Bismillahirrahmanirrahim So good afternoon. My name is Asad Tarsin. I am going to present to you a brief sort of five minute explanation of probably ten, I think, and then we'll get into a bit more of the very foundations of Islam. So this is going to be a brief overview. So I'm challenged with summarizing an entire religion, its civilization, its teachings, short amount of time. It should be easy, right? And there will be a quiz at the end, so pay close attention. So I'm going to start with definitions. The first is the word Islam. What does Islam mean? So taken as a term in the in the Arabic language, if you were to look it up, Islam is a term that means to turn oneself over to or to surrender or resign oneself to. Being a Semitic language, the Arabic language, that is, there is a cognate root. And so it shares the same root as words such as peace or wholeness. But it's the proper name of the religion itself. Parallel to that is the term Muslim. So a Muslim is the title for somebody who follows the religion of Islam. It is, let's jump in ahead, just a little bit here. Technology works with you and against you sometimes. So a Muslim is one who surrenders to God and by doing so is able to attain a peace within themselves, a wholeness spiritually, by surrendering to God. So when we surrender ourselves to God, we thereby attain an inner serenity and wholeness. So a Muslim can be from any walk of life, any ethnicity, any background. It is not particular to any part of the world. Once it starts to behave, I will share with you a couple of pictures and hopefully highlight that. So who is that right there? We've got a couple of faces. Are you guys able to make those out? Stevens, Muhammad Ali, Dr. Oz, people of very different ethnicities, very different walks of life, all share the fact that they follow the religion of Islam. So they would be called Muslims even though none of them are Arab or Indian or Pakistani, but from different ethnicities. The third definition that I'd like to cover is the term that you might hear often, which is Allah. Allah is simply the Arabic name for God. It's actually used by Arabic speaking Jews and Christians as well. In fact, this right here, this image I have is from an Arabic copy of the Bible. And that says right there, it says Genesis and it says, fil bedi khalaq Allahu, Allah created in the beginning, Allah created the heavens and the earth. So there you have what is very common in all of the churches in the Middle East that are Arabic speaking that they use Allah in their churches as well. So it's not a specific God, but it's the God of Abraham and we believe it's a God who sent Noah and Isaac and Jesus, etc. It's all the same Allah and it's not a different, it's a different language and a different name, but referring to the same deity. So what we believe as Muslims is that God sent an entire succession of prophets. We don't believe that religion began with the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. We believe that all of God's prophets were sent in a succession and they all had a purpose and they all helped to build towards the culmination of the message. Islam doesn't see itself as something new, but as a completion and a restoration of previous messages sent by God. So for example, we hold that all of God's prophets were in a state of submission to God. And so Muslims will sometimes say Islam with a lower case I, because if we think of Noah building the Ark and obeying God's commands to do so, he was in a state of surrender to God. And so in that sense, he was in a state of Islam, even though he wasn't following the religion Islam, which gets revealed several millennia later. There's a famous tradition from the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, that I think summarizes all of this beautifully. He says that God's message to humanity is like a large, beautiful building that's been built. And people are walking around and admiring the beauty of the building. And they say what a wondrous structure, except it's just missing that one brick. And he says I am that final break. And so he sees himself as building upon what his brethren from the previous dispensations brought and not someone who comes to replace but rather to complete and to restore. And so part of the Muslim tradition is that God has sent over 124,000 prophets to humanity. We don't know them all. There are 25 that we know names in the Quran. And these are the household names. When we talk about Noah and Moses and Isaac and Ishmael and we name these names. But we don't know who else God sent God sent many. He we are told in the Quran that he did not leave a people except with someone who told them to worship God. And history sort of holds up to this every culture has a belief in a one great divine behind the creation of the universe. So whether it's a Native American tribe or the aboriginals in Australia, we would believe that some form of God's message reached them and that he would not have left them without a basic teaching. So there are three dimensions to the religion. And this all begins with is best told by a story. There's a famous event in the life of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, where he is sitting before the Kaaba, which is the sacred house and Mecca. How many of you have seen a picture of the sacred house, large black cubic structure. So that was actually built by Abraham. And it's there in the Bible, Becca with a B, instead of Mecca with an M, the B and the M are cognates in the Semitic language, right? In Becca, he and Ishmael build this temple to the to worship the one creator. And of course, as time goes on, it becomes overridden with polytheism and idols until the coming of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him. But one day, he's sitting with his companions, and a man comes to him. And this is a stranger, none of his companions know of who this person is, but he asks them a series of questions. And these questions become the answers to them become what we call the three dimensions of the religion. So these three dimensions are what the quiz will be on. Just just just given good hints here. Alright. So the first, and they can be summarized in faith, conduct and character. These are the three basic building blocks of the faith. It's faith, conduct and character. So the first are actions to be formed to be performed. Our conduct has a basic set of devotions to God that serve as the basis for all other conduct in life. So the this is what is famously called the five pillars of Islam. Has anybody here heard that phrase before? So those are the only the pillars of conduct, we still have faith, and we have character. But so the first is the two testimonies of faith. This is the means by which a person formally becomes a Muslim. You simply testify and believe that there's nothing worthy of worship save God. And that Muhammad is the final messenger in this long succession that includes Jesus and Moses and Abraham, etc. And anybody who utters these two phrases, these two statements is by definition a Muslim. Once a person considers themselves a Muslim, they have to perform five daily prayers. These are devotions that serve as the foundation of our of our relationship with God. So five different points throughout the day, based on the position of the sun, there's one that's right at the crack of dawn. There's one right as the sun moves past its zenith. There's one right as sort of in the afternoon, one just after sunset, and one when it's complete night. And at those five points in the prayer, we wash in a particular way, ablution, and we face the house built by Abraham and we pray to God. We also pay what's called a purifying charity or a poor tax. Every Muslim who's above a certain poverty line is to give two and a half percent one 40th of our savings. So if you have unused wealth, which you know, many of us don't sometimes and that's fine. But if you have wealth that stays over from year to year unused, that's considered surplus beyond your needs. And 140th of that should be distributed to the poor and the needy. That's a minimum. And then fasting the month of Ramadan. This is a month. It's a lunar month. So it kind of moves throughout the year. It currently is about like Mayish. And this is from dawn until sunset. We abstain from food, drink and intimacy. These are the three most basic desires of a human being. They are part of the animal side, if you will, of what it means to be human being because we're part celestial, meaning our soul, but then we're very terrestrial. There's an animal side to us. And taming that side is part of the purification process. The final is a pilgrimage to Mecca, that house that we've talked about now a couple times built by Abraham, once in your life, if you are physically and financially able. The second dimension, faith, these are not actions that we perform. Rather, these are realities that we must affirm in our hearts. The first is obvious, you have to believe in one God. Islam has what's called radical monotheism, you don't simply believe in one God, you actively negate any other divinity beside him. So this is very almost Old Testament, like that there's nothing divine other than God. And we also believe that God has creatures that he's created in an unseen dimension that interact with us angels. And then we have to affirm that God communicates with his creation through messengers. And at times he even sends scripture with them. So there are four scriptures that minimum that Muslims must affirm the Torah, the Psalms of David, the Gospel of Jesus, and the Quran sent to Muhammad, peace be upon him. We also have to affirm that God sends messengers and we have to affirm particular messengers. This is a point of difference, I think, between Trinitarian Christians and Muslims and I'm sharing this more for education's sake.  Muslims hold that Jesus is the weighted Messiah. He was born of a virgin birth. He will return at the end of time there. They share all we share all of those things, except that he was not divine. So he was the son of God in a metaphorical sense, meaning a holy man or one who is completely in in in consonance with God, but not literally God the son or God incarnate. So Muslims would hold him to be a mortal creation of God, who was God Lee in his behavior and his mission. We also believe in a day of judgment that we are will all be resurrected to be judged before our Creator and that nobody gets away with anything truly in the end. And the final and sixth aspect of our divine belief in our beliefs, sorry, is a belief in what's called divine decree that nothing in the cosmos happens outside of God's direct will and guiding it. So our gathering here today, this collection of souls in this room is something that was decreed by God before the universe was a twinkle of dust. That this is something that God, we still have free will and there's a tension between that. We have free will, but we have to work within what God decrees. So when things happen to us, we know that it couldn't have been any other way. This is what God decreed for us, and that there is a great wisdom behind it. There's a famous poet of the Islamic tradition, Rumi, who tells a story of an ant that's crawling across a big Persian rug. Have you guys seen those magnificent Persian rugs? And as this ant is crawling, he says, he looks down, he notices it's red suddenly and then it just becomes green and then blue and seems very random to him. And he says, what kind of a carpet maker just has a bunch of different colors going on?  