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Introduction to Professor Jang's Claims
How are you guys doing? Welcome to another video where in which we are going to be deciphering, assessing, analyzing some of the statements online. And we're going to be continuing the theme from last week, the motif which now we're bringing forward, where in which I actually spoke about Mei Hassan's discussion with Professor Jang. And Mei Hassan responded, I'm not sure if you can see this on the screen right now or not, but I hope you can, where he was, you know, saying, "You know, haven't you seen this video?" I'm paraphrasing, "But haven't you seen this video where he's speaking about Judaism and that starts from Islam?" He also mentioned some other things which I responded to. But he made a point. Yes, Jang needs to be refuted actually, because he said things about Islam which are repudiable. They are easily confuted actually.
Let's take a look at what Jang said here and come back and respond in kind.
Professor JangAnd so they keep on the fight, even though they've lost the war against Romans. They will go into the Arabian desert where they will incubate a new religion called Islam, and they will prophesy the coming of the Messiah who turn out to be Muhammad. Right? Um, so at this point in history, the Jews must leave Jerusalem because the Romans basically kicked them out, and their religion will splinter into many different factions. Um, and as we discussed, what will happen is those Jews who are almost maniacal, they will escape into the urban desert, and they will incubate Islam.
Rebuttal of Jang's Historical Claims
Well, as you can see, Jang is making this claim, okay? He's making the claim that Islam is an offshoot or some kind of an outgrowth of Judaism. Now, this claim is without substance, frankly, and that is the reason why you will not find a single solitary secondary source, okay, from even Orientalist literature, okay, even Orientalist literature, which kind of substantiates what he's talking about.
Now, there are all kinds of, in the academy, in the Western academy and elsewhere, there are all kinds of theories about early Islam. There are many what you call historical exegesis, people that try to exegetically interpret the first, you know, couple of centuries of Islam and how the emergence of Islam is to be explained, etc. These theories, which I will be calling conspiratorial in this case, these conspiratorial theories of Mr. Jang is something which unfortunately has not been even substantiated or even said by anybody else.
So the thing is, Jang, this is the problem, okay? I don't consider you to be a fraud, and just to be open with you, I think you're a very intelligent person. I think you have a lot to offer. And listen, I've done six degrees, one of them is in politics, okay? And I've studied international relations, and some of the things that you say, I understand from an educated perspective, I'd like to think, are not actually stupid, okay? And I'll come to that maybe at the end of what I'm saying, but they're not stupid because they're based on a presupposition which is established in international relations. I'll come to that after I've dealt with this matter.
The point is this, though, when you speak about religion and theology and philosophy and things, you make a lot of blunders, and I don't think you have a coherent philosophy. And that is why when you speak about, first of all, the beginnings of Islam, you don't have anything substantive. You don't have any academic receipts. Look, the burden of proof is upon the one that's making the claim. If you're saying that Islam started from Judaism essentially or was kind of an outgrowth from it, then you have to provide some kind of a mechanism, historical mechanism that links A to B, that links to the Prophet Muhammad, for example, to the Jews in this sense, or what kind of Jews and what you're talking about, and what kind of thing, how exactly is this passage done and then the companions and all these kinds of things. You have to bring us the information of that. But let's say if you can't do that, that's not a problem. Then you shouldn't be making these claims, frankly. But it's not just your historical exegesis which is spurious, specious, or otherwise silly, frankly. It's also your theophilosophical outlook.
Let's take a look at this clip and come back and respond in kind.
Jang's Theophilosophical Views
GuestI mean, basically, why would you not consider yourself a Muslim?
Professor JangI have issues with the Islamic faith, okay? My major issue is that, you know, and I got a lot of hate for my lecture, okay? But I believe that religion, organized religion, it changes over time. So maybe in the beginning, it has certain ideas, but in order to accommodate empire, in order to accommodate politics, it shifted over time to become much more conformist, but become much more static, and I don't like that. My sympathies are toward connection with God directly, right? So rather than have an intermediary telling you what God thinks, well, you should be able to feel God in your heart. And, and, and I mean, like people have said I'm agnostic, you know, or I mean, Luciferian. You know, I, I don't, I don't know what these terms mean, okay? But I, I believe that we're all individuals with the divine spark in us. And so we should be all able to connect directly to God. We should all be able to exercise our imagination and our intuition.
The Concept of the Divine Spark
Mohammed HijabIn this clip here, he speaks about this thing called the divine spark. And somehow this is meant to explain things. The divine spark, from my reading, it seems to originate somewhere in the Gnostic, in Gnostic texts. Gnostics were, for Christians at least, this heretical group, okay, this heretical group that emerged in the first sort of first and second centuries of Christianity. Now, of course, one man's heterodox is another man's heresy. That's a different issue for another day.
