I always find it bizarre when an atheist scientist says, " if there is a naturalistic explanation that means God is not needed." It is as fallacious as me saying, " if I can explain how my laptop works, down to the chemistry, then that means there is no reason for the laptop to of had a maker" Science does not answer WHY anything exists , it simply tries to explain HOW things work. So even if we can explain how something works and outline all its mechanisms from a molecular level, WHY it exists in the first place and adheres to the laws it does can never be answered by science.

Wow - amazing debate. All debates should be like this one. No insults, no mocking; all about the substance. That's exactly how it should be. Truly well done by both sides.

Hamza is a blessing to this world. And how well mannered they both were is beautiful.

This is what a real debate is like. Both side rally respectful, humble and addressing straight the point. No mocking, no insult. Sir Peter Simons a really cool. I also admire his sense of humor, giving refreshing puns inside serious philosophical discussion.

our brothers in Islam are always Absolute Fire. subahanAllah. may Allah keep the muslim ummah growing and rightly guided. Ameen

I really admire the professor. He is so humble and open. Really refreshing. Also, great argument by brother Hamza

Enlightening debate with mutual respect on both sides. Hamza should take note and in future, debate academics with similar temperament rather than shouty arrogant dudes & twitter trolls who continually goad him & aim to character assassinate.

Hamza bro you are legend love from pakistan

When hamza gave him the Quran the joy on his face it's nice or better to say refreshing from all the hate all arguments should be like this because this is all a journey to figure out the truth, Alhamdulillah

what a great debate. first debate i have seen which have generated plenty of light without heat. all debates should be like this no matter what the passion for subject might be.

So proud to be Muslim

May Allaah guide this professor on account of his mannerism and may Allaah reward Hamza Tzortzis and the rest of iERA for their good works and efforts!

I would really like Hamza to debate or discuss with Jordan peterson

Always to be amazed to listen Bro Hamza Andreas Tzortzis...

What a world of difference between this atheist and Lawrence Krauss. May Allah (SWT) open his heart to Islam

I never seen a muslim not win in a debate Could it be because we are defending a belief which bases and ideas are logical , from god and made out of dimonds ? Nah just chance

Very calm, open and interesting debate. Well done to Hamza for putting across a great argument and image for Islam and to Peter for being such a good sport.

When atheists accuse theists (wrongly) that theists have "God-of-the-gap" perspective, theists may well accuse the atheists in holding so dearly, religiously, to the "science-of-the-gap" belief.

Excellent debate. There should be more debates like this...

I push my appreciation to u bro from Tanzania may Allah give Jannah

God bless you, Mr Tzortzis

See Hamza's response to this debate here: www.iera.org/events/the-big-debates/can-consciousness-be-best-explained-by-gods-existence-professor-peter-simons-and-hamza-tzortzis

im glad we have such nuance debates such as this one. its a shame some of us can't respect each others world views even if we disagree we all have to share the same planet in the end of the day. jazakallah iera and prof. peter simons

WOW! what a beautifull debate. NIce and well manared!

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته ... بداية أردت الكتابة بالعربية لأني أجدها الأفضل في إيصال ما أشعر به .... أود أن أشكر الأستاذ : حمزة , على ما يقدمة وعلى سيعه الحثيث لإصال الإسلام بطرق لطيفة وجميلة ومقتعة بشكل كبير جدا....... أنا مسلمة وولدت في بيئة مسلمة ولله الحمد والمنة , وللأستاذ الفضل الكبير بعد الله في حث نفسي نحو الأفضل , نحو التلذذ بالإيمان.... نحو التعمق أكثر وأكثر في ديننا الحنيف ,, لقد أهدتني مقاطع الفيديو الخاصة به " شعورا مميزا " مع الشعور بالغبطة .. فنحن لنا سنينا بالإسلام ولم نقدم شيئا يذكر نحوه !!!!! فهنيئا لنا بوجود أمثالكم ... وجزاكم الله خير .

Who else has watched Hamza destroying prof Krauss?

Awesome and very entertaining debate! May Allah The Almighty bless our beloved brother Hamza and make him steadfast! May Allah The Almighty guide peter simons!

Excellent debate

I love the politely of brother hamza

As an AI developer, consciousness is the thing that brought me to Islam.