And that's about sort of the carpet of life. That sometimes we don't really see what's happening. And then when we're older, we look back and we say, you know, that was probably the best thing that happened to me, even if it seemed tragic at the time. The third dimension, faith, conduct and character. All right. People are awake. I like it. Before we get into character, I've got to touch just a little bit on the Islamic view of humankind, of humanity. So on the one hand, we believe that God created us with what's called a primary nature. This is our God given nature that every human being, if left to their natural state, and I mean, no trauma, people are abused and they go through difficult things and that can alter it. But we have an innate knowledge of right and wrong. And we have an innate inclination towards everything that is good and true and beautiful, that there is no healthy soul that doesn't look at a sunset and say like, wow, that's amazing. And that natural inclination of what we go towards will eventually guide us to God. All of us have this internal compass that's pointing towards the divine. In fact, we see causation behind things because we know we're always looking for the cause of the universe and the cause of our lives. So that's us on the one hand. On the other hand, we also have a selfish ego. We have a capacity, perhaps even a thirst for our carnal desires and to be utterly selfish. Right? This is the side of us that leads to road rage, which is such a strange phenomenon. Same people are just totally calm and, you know, and if you bump into them in the mall and then they get behind the wheel and there's just something about my lane and my speed and my destination, right? So that's, we have both of these realities to us. We're complex beings. We're composite beings. And so part of the development of character is the purification of the soul. It's a process by which we are to resist the urges of our carnal desires and our selfishness and our ego on the one hand. And then we are to augment and to embellish that primary nature. There's an aspect to children, if you see them, that can be incredibly giving. And then there's an aspect to children that when somebody touches their toy that they haven't even seen in two years, they suddenly want it, right? And so part of life is to learn to sort of trim away those aspects while enhancing and augmenting the other aspects. And when we do that, we have a purification of our souls that develops, where we will get over our anger, our jealousy, our envy, our, all of these things that contempt we have for people, the arrogance in our hearts, all of these things can be purged. And this is also attained on the one hand by a way of engaging in the world in which we do not become worldly. So the world is here as our sort of the battleground of the soul. And it's a temporary place. And this was actually one of the great messages of Jesus, peace be upon him, that he came to remind us that this is just but a bridge to the afterlife. And you don't make this your permanent home. And if you do, you sort of have lost a certain vision of the reality of life, right? That this is a fleeting world. And if you use it right, you can attain eternal salvation and an enlightened soul. But if used for selfish desires, it will bring you to peril. As one Muslim sage put it, it's to have the world in your hand, but not in your heart. And at the end of this story, so this is a series of three questions that was asked to the Prophet Muhammad. What is Islam, which is the pillars of conduct? What is faith? And then what is spiritual beauty? And he answers with those three sets of teachings. And at the end, this man who is asking the questions, he leaves. And the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, returns to his companions and he says, do you all know who that was? And they said, no, we don't know who that is. We've never seen him. And the Prophet Muhammad responds, that was Gabriel. He came to teach you your religion. So this phrase is why, in Muslim teaching, this has become the great summary of faith. That any faith that has conduct that focuses on the external, like the law without the spirit, will be imbalanced. If we focus on spirit without law, there's an imbalance. If we're all faith and there's no need for works, that's an imbalance. So all three have to harmonize in order to have a complete expression of the religion. So again, just to recap here, Islam sees itself as a culmination of previous religions. If one surrenders to God, one can attain peace and harmony within themselves, within their homes, within their communities and eventually with the world. And Islam sees itself, this phrase the middle road actually comes from the Qur'an, the holy book of the Muslims. Muslims see themselves as a middle road in which they merge the rich legal teachings of the Torah and the higher spiritual calling of the gospel. So again, faith, conduct, and character. And if you notice here, there's a body component with our acts. There's the mind, that which we believe and conceive. And then there's the soul. So it is a mind, body, soul surrender to God that is complete. And to do any two without the third or any one without the other two, again, results in imbalance. So these are the three core teachings of the religion. Thank you for listening and look forward to some questions. Hi, so my task today is to contribute to some of the myth-busting by addressing jihad and ISIS, what it is and what it is not. But before I do that, I think I want to share with you a bit about my personal journey because it relates to the subject matter. So I grew up here in the Bay Area throughout my years growing up here and at the US Naval Academy where I went.  And particularly being in the military, the Muslims were generally seen as the enemy or the other. So Islam at face value 25 years ago was a very distant concept and something that I did not think I would ever embrace. There you go. I put the sailing thing up because I was on an offshore sailing team and I saw those pictures and I was like, I sailed on that boat braid. Anyways, and Navy lost today to Notre Dame so I'm kind of off. It would have been good if we beat them. Okay, so at my freshman year at the Naval Academy, I remember I was given an assignment. It was to summarize the biographies of the most eminent scientists, philosophers and mathematicians of the Western civilization. And I remember being in a library and I was flipping through the pages of these thick books and about to fall asleep and I read this passage and it literally jarred me. In effect of the passage described how some of the most renowned, you know, mathematicians and scientists in the Western civilization were all believers in a transcendental or universal, which is an academically neutral term for a God. So that really shook me because I was never told that that the most eminent scientists and philosophers and mathematicians that we all know, Renee Descartes, Isaac Newton, all of them, were trying to understand the created universe. So public high school doesn't teach our children that that was their primary motive. So it was really fascinating. So from that point on, it launched me on a quest throughout my remaining days at Annapolis and then subsequently why it was in the Navy to continue to read and study and debate and search out answers to concepts of God and religion. And throughout this quest, I developed a list of criteria, whether it was philosophical or social or scientific, certain standards that I would establish and I went kind of shopping as I went around the world in the Navy and learning about different religions and which one made sense and none of it really made sense. For example, in the category of science, I believe that scientific discovery can only serve to validate revelation, that it would be inappropriate for scientific discovery to debunk a religious tenant. Because after all, we're talking about the created universe and God should know it all. So Islam did that for me. There were a number of scientific stuff in the Quran that was written 1400 years ago that it could not have been written or known by an illiterate desert better one prophet who'd never saw the ocean, for example. And all these mysteries of the ocean and scientific stuff that we're discovering now. So anyways, it ticked off all of those things for me. But in particular, being a naval officer, I was really interested in the just war concept. Because war is perhaps the most brutal sanctioned human acts that we can engage in. And if you don't apply a certain moral code to your conduct during armed conflict, it would literally drive a person crazy. So PTSD, all of these symptoms and elements that we see in our veterans in some measure has to do with engaging in brutality without a certain code of conduct. So what's broadly referred to today as the just war concept. And in researching the major world religions and what they said about war and conflict, it was a particularly interest when I came across Islam and what they said. And this is one passage in the Qur'an that says permission to fight is given to those against whom war is made because they have been wronged. Those who have been driven out from their homes unjustly only because they said our Lord is God. And if God did not repel them by means of others, there would surely have been pulled temples and churches and synagogues and mosques. So definitively, Islam says that a war is sanctioned for defensive purposes only. And then it's not only for the purpose of protecting your religion, Islam, but also the religions of other people. So it's incumbent upon all Muslims to protect and defend against any oppression or aggression against any religious institutions, be they Christian, Jews, Muslims, or whatever. So as I, as I, I'll put it in my picture. So as I searched more, I discovered that not only was a concept of war addressed in the Qur'an, but the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, peace be upon him, also taught his followers about this as well. I also discovered that Muhammad was among many things a commander of armies. He was sent by God as a, in our belief, as a final messenger for all times, for all mankind.  