Faith

Last night, I got into one of those late night Discord rabbit holes that somehow started with Sharia law and ended in a philosophical deep dive about the origins of the universe. What began as a back and-forth about Islam and Western liberal values quickly turned into a full blown discussion on morality, free will, epistemology, and, of course, the existence of God. 

What made it interesting wasn’t just the usual debate over “which system is better,” but how clear the ideological fault lines were. On one side, a friend passionately argued for the moral and legal 'perfection' of Sharia law. On the other, a defence of liberalism and the values of the west - not because it’s without its faults, but because it at least gives people the freedom to question everything, including the system itself.

It made me realise just how deep the disconnect can be. There's a growing number of people - some religious, some just disillusioned- who see Western societies as decadent, lost, and morally bankrupt. At the same time, a lot of liberal Westerners seem reluctant to call out illiberal ideas when they come wrapped in religion, especially Islam. The fear of being labeled “intolerant” or “Islamophobic” ends up making people bite their tongue, even when something clearly clashes with the values we supposedly care about: free speech, gender equality, LGBTQ+ rights, freedom of religion (or no religion at all), etc.

I personally don't agree with a lot of the ideology wrapped around LGBTQ, but am I glad people who hold such beliefs don't get brutally stoned to death, or get one of their hands chopped off? Yes I am. I don’t think that’s a controversial position. And yet, in a weird twist, it is controversial to say that liberal democracies are objectively better than theocracies when it comes to things like personal freedom and human rights.

This is  where the conversation got especially interesting. Because once you challenge the idea that Sharia is the “perfect” moral system, the goalposts tend to move. Suddenly it’s not about justice, mercy, or human flourishing - it’s about epistemology. What do you know? How do you know it? And eventually, you end up face to face with that age-old question: Is there a God, and if so, which one?

Enter The Kalam Cosmological Argument

It was brought up by my friend like it was some kind of concrete proof, like the final mic drop, if you will. The silver bullet was not only that a God must neccesarily exist, but that it had to be the God of Islam. For those unfamiliar, the Kalam Cosmological Argument is structured as follows:

P1: Whatever begins to exist has a cause.

P2: The universe began to exist. 

C: Therefore, the universe has a cause. 

And I agree, this does have appeal. It feels intuitive. Most of us, by our own observations in the natural world, believe things don't just pop into existence without some sort of cause. But does that really prove the existence of God? No. What it does do, however, is make you think about the possibility of something bigger than ourselves, that something might be beyond the material. Something that kickstarted what we know today as our universe. But what it doesn't do is explain what that something is. It doesn't point you to Allah, or Jesus, or a simulation run by post-human AI. 

The other issue is that while it's a logical argument, it relies on assumptions - axioms really. And like in math or logic, your conclusions are only as solid as the assumptions you start with. For instance, we assume causality works the same outside of time and space as it does within it. But what if that’s just a limitation of our brain? What if “beginning to exist” is a category error when applied to the universe?

In the debate, I pointed out that the logic of Kalam might be internally consistent, but that doesn't make it bulletproof. It's just one philosophical tool among many. In fact, if you define God as “the one thing that doesn’t need a cause,” you’re kind of playing a game of special pleading. You’re carving out an exception for your conclusion and calling it proof.

And that’s where I pushed back - respectfully, of course.

To be continued...