability for various roles of the organization. So QA manager can go in and look at the test cycles that have run for these apps that his team or her team is testing. Third thing, it provides the analytics that are very, very crucial to any kind of app, right? It may be a customer-facing app where you may see the analytics and the customer profiling presentation of that customer and then figure out what's the right way to target this customer with new campaigns, for example. So analytics is really, really big. And the fourth thing is really around the dashboard. So dashboard is the real view into what is going on with my enterprise apps at any given time, whether these apps are customer-facing or the employee-facing really doesn't matter. It gives me a pinpointed information of real-time information as to what's going on with the users of these apps. So at Silicon Ango, we're very interested in enterprise. We talked to a lot of CIOs and obviously we see how this kind of consumerization of enterprise IT is happening. But you know, cute name, Popcorn Apps. I got to ask you, what's the story with Popcorn Apps and how does somebody with CIO Popcorn Apps get into big enterprises and sell telco deals? Popcorn Apps is a long story, probably longer than the time you have right now. But one of the first apps that we built was for a movie house and Popcorn was an app name. And it turned out that very easy to get a domain name. So essentially we named it Popcorn Apps. But no, all seriousness, we've actually been in front of boards where executive teams are actually discussing their mobile strategy and we are providing valuable input into that mobile strategy. And these are apps both for internal use, for their employees and for their customer-facing.  It's funny to tease. Anyone who's ever done a startup knows that the most difficult part is trying to find an available URL. Whatever strategy you had on your naming convention, you throw it out the window and you make it work. No, that's great. So you're out in the field. You've got a number of verticals that you guys specialize in. Who would you see from an industry point of view are kind of the leaders right now in adopting and the transformative power of leveraging mobile? So these are going big in terms of using the mobile for really getting out shopping in the customer's hands. Travel companies, so all the airlines, all the hotel, all the travel agencies are going big as well. They are probably on their second or third rendition of the app that they've launched. And they're also using it internally for their employees and their field force. And the Telcom operators basically believe that they are the ones who are providing this technology for consumers' hands and they really have to use this to leverage their own data infrastructure, their own voice infrastructure to provide the value that the consumer has. So really all about their applications and their applications enabling their enterprise customers. So field force applications and the likes of AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile are really pushing these out to a variety of different customer bases. Which begs the question, who are the laggards? That are just either still can't get over the hump or just on the edge of thinking about it? You know the laggards are, I wouldn't call them laggards but there are reasons for why they are laggards. They are either worried about security or regulatory information. So while there are a lot of pharma companies who are embracing mobility, there are a lot of companies who are basically looking at regulatory restrictions on what can be stored, what can be kept on a mobile device. Now you could have apps that have a beautiful UI, beautiful look and feel and transact very well and really don't store anything on the device itself and provide that security for transactions. So I think slowly but surely pretty much everyone is going to embrace this and security kind of things will sort of die down in terms of concern. Regulatory pressure will ease up as well. Thank you very much for coming on. Popcorn apps. So again, that's an interesting angle there at the end where you can get around maybe some of the regulatory issues with data by really having the app exist on the mobile device and not necessarily the data. So some great insight because again, that's what we'd like to give you.  So again, Jeff Frick from SiliconANGLE reporting live from Accelerator, Mountain View, California really covering their big announcement today which is the launch of their enterprise platform. So thanks again for coming on theCUBE. Again, you can always see us at siliconangle.com or wikibon.org. Jeff Frick signing off from Mountain View.