So there's examples for us on how to be a good parent, a husband, a son, a brother, a businessman, a student, a teacher, and yes as a warrior as well. So all of this was in addition to how we should worship God through prayer, fasting, and reflection. Conflict being an inescapable part of humanity, Islam came to put limits and controls on it. There are, of course, many things about conflict that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, taught, but I wanted to share with you these five, these 10 commands that he gave to his soldiers before engaging in combat. And he said, Do not harm women, children, elderly, or the sick. Do not commit treachery and never mutilate or disfigure.  Do not harm any livestock except for food. In combat, avoid striking the face, for God created all of us in the image of Prophet Adam.  Do not destroy the villages and towns. Do not spoil the cultivated fields and gardens. Do not wish for an encounter with the enemy, but when you are forced to encounter them, exercise patience. No one may punish with fire except the Creator. So like weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, nuclear, all of those will be prohibited in Islam. And finally, accustomed yourselves to do good if people do good, and do not do wrong even if they commit wrongs. So the significance of these commands really are in my mind, are two. One is that because Muslims believe that the source of these commands through Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, were from God, they're non-negotiable. They're non-negotiable. So whereas any just war concepts that we've applied and learned through the Nuremberg trials, through the Geneva Conventions, in the history of combat, they're all negotiable, because they're within the domain of human intellect. Whereas stuff that's being told to us from our Prophet, they're not negotiable. The second important thing is that these rules laid out 1400 years ago, and others that I've read, are even more strict and more humane than the collective body of just war concepts that we've accumulated. Okay, so jihad. Jihad, the term jihad in Arabic, does not in and of itself have anything to do with war or conflict. The foundational meaning of jihad is to make an effort or exert oneself in the way of God. So for example, filiopiety, being good to your parents, that is jihad. It's such a noble concept that parents in the Muslim world name their children jihad. Military combat is not the primary aspect of jihad is the big point. It's important to note that jihad is not holy war, as commonly referred. Muslims do not regard war as holy. They rather they regard war as a means and not an end in itself. It's a means to durable and durable peace and stability. When war is necessary, of course, Islam puts severe limitations on how to conduct war. And there's a concept called the greater jihad and the lesser jihad. Greater jihad is, as I mentioned, the struggle to improve one's own character. So for example, the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said, the best jihad is to speak truth to a tyrannical leader. Another example is when a man came to him and asking permission to join the military. The Prophet Muhammad responded, perform jihad by serving your parents. Okay, so that's a greater jihad. The lesser jihad is defensive fighting. And religious conversion, territorial conquest, political power are not sanctioned reason for combat. It's for defensive purposes only, as I mentioned. All Muslims are required to engage in the greater jihad, the self-struggle to improve your character. But only some Muslims are required to participate in the lesser jihad, which is a military combat. And you have to be a certain age. You can't be the only child.  Okay, there you go, ISIS. So ISIS, they're basically vigilantes in the view of Muslims. When we invaded Iraq and then combined with the civil war in Syria, the invasion of Iraq by our military was one where we completely removed their military security, political, judicial apparatus. We left a massive power vacuum. And it was quickly filled by what we call terrorist groups, in this case, ISIS. It would be no different. It would be the functional equivalent if foreign power came to our country, invaded our country, got rid of our police and our military and our political system, and then left. Who do you think would fill that power vacuum? The Mississippi militia, because they would be armed and organized. And somebody overseas would call them terrorists. So they're vigilantes in our view. There's no, they're not religious and sanctioned. And if you study the mission or the goal of ISIS, they're political nature and surely not religious in nature. So the way to look at it is, it's kind of a jingoistic, but the KKK is the Christians what ISIS is to Muslims. Christians don't sanction what KKK, but they spout off religious reasons. Nobody pays attention to that, right? Similarly, same thing for ISIS. ISIS kills more Muslims than they do any other religious groups. All right, that's it. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm just going to jump right into my talk because I see the time is flying by. But before I begin, I did want to thank everyone for coming out today because we're really eager to share how we practice our faith, how we live it, what we teach our children. And there'd be no point in putting a panel together if nobody was interested in actually coming out and listening to what we have to say. So thank you for coming out on a Saturday afternoon. So my role today is to talk about some of the most common stereotypes that I get asked about when we do interfaith discussions. And there's a whole range of questions we get asked about, but there's two common ones that come up time and time again. During Q&A, if there are other questions that people are wondering about, we'll be more than happy to address those at that time. So I'm going to start out with sharing a little incident that happened in a church in Danville where we were taking questions from the audience and a little old lady stood up and came to the microphone and with a quavering voice, she said that she was really, really upset to know that Sharia had come to this country and that Sharia had taken over the land and the courts and that judges were now deciding cases based on the sacred law of another religious tradition and she wanted to know more about that. And it was obvious that her fear was very, very real and she needed to be appeased and that's probably a very common myth out there that Sharia is here and it's taking over America. So if you were to regularly watch certain evening news programs, it would be natural to believe the propaganda that Muslims who are today's bogeymen after all are here to take over the land with their different way of living and believing but actually nothing could be further from the truth. So to start off with what exactly is Sharia? The word Sharia means the way or the path to God. It refers to the very idea of God communicating with human beings through revelation and Sharia is simply put a moral code. Before it's a legal code, it's a moral code. It contains rules for behavior for Muslims similar to how rabbinical or Talmudic law derives kosher dietary rules and restrictions and it's not so much a codified rule book nor is it merely a set of higher principles Muslims actually see Sharia as the ongoing search for God's prescription for human action for human conduct. One of the three dimensions that Dr. Asad had told us about. So Sharia should first be understood by its goals and its values before any of its specific rules. Sharia is more concerned with sin than it is with crime. So for example, if I were to gossip and backbite with one of my friends about another friend there's no earthly law that's going to hold me accountable for that behavior but I do know that I will be held accountable by God on the day of judgment if I don't repent and change my ways and it's Sharia that tells me that I'm actually prohibited from slandering another person. So we worship God with our minds, our bodies and our souls faith, conduct and character and Sharia is concerned with everything to do with our conduct with the physical aspects of life. It defines all the aspects of a Muslim's actions and behavior and it dictates everything from what we eat to how we dress to how we worship to the rules of marriage and divorce the rules of financial transactions and inheritance the rules of what is required of us and what is forbidden and the entire Sharia is designed to protect human welfare which Muslims define through six core universal interests and next time I promise I'm going to have a PowerPoint presentation as well but just bear with me so the six core universal interests that all of Sharia protect so any Sharia rule that you hear about if you reflect it will be protecting one of these six rights the first one oh louder sorry the first one I keep thinking this is a mic that everyone can hear but okay so the first one is the right to religion you can't force anyone to convert to any other faith tradition the second is the right to life you can't kill anyone unjustly the third is the right to family and lineage everyone has the right to know where they come from the fact that Muslims are taught that sexual relations are confined to marriage isn't just because of some divine decree it's to protect family bonds the fourth is the right to honor and dignity we can't lie or slander or backbite about other people so tabloid journalism would be completely out for someone who follows Sharia the right to intellect and reason so practicing Muslims know that intoxicants are prohibited for them so we don't indulge in alcohol or recreational drugs but Sharia is nuanced it's not just black and white there are gray areas as well so for example anesthesia in times of surgery it affects our ability to reason and to make moral decisions but anesthesia has its own rules and exceptions and then the sixth core universal interest that Sharia protects is the right to property and wealth so we can't steal or usurp or cheat anyone out of what's rightfully theirs now Muslim jurists discovered these Sharia rules through four primary sources the first is the Holy Quran which is our revealed book our scripture the second are the words and actions of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him the third is universal agreement amongst Muslim scholars or the Muslim community on any given issue and the fourth is careful use of analogy now one thing people may not realize is that Islam does not allow for anarchy or chaos we have to have some form of government in place and we have to live under it even if it's not a Muslim one and we are required to respect and obey the laws of the land in fact I once learned from a Muslim scholar that if we deliberately if we ever