Comment 12

Here are examples of demagoguery and sophistry in almost every sentence. This is how they usually “prove” that white is black and vice versa. People have created as many scientific theories as religions. Should we conclude from this that among the many scientific theories there is not a single true one?

Krauss does not mind, for example, that quantum mechanics and the theory of gravity contradict each other, since gravity is not quantized. But physicists use both. Why is each of the thousands of religions equally likely to be true? Krauss did not confirm or substantiate this thesis. Moreover, if cosmologists come up with a thousand theories of the origin of the universe, will they all have the same probability (0.1 percent) to be true? And why make any judgments about the truth a priori? On the contrary, everything must be tested, checked. Christianity teaches this too, “Test everything; hold fast to what is good” (1 Thess. 5:21).

[00:36:00] Krauss: Then Atheism as somehow have been described speaker as a belief system. It is not a belief system like Islam, or Judaism, or Christianity, or the North’s myths, or Zeus, or Thor or any other myths have been create in human history. It is not a belief system. We do not choose to believe that stuff, because it is not sensible.

Comment 13

From this point of view, there is nothing new and unique about atheism. Even the apostle Paul urged not to believe in myths, because it is not sensible. For example, he advised the apostle Titus strictly denounce the inhabitants of Crete, “so that they may become sound in the faith, not paying attention to Jewish myths [Gr. μῦθος] or to commandments of those who reject the truth” (Titus 1:13–14). He also encourages the apostle Timothy to fight myths: “For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths [Gr. μῦθος]” (2 Tim. 4:3–4).

Krauss: So, it is not saying, “We belief that.” An atheist can say, “This myth is unconsent with this myth, or this myth is unconsent what we know about the universe. And therefore, it is unlikely it be true.” So, the atheism is just saying, “This is unlikely to be true.” It is not a belief system . . .

Comment 14

It is obvious (and there are many examples of this) that both among atheists and among adherents of any religion, there are both genius scientists and people who are completely ignorant and even stupid. Faith or disbelief does not depend on knowledge or intellect, but on the state of the soul. Atheists are reluctant to admit this obvious fact.

Krauss and other atheists try to make things seem like they alone have a “monopoly” on reason and common sense. They argue that people have been mistaken for thousands of years in absolutely everything, and only atheists (who have appeared quite recently by historical standards) act reasonably. However, this is not true. For example, the theory of the multiverse has no more scientific evidence than the existence of Zeus or Thor. Then why is it better than any other long-standing invention of humankind?

In fact, there are a lot of myths in politics, science, and culture. Myths are everywhere. Of course, it is good when a person “turns on the brain” and thinks reasonably. The trouble happens when at the same time everything else that is characteristic of a person is turned off.

All over the world, religious people were looking for wisdom and engaged in science long before atheists. Indian, Arabic, and ancient Greek mathematicians made great contributions to mathematics thirty five thousand years ago, when there were no atheists. Yes, their religious views were sometimes wrong. However, the scientific views of the same time were also erroneous. Many scientific theories have over time been refuted, and they could be called “fictions” and “myths”.

The thesis that atheism is not a belief system is also wrong. In the USSR and other communist countries, atheism was a belief system. A lot of literature has been written on this topic. On the other hand, it is absolutely wrong to identify all religions only with a belief system. This is oversimplification. It is like looking at the world through a small hole covered by a thick light filter. Only a small part of the complete picture will be visible, and only in one color.

Sharpie looks at the world through the prism of probability theory. However, not all people are like that, and the theory of probability is not applicable everywhere. Let us say that Krauss meets a young man with a burning gaze, and he will happily tell that he has fallen in love with a girl. “She is beautiful, the one and only,” the young man will say. Suppose, Krauss will reply, “Your statement is ridiculous. There are hundreds of millions of girls in the world with exactly the same shapes, with exactly the same physiology. There is nothing special about it. Moreover, hormones, brain substances, and social patterns trigger your emotions. Therefore, the likelihood that your statement is true is low.” Will Krauss leave unbeaten after that? Great question!

Krauss’s picture of the world is dull and uncheerful. This is the picture of formulas and equations. This is a world without love, without spiritual achievement, without spiritual enlightenment. Everything in it is subject to the theory of probability, the impersonal laws of physics and chemistry. It has no purpose, no meaning.

Krauss’s theses testify to his complete lack of understanding of the essence of the issue. Religions are, first of all, spiritual states that defy description and cannot be expressed in words. Moreover, no science can say anything about them. Even religious scholars who study any religion from its texts, but have not experienced its spiritual experience, cannot adequately describe it. They are like people studying musical notation, but not knowing how they sound.

Christian ascetics and Islamic Sufis said that their goal was the comprehension of the Truth. In addition, this goal can be achieved not through reason, logic, and reasoning, but only with the help of love, conscience, and purity of heart. [34] In a state of spiritual imperfection, in an abnormal state, people are not able to see things as they really are. An imperfect person, due to his imperfection, without even realizing it, perceives the truth as distorted, and not as it really is.

Yet, Krauss never said, in what way is Islam or Christianity or Judaism contrary to what we know about the universe? He did not say because they did not contradict anything. So all Krauss’s accusations are unfounded.

On the other hand, Krauss’s argument can be rephrased in relation to atheism. Atheism is not unique. Everything has been said thousands of years ago. Even the ancient sophists wrote down all possible lines of thought, long before Krauss. Moreover, atheism can also be called one of a thousand religions. After all, religious people have always looked for common sense and engaged in science. Moreover, the penchant for myths is a feature of culture and psychology. There have been and are myths in science too.

[00:36:51] Krauss: The first part of the false promise is that Islam is special. Not special at all . . . It is just like all the rest.

Comment 15

Krauss did not study Islam, and he cannot say how Islam is similar to other religions. Therefore, all of his statements about the similarity of religions are groundless and fundamentally wrong. Although in Islam there are some borrowings from Christianity, Neo-Platonism, and Buddhism, the presence of some borrowings from three religions does not at all mean similarity with all. If we talk about Christianity, then everything in it is connected with the Incarnation from beginning to end (Matt. 16:15–18). This is the meaning of the creation of the world, and the meaning of human life. There is nothing like this in any religion.