I would have loved to have seen the entire debate

Thank you ,One of the best debates form iERA, both sides had something valid to contribute and points from both speakers are worth pondering on.... Hamza's rebuttal was to the point and made some sense at the end to favour supernatural explanation. I do feel that "matter" alone cannot produce "the mind" , there has to be a "Super Mind" behind the origin of matter . That is why the cognitive dissonance we experience when we ponder over "something from nothing theory".

I love this. This is what a debate should look like. I learned from both of them and didn't feel offended in any way

Mashallah. Very good explanation by Hamza

This is how should a debate should be like, instead of being mocking, booing the speakers.

This is the best way for atheists and muslims to understand both sides of the argument. Keep it up :)

Peter Simon WOW💚👍. Hamza ElhamdouliLah always 💪💪💪!

24:15 Dr Allama Mohammed iqbal One of my favorites he was more then a poet ,he was mystic , and scholar

what a wonderful debate, but i wish i could actually understand what they were talking about :P

Consciousness is an enigma.

A very respectful debate, loved it.. But i think professor was being very ungrateful when he said, my eyes could be like this, my throat could be like this, when he himself cannot even create a fly.. I disliked that part very much.. And i pray to Allah that he starts fearing Allah before Allah takes away from him what He gave him.. Ameen.

Hamza may Allah help you and your team. And may He bring a group of Muslims all over the world like you to address these issues. I have been watching some debates with the atheists, and I think professor Peter has made the most rational arguments with respect to other atheists where as most atheists dont address the points or I assume they dont have a good rational view to explain. It was very good and respectful debate.

Absolutely brilliant debate even though the Peter agreed with Hamza with problem of consciousness. Very admirable and honest by Peter Simons

So professor is saying that science hasn't been advanced to solve the hard problem of consciousness which is a fallacy called science of the gaps. In the contrary hamza is saying that it is a problem which is so much hard (impossible) to be solved that scientists surrender (not trying) on this problem and he is filling this gap by existence of God which is a fair choice to make.

Very nice debate! Hamza looks very different than before, has he lost weight? Masha Allah it may just be that i haven't watched him for a long time.

Allahu akbar I was contemplating this earlier today and here I find it right on my subscriptions page. I haven't watched the video yet so I don't know if this was discussed but I was thinking about the theory of parallel universes and how scientists say that there are an infinite amount of versions of ourselves. So I was thinking that if there are an infinite amount of copies of me and they are all physiologically the same, then why do I experience only 1 conscious state? Or what if I could produce a clone that is 100% identical to myself, would we share the same consciousness? I can't prove it but I don't think that would be the case so there must be something that distinguishes me from a direct copy of me. Could it be the soul? I can't answer that but I find it extremely thought provoking.

Subhanallah brother hamza has lost a lot of weight since his debate in Australia, he looks very different.

Where does it say in the Qur’aan to “Look into the inter-connecting principles in nature”?

Love u Hamza brother for ALLAH❤️🧡💛💙💜

❤

One possible naturalist explanation for consciousness is that once a nervous system reaches a level of sophistication where it has a complex enough array of chemical/physical feedback loops for an organism to find out where it is in space and time and can make models of reality that makes it conscious.

What it is to be like eaten like a strawberry; even harder problem to explain in terms of Panpsychism (in my view)

Alaikum Salaam wa Rahmatullah WA barakathu

Who is the professor Hamza mentioned that thinks Richard Dawkins stupid?

The professor said: That's not the best explanation, consciousness is natural phenomenon and if its natural phenomenon it should have natural explanation? My contention would be why is He assuming that God is not natural, why is science being given authority to define what is natural and what is not, God is natural in His Godliness, do we assume things that exist in sea, microbes in lava, in air and on earth or any other planets if they exist as not natural? In theology God defines Himself through attributes, and a word with definition of "supernatural" is not one of them.

I still don't understand what this "hard problem" is. Subjective experience sounds identical to a what it would be like to be a brain receiving and processing sense data. I would be more confused if to find a brain having a third person experience, because where the hell is the camera?