deliberately run a red light while driving we need to ask God for his forgiveness because we broke a law that we had promised to follow and that's just one example of how religion informs our day to day actions now Sharia tells us that if we can't practice our religion in peace and safety and if we aren't happy with the laws of the land then we need to migrate from that land and the highest law of the land in the United States is the constitution so according to the Muslims own Sharia we are required to respect the constitution and if we don't we're supposed to leave and believe you me with everything that's going on and the political landscape right now there's probably no one more concerned about protecting the constitution than your fellow Muslim Americans so what about penal code punishments that's the elephant in the room that's what people think about when they hear the word Sharia beheadings cutting off of hands whippings stonings yes there is a penal code within the Sharia just like the United States law has capital punishment for certain offenses Sharia law also includes a form of capital punishment but the important differences between capital punishment in American law and capital punishment in Sharia law are two first the penal code is first and foremost meant as a deterrent it's not actually meant to be implemented and the second is that the evidence required to establish proof of a punishable crime makes the punishment almost impossible to implement for example the penal code for adultery is death however the evidence required to prove adultery is for witnesses who actually witness the act so as you can see the punishment is there but it is first and foremost meant as a deterrent it is meant to illustrate to human beings the enormity of the sin in God's eyes and it is meant to ensure that these types of crimes or sins that affect society at large are not being done out in the open and are not becoming the norm now if we want to look at how Sharia is implemented we can look at the Ottoman Empire which was the last legitimate Muslim government that ruled a large portion of the world for almost 700 years the punishment for adultery during that time all 700 years was only implemented once and even after that one time the scholars protested it and so it ended up never being repeated again the other very important fact for people to understand is that according to Sharia itself the laws of Sharia can only be applied and upheld when there is a legitimate Muslim government in power and a majority of Muslim scholars today are in agreement that no such government currently exists in the world today and therefore there is no official body which has the authority to implement the penal code punishments which by the way only make up 0.1 percent of the body of Sharia law unfortunately when one hears the word Sharia they just only imagine the grizzly capital punishments and when you see those horrific images on the internet or hear stories of those types of punishments you should know that Muslims consider that to be vigilantism it's in no way sanctioned in Islam and it's actually forbidden by our scholars and our jurists and when you see isolated rulings being implemented by certain governments around the world you should know that they don't represent the meaning and the spirit of Sharia itself and just like any other community you're going to find the whole spectrum of practice and adherence to the rules of the faith even amongst Muslims and so you'll find people who out of personal conviction here in the United States will stick with the rules of Sharia in their lives and then you'll find people who don't even know much about what the basic rulings are but they still consider themselves to be Muslims and they are as long as they believe in the testimony of faith which Dr. Asad told us about believing in one God and believing in the authenticity of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him okay so moving on to the second myth women are oppressed in Islam yes just like anywhere else in the world there are some Muslim women who are oppressed and some Muslim majority countries do have a culture that is favorable to men and there are stories of domestic abuse in some Muslim households but the real question we should be asking ourselves is does Islam teach condone or in any way support the oppression of women and the answer is absolutely not the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said the best of you are the ones who are the best to their women the majority of the focus of his last sermon was on the rights of women Muslims believe in the story of Adam and Eve but in Islam Eve is not held accountable for Adam's mistakes they are both held equally responsible she is not the one to blame she isn't considered to be a temptress nor is she viewed as the reason mankind lost paradise so there seem to be a few reasons that Islam gets this bad rap the first one is probably the hijab the head covering it gets translated as head scarf but hijab actually doesn't mean head scarf it's fine however to use that as a shorthand now hijab actually means barrier and it sets up boundaries for interactions between men and women it's the first thing people see and they don't understand it and they don't necessarily think of the virgin Mary when they see the head scarf they usually wonder why do men have to wear it why do women have to wear it and men don't Muslim men also have parts of their bodies that they have to cover according to Sharia they must cover from navel to the knee so they can't show their kneecaps or their belly buttons not allowed to wear speedos so why the different rules well we have different rules here in America as well if a man and a woman were out jogging in the park on a hot day and they got sweaty and uncomfortable the man could take off his top and continue running bare-chested if the woman did the same thing she'd be arrested for public indecency why? why the different standards why the different rules? we believe that the rules for how we dress are divinely inspired and that God understands what is best for us since he is our creator after all the second thing people see visually is if they were to visit one of our mosques or if they saw the Muslims praying in a congregation they would see that the women are praying behind the men and oftentimes people bring to mind the framework of Rosa Parks and they think you know the way Rosa Parks was pushed to the back of the bus because she was considered a second-class citizen so must must be the case with the Muslim women as well the truth is that where you pray in the congregation doesn't give any indication of your closeness to God Islam gives both men and women equal access to getting to God to getting to paradise to getting to His divine pleasure if you were to see us in our congregational prayers you would see that our prayer is actually very intimate we stand close together shoulder to shoulder we stand we bow we prostrate on the ground with our foreheads on the floor and our bottoms up in the air and most women especially Muslim women would not be comfortable being in that kind of vulnerable position with a man behind them so really where the women are praying in the congregation has to do more about privacy and modesty and being able to focus on our relationship with God and not worrying about whom we're standing next to or in front of or behind okay and the third is reason that people often think that women must be oppressed in Islam is people often confuse how women are treated in countries like Saudi Arabia with how Islam treats women in general so the two holiest cities in Islam Makkah and Medina happen to be in the land that is currently called Saudi Arabia however Saudi Arabia does not hold religious authority over the world's population of Muslims Saudi Arabia is not for Muslims what the Vatican is for the Catholics their government can make whatever laws they want to but that doesn't give them legitimacy over the world's population of Muslims the fact that women only just started driving in 2018 is due to a Saudi law I've had people ask me how can you be part of a religion that doesn't allow you to drive I'm not part of a religion that doesn't allow me to drive Muslim women have been heads of state in Muslim majority countries one of the current vice presidents of Iran is a woman even in America women have not managed to shatter that glass ceiling yet but who knows things might be changing soon there's hope and so those are the two myths I wanted to cover and if there are any others we can tackle them during Q&A thank you so much for your time


Hey guys, it's Nate, A.K. The Foot Account, and welcome back to the channel. We're rolling up to a Sunday, the second week of Batch Two, and I just want to talk about it a little bit. Is footies getting boring? Again, the second week of Batch One was definitely a bit quieter, and again, we're feeling kind of the same kind of vibes with Batch Two and the second week happening. This week, the same cards are in packs, albeit they are better packs, but the content just seems to be, right, just not amazing. I know it can't be amazing all the time, but we've had some amazing content as a part of footies, and it's just, we've had solid content. It's just not hitting amazing at the moment. Now, of course, there still could be a lot of content that comes out this week. There's still been a lot of good cards released lately, but the icon upgrade SBC that was released yesterday, again, not very good. The draft token SBC not being re-released, re-upped, like the 85 times 10 was. That's a bit of a letdown. So we're just going to talk about that a little bit. I'm not trying to put a damper on things today. All I'm saying is it's the second week. It is maybe going to be a little bit, I guess less exciting in the second week. That's how it was the first time around of the second week of batch two, if that makes sense, because these batches are for two weeks at a time. And then, of course, as batch three comes, as we get later on towards this end of the week, which we'll talk about, batch three is going to be exciting. It's going to be a very exciting Friday with those new cards in packs. But also today, we're probably going to see some more drop-offs. I want to talk about content that we can see and movements that we can see on the market today on Sunday, and also on yesterday on the game. Saturday, I think yesterday was probably one of the most quiet Saturdays that we have had of Footies. Now, we had this Curtis Jones, Footies' favorite SBC, which definitely this card is indeed a favorite. He was an insane Future Stars item that was released back earlier in this year of February. But when I look at this card, I mean, yeah, it looks really, really good. The links are great. I even think the price is pretty good. But I feel like the people that