For this episode, I was joined by Tarek, an Egyptian ex-Muslim who is now based in Canada. We started off the conversation by discussing Tarek’s religious background in Egypt and the role that religion played in his life.

We then went on to discuss how Tarek came across programming through online gaming. Tarek’s programming adventure opened a window of logic into his life and he went on a quest to apply critical thinking and logic to other aspects of his life. Tarek then shared how this sparked his skepticism and then, later on, made him question his religious beliefs. He shared how he started questioning stories in the Quran for example the creation story of Adam and Eve and whether or not Iblis/ Satan was an angel.

The conversation then turned on to the questioning of unnecessary suffering. We discussed why it does not make sense for there to be an ‘all merciful’ creator in a world filled with unnecessary suffering. We also talked about the poor evidence for the existence of God.

We also discussed evolution and why it is true. We covered how humans have evolved to need community for thriving. Tarek and I then moved on to talk about how we as humans are able to develop better moral systems and how religions have evolved along with humans to provide answers to human beings. Later on, we touched on how the ‘God did it’ explanation keeps on shrinking whenever science comes with an explanation for various natural phenomena. 

We closed off the episode by discussing how technological advancements have brought forward new moral questions that are not covered by religious scriptures. 

Many thanks to Tarek for sharing his story with us. I hope you will enjoy this episode!

YouTube version of this interview: https://youtu.be/hJDQ71CVEuQ

His FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074299471362

Timestamps:

0:00 Introductions

1:15 Apostate Brain’s background

8:30 How programming helped Apostate Brain to start learning about logic and truth

15:34 What sparked Apostate Brain to start questioning Islam?

18:40 Why would God provide questionable evidence for his existence?

23:00 The genetic bottleneck in the Adam and Eve creation story - Why evolution is true.

33:12 Doubting the existence of God.

44:40 Is Iblis an angel?

46:22 Analyzing the Quran from an academic perspective.

47:30 The problem of suffering.

51:10 Evolving to survive in a given environment. The beauty of understanding how the environment around us functions 

1:03:37 Morality as a product of evolution. 

1:05:30 Our brains grapple with understanding technologies - AI, robots, lab meat

1:09:22 How our morality has improved over time. Large numbers and probabilistic phenomena.

1:06:25 Moral questions regarding advancing technology.

1:14:20 Overcoming our animal instincts. What would happen to advanced civilizations?

1:20:40 Does absolute truth exist? What is absolute truth?

1:27:02 The constant need to keep improving. How Humanism maximizes human thriving.

1:32:30 The importance of community for humans to thrive. How religions have evolved with time.

1:36:50 Using the concept of identity to dehumanize ‘outsiders’

1:38:48 Al-Azhar’s challenge on why people are leaving Islam

1:41:25 Apostate Brain’s experience of having a Jewish friend as a Muslim. 

1:42:30 How religion sometimes limits people’s potential. Salafi flat earther.

1:49:10 How the ‘God did it’ explanation keeps shrinking as Science continues to explain more natural phenomena.

1:55:37 Qada qa qadr…

2:02:00 How religion provides a false sense of security and meaning

2:03:53 Channel announcements

2:04:05 God and robots - How AI is transforming religion.

2:05:50 Tarek’s contact details

2:06:09 Human limitations in understanding axioms. The Kalam argument.

2:09:43 Final remarks