Dear Dr. Hamza Tzortzis, I highly enjoy your argumentative style and admire your broad knowledge. I am a 44 yo Italian, who realized, at age 12, that god is imaginary. I have a degree in philosophy of language and a PhD from Bologna university. I simply wish to point out some (deliberate?) confusion in your standard argument. You confuse the notion of cause and the notion of creation ex nihilo. From the fact that you want to show that the universe had an origin (however, the total mass and energy were already there), you conclude that it had a cause, which is true (nevertheless the hypothesis of an infinite, oscillating universe has not been ruled out). However, you arbitrarily conclude that the universe was created. Causation does not mean creation. My parents caused me, they did not create me. What would become the mass of my body was already there in the universe. This fallacy alone would undermine all of your structure. it simply is an unwarranted move. A non sequitur. Moreover, induction shows us that among ALL the known causes for natural phenomena, ALL of them were natural in kind. The universe is the sum of the known natural phenomena; ergo, most likely, per induction, the cause for the universe is also a natural phenomenon. Appealing to god is equal to admitting our ignorance, resorting to a god of the gaps. I shall overlook the many times you confuse an ontological problem with an epistemological one. Finally, a riddle for you. Either all has a cause, or it is false that all has a cause. If all has a cause, admitting god caused the universe, then also god must have a cause, per the first premise. If the premise is false, then the universe might well be eternal. Its big bang does not mean that the sum of its energy and mass were created. They might have been always there. The idea that all must have a cause but god does not is an arbitrary, illogical choice. A final remark: a belief in god is simply a hope in god. My suggetsion is, from my heart: forget religions, they are primitive forms of superstition, the sense of beauty and amazement in the world needs not rest on some imaginary being who controls our sexual habits :) Be well, keep up with the good work. Friendly regards

I understand that such debates are a form of daw'ah. Do you think by creating such a platform, allows the non-Muslim argument to be voiced? I was very afraid to watch the Krauss debate - I feared hearing something from Krauss which may affect my imaan. I love Hamza, he is amazing, May Allah bless him and everyone else at iera, but I just feel the potential harm cannot be justified by the potential good.

Why ask for more arms?? That is freaky? Why not ask to be like Superman? Then again if that was the case the world would be at War.

One may appeal to natural selection and darwinism.

Brain is not there with the spirit. It is of the jasad. You are the sum total of the collective life experience through the SENSES which make up the Tree of Life or the SHAJARAT AL KHULDI of Iblis as mentioned in Quran 20:120. You can go on arguing in relative terms with the unbelievers. Those intellectual philosophical jargons mean nothing unless you have experienced Higher Conscious within the Tawheed, not the one under the guidance of the Iblis as in most of the eastern meditation practices - all the kundalini stuff, and also the kabbalah tree of life stuff, or all those stuff generically categorized under Alchemy or mysticism or the occult or esoteric or gnostic of the Sophists.

Design faults in humans :) What you consider faults ... because you dont know the wisdom behind humans not having extra arms or much better eyes it doesnt mean there isnt any wisdom or reason why we have these so called faults you have mentioned

Professor Simons I believe should've debated someone with actual knowledge of the subject, a scientist or philosopher would've made for a more interesting discussion.

In Simple Words consciousness is : !! ME !! In other words My Body is not ME

Rhamzas sofism is so angustiating to hear.

Watching this is like comparing a preschooler taking on the principal..... Irrespective of all the BIG words Hamza uses, it is still nonsense. ... The prof explained things in such simple terms it was so easy to grasp.....

Hamza Tzortzis pretty much just finds the gaps in neuroscience and merely claims that magic is the only explanation. An argument of ignorance and personal incredulity.

Hamza has very few original ideas on things. He constantly quotes others to support his position, but rarely has his own ideas, aside from random, overly-simplified, non sequitur arguments. This is a huge problem with Muslim/religious scholarship because all of the view are based on consensus rather than real evidence. Therefore, evidence doesn't matter because an old, dead, prophet/philosopher/poet said so... I don't see why he is looked upon as such a great debater. He just uses unnecessarily complex terms in order to disguise the fact that his arguments carry no weight. Long words, complex words, god is transcendent therefore we have everything and the Quran is right because it has unique linguistic attributes which cannot be explained by naturalist explanations, therefore god is real, and Islam is the right religion. Why are the linguistic attributes of the Quran indicative of its hoLogical jumps are his forte... The thing that blows my mind is that many Muslims find him convincing at all, and even worthy of praise when his arguments are so baseless, and contrived. Easily amused? Yes. :(

The non muslim won...again.

Peter Simons is an amazing scientist. Unfortunately, hamza is neither a scientist nor a philosopher. Shame that such a smart man decides to stick to some such primitive idea as god, and especially the god of islam, currently the most backward culture on the planet.