are only doing this SBC are Liverpool fans, guys that really feel a connection with Liverpool or with Curtis Jones or with the English nationality with those links, which there's no problem with. But again, you look at this footpin like the dislike ratio, I think people wanted to see more of a stat boost. For a 94-rated card, yes, he's almost club 90, but even at this stage in the game, I think we wanted to see a little bit more of a boost. Just go crazy with it, EA Sports, right? That's the thing right now with this card. You have guys like Acuña in midfield. You have guys like Verati that this Curtis Jones has to kind of compete with as a midfielder slash defensive mid, albeit different body types in both those players. He's kind of competing with those kinds of cards on the market. He just does not match up to those players. So I think the biggest, I guess, issue with this Curtis Jones card is if you take a look, this 94-Footies item has 83 reactions and the 88-rated center mid version also has 83 reactions. So not even a single stat value upgrade there on that card. If you look at a lot of the different individual stats here, he did get plus 11 dribbling. The agility balance is gonna make him feel probably a lot more cleaner on the ball. But again, at this stage of the game, probably needs a little bit better stats. If they would have given at least like a plus two, three, or maybe even four to all of the rest of the stat categories on top of this boost, I think a lot more people would be excited about this item because he is an exciting talent in the Premier League. And of course, this 88, I mean, this, this SBC, look at the number of upvotes on this SBC man, 400,000 coins back in February when this was released. And at the time, this was an incredible, incredible card. So, you know, he was even four star, four star back then. No skill move, a week foot upgrade for this item, which would have been nice to have as well. So I think people are just wanting a little bit more out of that Curtis Jones SBC that was released yesterday. Now also we have the 92 plus icon moments player pick. The exact same SBC that just expired yesterday, they re-upped it. The exact same thing, nothing new about it, still the same eight squad requirements.  I know it was not a smart decision. I got DESI-E. If you guys saw on the Foot Account and Clips channel, by the way, cheeky plug, sub to that channel if you have not already, I packed DESI-E from that grind. And I probably shouldn't have, right? I shouldn't have done it. I would have been way better off doing Sane, maybe even doing DePie with the same amount of coins and getting a better card. But I wanted to risk it for the biscuit and have some fun. And I did not have some fun because EA Sports did not give me good pack. Wait, pack luck. But it is what it is. That was our content yesterday, man. That was it. That's why I mentioned that it was kind of a quiet Saturday. Now preview pack wise, they did run Lightning Rounds again. They ran the exact same Lightning Rounds as they did on Friday, but they changed the last pack. Instead of doing an 88 plus star, we're a mega preview pack. They came out with just a 50K pack, which of course did not supply the market as much as the 88 plus did. Now, yesterday you did see a lot of prices falling on the market, especially in the bundles that they get side of things, which was 100% expected. Case and point example number one, numero uno is Goretzka, 328,000 coins. He's not done yet, right? He is not done. Of course, Friday, we talked about it. Thursday night, Friday morning was gonna be the peak time to sell these cards at their highest. If you're gonna use Bundesliga items in the Weekend League, definitely buying them later in the weekend. Or at least selling some of the cards after you play a few games Friday, then buying them back at cheaper points later on was definitely the move. I expect all this Bundesliga stuff to keep going down today on Sunday. That's just the trend that it follows. Now again, what we've seen the past few weeks as well is watch out for these really rare cards. Guys like Goretzka, people are using the Sonic card. They're really hyped about that item. The Vitzel, the Akanji, the Mornier. People are still hyped about those cards. They've just come out. So there could be some of these cards, the rare ones like Lewandowski, Davies, Sancho, Kimmich, Goretzka, like I mentioned. Some of these Bundesliga cards could actually rebound up out of tonight on Sunday night into Monday morning. Has been a very, very low time. The past couple of weeks, it's been a very, very low time on the market where you see a lot of stuff get low and then kind of rebound up from there. That is kind of something you could be looking at tonight is just some of the panic selling on those cards and maybe even the supply from preview packs as these items are still in packs. And whatever kind of content we get today if it is hype, could push them a little bit lower. So if you wanna try to make some investment flips or if there's any of these cards that you want for your team for the next couple of days, maybe you try to snag them then. Same thing with the out-of-packs cards. Again, I've honestly seen Sunday nights, the past couple of weeks, have been incredible for trading. Sunday nights, Monday mornings, usually on Mondays we get some sort of league specific player pick and then stuff just kind of rebounds back up because the content is just okay. So that's one thing that I'd be really looking at today slash tonight on the market, whether it's out-of-packs cards or in-packs team in the seasons, I'd be watching that for today on our Sunday. Now speaking along those lines, let's talk about, first let's talk about content today on Sunday, right? Of course, upgrade SBCs and icon player SBCs are the basic, it's basically what we've been getting every single Sunday. Now, of course, there's two names that have been thrown around for the potential SBC we could be getting today. Maldini and Vieira are the two cards that we're kind of expecting, quote unquote. So keep an eye out for some of those items via SBC. Maldini, I believe on the market is like, somewhere around like two mil or like 1.7, 1.8 million coins for his icon moments card. 1.9 right now at the moment, lately he's been, yeah, he's been right around that two mil range. So 1.9 million coins, if they release this SBC, a good value one like they did for Cruyff last week, I don't know how much hype there would be with a Maldini SBC, unless it's like literally half the price. If this SBC comes in at like, nine, eight to 900,000 coins, that is very craftable. That's almost the same price. I think that like Eto was, so if you imagine that Eto SBC craft, I think there would be a lot of hype for a Maldini if he is around that same price. If Eto is still available, okay, Eto is 500K, I'm off there. Wow. I mean, if they priced Eto at 500K, then absolutely that would be an SBC, a lot of people would be interested in. So hopefully they give Maldini a good price today if it is his card. The other option for what people are thinking could come out today would be Vieira. Vieira's moments card would also be one that a lot of people would be interested in. And if they priced this similar to Cruyff, because he's kind of in Cruyff's price range where Cruyff was when the SBC for his player item was dropped, hopefully somewhere around again, like that 1.5 mil range were below Cruyff's at 1.33 right now as high rated fodder has continued to drop off. But I think that a Vieira SBC would be a little more well received by the whole FIFA community and FIFA audience more than a Maldini. But both of those could be nice today depending on the price. Sunday is also upgrade pack day. Now that's one thing that we talked about last week is that we were hoping for upgrade packs that required non-rares. They would give us something to craft non-rares into because non-rares are still cheap. They're basically 450, 500 coins a pop. And we have all of these rare gold cards that are still so inflated on the market because again, for the SBCs that they're releasing right now a lot of them are requiring these rare gold squads, 80 rated teams, 79 rated teams. And it's just, it's really, really requiring a lot of those items, especially with that 85 times 10 being a re-released. So much of the game right now is just people doing these SBCs and crafting them, buying rare golds, and that's why those cards are continuing to stay up in price. So if we have something today, please EA Sports that would give us a pack that would require mostly non-rares. Yo, what is going on right now in the store? Look at this player type. What is this? Player Rarity 29. What in the world is this? I don't know what that is. There's the Beckham card you can search on the market as well. I think there's something messed up with this right now, man because there's FGS swaps tokens, footies nominee. This is like all the different card types, locked items. What is going on, man? What are these? Yo, my transfer market is bugging out right now. This is pretty nuts. F.O.F. Nation player. It's basically like the club search. I don't know if they're messing premium. What is this? Pro player card. I need pro player cards in the market. Man, I don't know what's going on with this right now but it's definitely kind of bugging out, messed up a little bit. I don't think that's anything to read into to be completely honest. It's basically, these are the same exact card types you see when you go into the club search. But anyways, that's kind of nuts. It's like all the different card types in the game. But anyways, when talking about rare cards, I do think that it would be just so nice to see something on the market today that would just be a way to grind rares. Like an SVC that requires non-rares, that would be some sort of better upgrade pack than the current gold upgrade, which of course is what a lot of people are doing to craft right now. You can buy gold non-rares at 450 and 80. I don't know, man, like some sort of gold upgrade pack that gives you rare golds, more than two or like an 80 plus player pick maybe that requires just non-rares. That'd be something I guess they could put out or something like that. Just another SVC to craft with non-rares. I don't really know if I expect the 81 plus player pick because the 81 plus is what we had last week. And I believe that happened in week one of Foody's batch one is that we had the 81 plus player pick. And then after that we had like the 82 plus or something that was not hype at all or some other SVC that I forget that was not good. So hopefully we get some sort of like 83 to 87 upgrade that requires non-rares or something along the lines of like an 80 plus player pick. I think EA knows that people in FIFA really like the player picks. But when rares are 2.5 K a pop, I'm not paying that. I really not paying that, especially when you have this 85 times 10 that is out that is just so much more craftable and good value, I guess you could say than a lot of this other stuff. This SVC coming in at 150,000 coins for it. I mean, it's just 85 times 10. You're getting at least 85 rated card times 10. 