Shuhaibul Haithami vs Ravichandran c. Sam Harris, Francis Crick, Yuval Noah Harari, Peter singer, Richard Dowkins, Jazla madasseri.
إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يُغَيِّرُ مَا بِقَوْمٍ حَتَّى يُغَيِّرُوا مَا بِأَنْفُسِهِمْ
Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves
Ikhtiyar" in English means "choice," "option,"
Harris [2012: 9] suggests criminals neurophysiological processes morally exculpatory as it was
these physical events in their brains that gave rise to their thoughts and actions.
Sam Harris at Sydney Opera House Festival (2012)
On Dangerous Ideas
Discussion on Free Will
Immanuel Kant:
"Everything that happens, that is, begins to be, presupposes something upon which it follows according to a rule."
(Critique of Pure Reason, A189/B232)
"All alterations take place in conformity with the law of the connection of cause and effect."
(Critique of Pure Reason, B232)
he argues that causality is a fundamental principle our minds use to organize experience, asserting that every event we perceive as happening must have a cause.
The principle of causality posits that every event or phenomenon has a cause or a sequence of causes that precede it.
In The Astonishing Hypothesis (1994), Francis Crick elaborates (on page 266):
"We have the strong impression that we can make free, uncaused choices… But if our actions are determined by prior events in our brain, this feeling of free will must be an illusion."
"The Astonishing Hypothesis is that 'You,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." (Page: 3)
Yuval Noah Harari:
“Religion is a system of human norms and values that is founded on a belief in a superhuman order. This involves two distinct criteria: (1) Religions hold that there is a superhuman order, which is not the product of human whims or agreements. (2) Based on this superhuman order, religion establishes norms and values that are binding on human beings.”(page 214 of the Harper (2015) edition)
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (2011) or Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2015), he provides a framework for understanding how religious laws shaped the legal and moral foundations that later influenced governance systems.
Anas (May Allah be pleased with him) reported:
The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "Hear and obey even if an Abyssinian slave whose head is like a raisin is placed in authority over you."
[Al- Bukhari].
﴿وَلَوْ شَاءَ اللَّهُ لَجَعَلَكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَلَٰكِن يُضِلُّ مَن يَشَاءُ وَيَهْدِي مَن يَشَاءُ ۚ وَلَتُسْأَلُنَّ عَمَّا كُنتُمْ تَعْمَلُونَ﴾
[ النحل: 93]
And if Allah had willed, He could have made you [of] one religion, but He causes to stray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And you will surely be questioned about what you used to do.
Peter singer:
“When the death of a defective infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the defective infant is killed.” (p. 138)(Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (Oxford University Press, 1985)
“Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons. Hence their lives would seem to be no more valuable than those of, say, a foetus or a newborn kitten.” (p. 169)(Practical Ethics*, 2nd Edition (Cambridge University Press, 1993).
“The life of a newborn baby is of less value to it than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee would be to the nonhuman animal.” (p. 171)
Richard Dowkins about peter singer:
during a 2008 interview for the documentary The Genius of Charles Darwin, Dawkins described Singer as "the most moral person I’ve ever met,"
In a 2023 episode of The Poetry of Reality podcast, Dawkins again expressed admiration, calling Singer "one of my favourite moral philosophers"