85s right now are nine K a piece. So you're basically getting, you know, 90 K of value at the bare minimum. And you guys know you're getting Tots cards out of this. You're at least getting one card. That's like 90 rated nine times out of 10. So these are well worth it for the craft. And especially when you hit some of those big team of season players, they're just so much fun to do. That's kind of be the grindable con that's kind of going to be the grindable content this week. So again, I really hope that an upgrade pack today will bring out some very nice sort of upgrade pack that will help people with that craft. Objective wise, we do have two available right now. We've got the Akaji and the dynamic duo. I really wouldn't expect a lot more in here, TBH this week, unless they dropped another milestone. But EA, you have to re-release this draft token thing, man. This milestone's footies draft. The objective is out for 30, what is it, 33 more days? 33 days, look at this up here. 33 days, this is available for. And I'm in my last draft. Like, you know, I don't think I actually have a draft. I lost today. So I don't know, man. I really hope to see this come back because I would like to continue doing the 40s draft days objectives. And if you're giving this 33 days left, I mean, I think you should keep that draft token thing alive as well, especially since we're in the late game. And how can you expect everybody to stock up on those before that goes away to continue doing this objective? So that is my thing right there. I wish they would re-release that. That'd be a cool part of Sunday's content today. Usually Sundays, I don't really think we get player SBCs. I mean, we've had Sane. We have had El Shirawi and Curtis Jones. I'm really not expecting a player SBC today. Maybe tomorrow and Monday. We had the Memphis DePie, of course. Maybe we'll get another transfer SBC on Monday. We'll see about that, of course, unless we get something today. But, yeah, Sunday content is always an interesting one. It's all about the upgrade pack and whatever icon they release. And then, you know, you have your preview packs as well. So again, I do want to take a look at, though, when you think about it this way, some people are probably going to start investing this week and try to make some coins off of the potential. Next week, we can leave plus objective because there's literally, if they're going to do this again, there's only two ways they can go. We've done Premier League. We've done Bundesliga and LaLiga. We have Serie A or Ligue 1 that we could go with. Now, we thought it might be Serie A last week. Then it kind of surprised us with the Bundesliga. But I think what you're going to see are Serie A cards and Ligue 1 cards. Maybe pick up a little bit in price in the next day or two. Sunday night into Monday morning, if you want to get ahead of the game, I would say start watching some of your Serie A cards. Since we had El Shirawi, some people might start investing there first. Just keep along the lines of some of those Serie A cards that are hyped up that are a part of maybe Summer Stars. You know, like Chiesa, like Chiellini. We've had a lot of really good items released because of Italy doing well in the Euros. We've got the Mailman card, the Melee left back. I call him the Mailman Joachim, the Danish guy. Lukaku special card. A lot of attention on him right now with his move to Chelsea. Locatelli, of course. You've got him in there. You've got Spinazzola. I mean, you got a lot of cards here. The Verati is Italian, not in the Serie A, but even the Sanchez card is a really, really nice item. The Ericsson objective, Marathe, Rebic. People would use these cards and you would see them rise in price if there would be a Serie A. Weekend League, they licked 100%. That was a card I was looking at last week when we felt last week was gonna be Serie A. So I think more people would turn to Serie A instead of League One until we get confirmation on Monday of what league player pick comes out. I think today on Sunday might be a day to get ahead of the curve if you wanna try a little bit of a speculative investment. I would kind of look into some of those cards. You know, you could probably buy both from either league and then whichever one would go up, you would definitely make some profit because people would start investing because people love those red player picks, especially with those footies. Ultimate champions upgrades being re-released yesterday, which was nice. We now have those back in the game that people can grind. So again, watch the pain excellent for today. Kind of keep an eye on those areas. We will see what content comes out icon-wise and upgrade pack-wise. But again, right now in this game, it's all about the upgrade pack grind and that's gonna be the focus later on this week. It says 85 times 10. How many can you stack? Do you wanna try to stack or finish crafting cards before Friday? This Friday is gonna be the culmination of FIFA 21. In my opinion, this Friday and the next couple of days after it is gonna be basically the last dance for FIFA. I don't know what they're gonna do kind of in late August, heading into September, but week in weeks probably gonna be done as we get to September, which is basically when this promo ends. Two more weeks after this coming Friday will be like the end-end. So that is my opinion. I think this Friday is kind of the end-all for a lot of this stuff. And yeah, it'll be very interesting to see what happens then. But I know a lot of people are grinding right now. They're having fun on the game. It's maybe getting a little boring and a little bit stale, which is why I wanted to talk about that today because I sense that too. And maybe you've been sensing it for a couple of weeks, but especially right now, even with the footies grind, it's starting to get a little bit that way. So that's the video for today, boys. Happy Sunday. I hope you're enjoying your weekend. Hope your weekend links are going well. I'm staying far away. Far away from that weekend leak. That is not something that I wanna take apart right now in this game, but I respect it if you are grinding. No shame, all right? I know it's August, but no shame. It's a very fun time. There's a lot to do and grind on FIFA at the moment. So if you enjoyed this video, smash the thumbs up on it. Comment down below if you have any questions and subscribe if you're new. It's been Nate, The Foot Accountant. I will catch you guys later. Peace out.


The covert narcissist knock mode. This is what I like to describe as one of the narcissist's modes of behavior. Their modes of behavior are how they cite the characteristics that determine their responses to how they think and feel. Narcissists are known to neglect to reason or plan their behaviors and responses. They don't consider the consequences before they engage in a particular action. This is one of several videos in the modes of behavior playlist. You can see the other videos by going on to the Narcissist channel page and clicking the playlist tab. There you will find the modes of behavior playlist. When you first meet the covert narcissist they can seem overly happy. People might describe them as being bubbly, full of cheerful high spirits. They might seem absent-minded as though they are forgetful or distracted. They often forget things or do not pay attention to what is happening near them because they are thinking about other things. It's as though they have a low level of attention. You make a fault or mistake and they might not even notice. But even if they do they will be very tolerant and quick to forget about it. It's as though they have this fantasy of you in their minds. Finally they found their perfect man or woman so they can't just let a silly fault or mistake ruin their perfect fantasy. Which is why if you do happen to do something wrong in the beginning they won't pay any attention to it. They won't even care. But they will be keeping it in their back pocket as an advantage that they can have over you in the future. When it is needed they will use it as ammunition against you. They will use it to support their case in a debate or argument but until that time they will remain very tolerant of anything wrong that you might say or do. Anything that might trigger them. They will act like it's not a big deal or they didn't even notice. But as time goes on they seem to become less and less tolerant. Even though you feel like you have learned what they like and what they don't like. You feel like you know how to please this person but now it seems like they are completely unpleasable. They cannot be satisfied. Now there is nothing you can do to accommodate them. When in the beginning even if you did something major it will be overlooked or they would act like it's not a big deal. But now you can't do anything without driving this person insane. As time goes by you might notice a pattern. You might notice that at certain times they enter this altered mode of behavior. They change in character and composition in order to cope with the situational environment and this is what I like to call narc mode. It's when the covert narcissist appears to become an overt narcissist.  They take their mask off and show you who they really are. You may have thought that they were this kind caring loving character but when they're not getting what they want when things are not going their way that is when you will see who they really are. That is when you will see them entering narc mode. The covert narcissist will enter narc mode when they are not getting what they want. They realize that accept that being nice is not going to get them what they want anymore. So the other method of getting what they want is to become unkind, spiteful or unfair to you. Now they're going to force you into giving them what they want by pressurizing you. Even though you may be unwilling to do what they want you to do they will use forceful threats to make you comply. This is known as coercion or coercive abuse. They're telling you or implying that if you do not submit to their demands something bad is going to happen to you. Something that you would not desire to happen and they are using this to make you do what they want because all they really care about is getting what they want. They never cared about you. They never cared about your interests or needs. And when you take away what they want when you stop letting them get their way that is when you will see how self-centered they really are. That is when you will see that they never cared about you. They will enter narc mode. They will become very overt.  They start telling you what to do. If you don't comply they will try to force you by using threats. They will verbally abuse you to no end until you finally give in.  And if that isn't enough to make you give in it may even escalate the physical violence. They will physically attack you as a means of getting what they want because that's all they really care about. They are constantly in survival mode doing whatever they can to survive emotionally. They don't have what they need and they cannot produce it on their own which is why they targeted you and they knew that you wouldn't give them the time of day if you knew who they were and what they were really about. That is why they concealed their true character and displayed something to you that might have been more appealing. Someone who is happy and full of high spirits because they knew that would interest you. They knew that was what you wanted to see. They don't always need dark mode to get what they want. Sometimes just being nice is enough. Being nice is often the form of manipulation that they prefer because then you're just going to hand it over without a fight. It's less effort for them. But when you stop giving them what they want, when you stop letting them get their way, that is when you will see them enter in dark mode. That is when you will see them making demands, engaging in coercive abuse and even becoming verbally or even physically abusive, which is why the best thing you can do to identify whether or not you're dealing with a COVID narcissist is to simply tell them no. If they are requesting you to do something for them or give something to them, just say no and watch how they react to you. If they get angry and start throwing things or attacking you. That is not normal. Normal people do not react in that way. And it is highly likely that you are dealing with a COVID narcissist. COVID narcissists are far more difficult to identify than overt narcissists. Although both of them can change from one to the other, depending on who they're around and the situation they are in. COVID narcissists know how to conceal their true nature. When you first meet them, it is not openly displayed. But what you will see, which in my opinion is a huge red flag, is their fake overly kind caring personality. They act bubbly, as though they are happy and full of cheerful high spirits. But if you pay attention, it can seem so forced. You can tell that it's fake. It's a natural. No one is going to be that into you before they've even got to know you. Unless they are trying to get someone from you. Unless they are trying to take advantage of you. Otherwise, there's not going to be any other reason for them to be coming on to you so strongly. That's just my opinion. If you see someone who seems a little too kind or friendly. In most situations, there's another side of them that they're not showing you. They're trying to manipulate you and to give them what they want. All they really care about is their own selfish desires or needs. They don't care about you. And as soon as you refuse to comply with their demands, you will then see just how important their desires or needs are to them. You will then see that they never cared about you. It was all a lie. The only thing they cared about was what they could get from you. And that is why as soon as they're not getting anything out of you, they will then enter knock mode. They could be very dangerous and unpredictable, whether not getting what they want. They are in survival mode doing everything they can to survive. They do not have the capacity to consider you. All they really care about is themselves. And that is why they have constructed these characters as a means of getting their needs met. They are neither an angel or a demon. These are just tools that they use to get them what they want.  Thank you for watching. I hope this video resonate with you. Please like, comment, share and subscribe. Click the bell icon to receive notifications for my future videos. If you'd like to donate, my PayPal link is in the video description. Coaching inquiries you can email me at nicefeathercoachingatgmail.com. Thank you for watching and I'll talk to you soon.


Let's talk about emotions. How do I switch from classical liberalism to emotions? And I guess this came about from, you know, I encounter a lot of people who think objectivists, that objectivism advocates for this detached, emotionless, cold view of the world and the objectivists of these robots that walk around being rational. And think about the old television show, the original Star Trek, one of the greatest television shows ever in my view, partially because it presented this great emotion mind, mind-body dichotomy, right? You had Spock who was pure reason and felt nothing. And then you had the doctor, what was his name? Doc, forget his name. Anyway, you had the doctor who was pure emotion, no reason, right? And the program creates this, you know, mind-body dichotomy, this dichotomy between reason and emotion. And I like it because it gives it an opportunity to deal with some philosophical issues, and it gives it an opportunity to present, in a sense, a philosophical point of view. So it's kind of interesting. And I think a lot of that show dealt with some philosophical issues. And, you know, the sci-fi allows you to do interesting things, and so I'm a fan. So a lot of people, Dr. Bones, that's right, McCoy, Dr. McCoy, or Bones, Bones was his nickname, that's right, they called him, they called him Bones. So I often get this question about, well, objectivism, you guys don't believe in emotions or you don't believe in cultivating emotions. And then from people who are interested in objectivism, I often get the question, well, what is the role of emotion in a human being's life? What is the role of emotion in a healthy human being's life? You know, is reason in conflict? And therefore, once you suppress our emotions, once you reject our emotions and just, you know, reason, it's all about rational self-interest, not about emotional self-interest. And indeed, we make the point of, you shouldn't follow your emotions and seeking your values, you should follow your, your reason, you should follow, you should follow rationality. So how does all this integrate? Now, this is a big topic and we're only just going to touch on it today because also I have to get to this issue of, it's photography art, which is kind of fun, that'll be short. And I actually also want to, one more thing that I want to do, remind me if I forget, I want to say something about Dunkirk, the movie, which I watched last week. So I want to give you a quick review of Dunkirk in addition to that. So let me start by saying, whoa, emotions are incredibly important. Emotions are how, in a sense, we experience life. Emotions are important. I mean, you can't be happy. Happiness is, in a sense, an emotion, a state of being. But what is a state of being? A state of being is the, is the, is to a large extent the collection of the emotions that you have. It's how you feel about yourself and about the world. Emotions are crucial survival mechanisms. They give you information about you and about how you are responding to the world. And just like pain and pleasure are mechanisms to tell you stay away from embrace in a sense. This is good. This is bad in some primitive physical sense. Emotions are telling you, ooh, something's wrong there. I feel fear or I feel anxiety or I feel, and, oh, this is great. I feel good now because emotions are not cognition. It doesn't mean the emotion is right. You have to evaluate that emotion. You have to look at the facts of reality and figure out where that emotion is coming from and whether it's right or not. But it's giving you that signal and that experience of living.  It's part of life. It's an essential part of life. It's an essential part of a biology. We have emotions where the spark likes it or not. And I love it. How could you not love emotions? I mean, this is what, joy, joy is an emotion. And fear is healthy. Fear is a healthy emotion, right? When something is to be feared, when something is dangerous, you should feel fear. Now, the emotion of fear is not enough to justify not doing something. You have to understand why you're feeling the fear. But the fear is an automatic, quick, almost instantaneous response to something in reality. And that is important in emergencies. But it's also important in living because it tells you something about what you think subconsciously about the things out there in reality that are happening. And sometimes you'll discover that your emotions are in contradiction to your conscious, explicit views about the thing in reality. And that means you have to do some work. Why? So let's step back a minute. What are emotions? Where do they come from? So I'm going to read you Inran's definition. Emotions are the automatic results, well, that's not exactly a definition, but emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgments, integrated by a subconscious, right? So emotions are the automatic results of man's value judgments, integrated by subconscious. Emotions are estimates of that which furthers man's values or threatens them, that which is for him or against him. So emotions are quick, subconscious evaluations of reality, of events, of values that are out there.  I don't know. So you might, you might get a thrill every time you see Donald Trump get on stage and speak, and you get this positive emotion.  And yet emotionally, I love this example, emotionally you're spawning to him like he's John Gault. Now that would say there's some issue going on. There's something wrong, even though you could say, well, it's causing me joy. This is a good thing, joy is a good thing, right? But the conflict with your conscious minds has to also cause you anxiety, stress, worry. It's also the case that getting joy out of something that is in reality harmful to you is not going to lead to non-contradictory joy, to consistent joy, to happiness. So I don't get joy when I see Donald Trump, the emotion I feel is discussed. Because on this issue at least, my subconscious and my conscious mind are integrated. Right? But think about the importance of justice in the world, for example. I mean, one of the, one of the justices of virtue, the importance of justice is a virtue, is you want to stay away from people who will do you harm.  Now, let's say, let's say you fall in love with somebody who, when you evaluate them consciously, you find they're not good. Well, that is very dangerous. It's very dangerous for your ability to thrive as a human being, because you're getting a positive emotion for something that's bad for you. And that has consequences. Reality is reality. You're not going to change reality based on your emotion. Say, you're going to suffer the consequences of this person being bad for you, even though, in the moment, you feel love towards that person, and that requires working on yourself. It requires evaluating your emotion. So, you know, as I mentioned, this is what introspection is about. Introspection is really about asking yourself two questions. It's not easy. It requires effort. Everything about living requires effort. Nothing about living a good, rational, healthy, happy life is easy. It all requires effort. To introspect, you have to ask two guiding questions. What do I feel? What is the emotion? And why do I feel it? And answering the why is very hard. It's very hard. And if, you know, but that's what you got to do, and you got to figure it out. And if you find conflicts, then you've got to think about them and you got to get rid of them. And what happens is that as you make your philosophy more conscious, as you integrate it into your life more, as you integrate your ideas more with one another, as you introspect more about your ideas and about any potential conflict in those ideas, you will find that your subjective, your subconscious evaluations, your lightning-like estimations start conforming more and more with your conscious evaluations. Now, this happens to us all the time. People do this all the time, whether they, even though they don't think about it, you're in love with somebody and you discover that they've done something horrible. They've cheated on you and you don't want to have anything to do with them because you understand that they've had for you. You walk away. Now, sometimes the emotion of love, it takes a while to go away because your mind needs to integrate this new information. It needs to integrate it completely. And as it integrates it, the emotion of love fades away and disappears. And if it doesn't, you're in trouble. If it doesn't, it means there's something else going on. There's some reason why in spite of the betrayal, in spite of the fact that they've done something really, really bad to you, and assuming it really is really, really bad. It's assuming we're objective about this, then what is going on inside of you? What false premises do you have about yourself, about this person, about the world, about reality that is causing you to continue loving a person that continues to do harm to you? That requires no introspection. But people's emotions change all the time based on new information. So it surprises me when people say, reject this idea that emotions are consequences of ideas that we hold and conclusions that we've come to. Emotions are consequences of ideas that we hold and conclusions we come to. Now some of those conclusions, we came to, for example, when we were very young. And because we came to them when we were very young and integrated them and automated them and brought them into our, into our subconscious, we can't, it's very hard for us to undo them because we can't go back and find the experiences and find the exact concretes that led us to those conclusions, to reevaluate them and change them. And it's hard. And this is why some people in some circumstances need to see a psychologist, a psychiatrist, in order to dig deeper, in order to discover the source of these emotions, to discover where they come from, and how to change a subconscious. Or you have to do some real introspecting in a psychologist a psychiatrist can help you do that introspecting. And I think I think at the end of the day, I think the value of psychology as therapy is in helping you introspect, because at the end of the day, only you can fix yourself. So it's about helping you introspect and helping you understand where the emotions come from, undo the conclusions you came to that were wrong. And, you know, come to new conclusions.  I, when I, many of you know this, but before I read Atlas Shrugged at 16, I was a socialist and a collectivist and a tribalist and an altruist, a committed altruist, or at least I thought I was. And reading Atlas Shrugged changed that. It didn't just change it intellectually. It changed it emotionally as well. And it took longer for the emotions to change. So I got it rationally. I got Ayn Rand's ideas rationally. I won't say easily, but I got them. But the emotions took much longer to actually change, to actually come around, to actually, you know, so for example, I'll give you a silly example, right? When I was young, every time Israeli flag would go up and the national anthem would ring, I would get teary eyed, because I was a real collectivist. I was a real nationalist. And to me, there was nothing greater, more important than the Israeli flag and an anthem of the state of Israel. And after I read Ayn Rand, it took years for that to go away. But it went away. I don't feel that way. And at some point, to some extent, to a large extent, I'm much more attached today to the American flag and the American anthem. But I don't get teary eyed up because of the reality of what America is today. I don't get teary eyed up. If I get teary eyed up, it's because of memories or the imagination of what America could be and should be, and to some extent was. So emotions are products of evaluation.  If you're feeling anxiety, if you're feeling immense stress, if you're feeling depression, it's really important to understand where it comes from, why it is, what is the source? Is it justified? If it's justified, if you should feel depressed, then how do I fix the reality that is causing me the stress? How do I change the world in which I live in so that I don't feel the stress of this depression or whatever it is? But often it's unjustified. Often it's about a wrong assessment. Often it's about often it's about a wrong identification about yourself. Often it's a lack of self-esteem. Now we're in a whole other area, you know, your sense and your idea about your own value and about your own self. And altruism does this to us. Most of us, all of us I would say, all of us, maybe there might be a few exceptions out there. All of us were raised in a culture of altruism. All of us embraced elements of altruistic thinking, altruistic conclusions, some point in our lives to some degree or another. I certainly did, hugely. And to get that out of you, so that you don't feel guilty about not giving change to a beggar, or that you don't feel guilty about not giving to the United Way, all of these other things, you don't feel, but more importantly, that's those negative examples, the positive examples, that you actually feel pride about your own achievements, that you actually strive to make yourself the best that you can be. You actually strive towards moral perfection, which is what leads to self-esteem. Altruism undercuts that.  And if you're born, if you were raised Christian, don't pride is a vice. Don't be pride. So I think you cannot be successful in life without untangling all these things. And it's hard. It's very hard. And I think one of the reasons why people don't accept objectivism, because they don't want to untangle these things. It's too easy to keep them as they are. It's too easy. And today, we're taught that we're deterministic, that we're, you know, genes dictate our emotions, which is ridiculous, given how often my emotions change when I get new information about people or events. It's just absurd. But we're genetically programmed to feel certain things, you know, the whole evolutionary psychology. Now, I'm not saying the whole field is bogus, it's not. There's a lot of interesting things there. And I think it's still a good scientific question about what we actually is genetic and what isn't genetic. What is ingrained in us and what is not? Because something is, right? With Tableau-Rassa, when it comes to ideas, but there's certainly things that, when I look at my two sons when they were born a day old, they were different. They were different. What accounts for that difference? There's a lot of science that still needs to be done. But the science that's done today, a lot of it is complete nonsense. A lot of it is using evolutionary psychology to come up with stories to explain the conclusion you want to have to begin with. And they were all motivated by an anti-free will, view of man. So you have to be very careful when you read, when you read these guys and when you read these people who claim to be determinists and so on. So, all right, so going back to emotions, I love them. I love them. You got to be passionate about life and where does passion come from? People say, you are so passionate. Why are you so passionate? And I don't know how many of you know me, but it's funny because when I'm with my wife or with close friends, I'm a pretty quiet guy. And here I am, I get all excited on stage and excited here and everything. And it's interesting. I'm passionate about certain things. I'm passionate about ideas. I'm passionate about objectivism. I'm passionate about communicating the ideas. I'm passionate about teaching. I love the idea of teaching. I love teaching. Not the idea of teaching, but the actual teaching. And why am I passionate about these things? Because they're completely integrated into everything else that I am. They're integrated into my values. This is the philosophy I live. It's not just a theoretical construct for me. It's not like here are 20 questions. Objectivism answers them better than anybody else.  This is what I live day to day at every point in time. And it's, I've integrated into my life, into who I am, into what I am. So when I teach it, when I lecture about it, when I discuss it, you're discussing me. You're discussing the most personal thing to me possible. So yeah, I'm passionate. Yeah, I'm emotional about it. Yeah, it's fun. I love it. Because this is the pursuit of rational values. This is what it means to me. All right. And you know, I love teaching. And if I introspect why I love teaching, you know, you can do that. You can figure these things out. And then are they consistent with, yeah, teaching is very consistent with the rest of my philosophy with the rest of my life. All right, I'm gonna have to end it there. If you guys have questions, now's the time,<PHONE_NUMBER>. Any questions on emotions? Emotions, the quinter emotions?<PHONE_NUMBER>. There's a lot to say here. And of course, the funny thing is I'm not exactly qualified to say it because, you know, I can do a little bit of that. But what you want is a real psychologist to talk about these things, who actually has gone deep into these issues. But I think I've given you a good kind of introduction to the field of emotions, to the question of introspection, to the idea that emotions have a cause in our thinking, not in our genes, but in our thinking. Those are the ideas I wanted to give. And that, as objectivists, we should be emotional. Not let our emotions guide us, but respond with emotion, experience our emotion, understand our emotion, integrate our emotions.