But the issue is this, is that this is a flawed theophilosophical understanding because you're combining opposites. Okay, if you say God is, what is God? Okay, God, if you ask any religious person or any philosopher of religion, right? What, what is God? Okay, at the base, God is the foundation for all that exists, is the higher power. The foundation for all exists is a necessary being. It's the independent thing, the thing that everything depends upon. And that God depends upon nothing. That's what God is. You see, pre-eternal, post-eternal, all knowledgeable, all powerful. That's the conception of God understandable to human beings. Okay? So when we say God, that's what we mean. We're talking about the necessary being. We're talking about the independent being. We're talking about the post-eternal, the pre-eternal. We're talking about the all-knowing, the all-powerful. That's what we're talking about.
So when you talk about a divine spark, because when I had this conversation with Jordan Peterson, I had two conversations with Peterson. One of them was one of the most, I think it says, is the number one most viewed thing on his channel, by the way. So people are interested in his conversations. I had this conversation with Jordan Peterson, and he, he made the same reference. He said the divine spark, the divine spark. Now I'm asking this, if divinity is essentially an unlimited thing, okay, something which is without any blemish and something which is without any impediment or limitation. And the human being is all the opposite of that, is, is limited. How could there be a combination of these two things? I mean, if we are to understand this, if we have a divine spark in us, in our essence, which is actually God's essence inside of us, then that means you're, you're combining contradictory opposites because you have something which is uncaused on the one hand, which is God, uncaused, necessary. Then you have something which is caused, corruptible, dependent, etc. on the other hand, and you're combining the two things together.
And what I find kind of confusing is that you postulate this idea but then you negate the Trinity. And this is quite similar to the incarnation theory because you're thinking about somehow God became man, this is the kind of justifications that Christians would make about that. Let's see what you say about the Trinity.
Jang's View on the Trinity
GuestRight. But the weakness was that the Trinity didn't make any sense to you. Well, to many people, even a lot of Christians. Right.
Professor JangIt makes no sense at all.
GuestWhy does the Trinity not make any sense to you?
Professor JangRight. Well, because, um, you know, we think for intuition, right? So like, how, how do we know something is right? Well, we, we know something is right because it sounds right, because it, it's, it connects with us, right? But the entire point of the, of the Holy Trinity, okay, an idea that three things can be separate but connected things, three things that, that are different from each other can be, can be at one at the same time. It's meant to confuse you. It's meant to create kind of dissonance. And when you, and so when you accept the idea of the Trinity, the idea is that now you open your portal to all sorts of whatever crap propaganda that they, they want to instill in you as well. And that, that's why the Holy Trinity is the very basis of the Catholic religion.
Rebuttal of Jang's Theological Inconsistencies
Mohammed HijabNow, of course, I agree with you on the Trinity. This is the argument I made to William Lane Craig, who's a foremost philosopher of religion and obviously theologian. It's that similitude of that is the similitude of there being two mothers to the to one child, to one child. All right? So if you have two ultimate creators that essentially create the universe, okay, this one universe, the similitude of saying that there is that is the same as to say that there are two mothers that basically give birth to one single child. Now that can't be the case because responsibility ultimately has to be given to one mother. Likewise, responsibility ultimately has to be given to one creator. So there are ways that you can show through imagery and other ways that the Trinity is false.
The Importance of Intellectual Humility
And this leads me to my maybe final point for the day, which is that when you become popular online, okay, it becomes tempting for you to speak about things that you're not qualified to speak about. Okay, Jang. And this is just to be fair, because frankly, I defended you last week. This week, I have to repudiate some of the things that you've said. And I don't mind having a conversation with you, a good faith conversation with you about some of the things because I actually think that some of the things that you say are very intelligent. Okay. What you say about when you actually analyze the geopolitical situation from an educated standpoint. I'd like to say to you that it's not actually absurd in any way, shape or form.
We studied, for example, in university, the different competing theories in international relations. Now, one of the theories was the realist theory. Okay, it was called the realist theory of international relations, and it was associated with the likes of John Mearsheimer, okay, who's very active now as well, actually, and has excellent analysis, and Stephen Walt, together, whom, by the way, authored an excellent book which in a way almost predicts what's happening today, called The Israel Lobby. Okay, we had to read this book. And this was essentially contrasted, this school of thought was contrasted with other constructivist and what you call liberal institution schools of thought. And it seems to be that the realist school of thought, at least in my estimation, was more powerful.
Now, the reason why I bring this to your attention is because just like you did prophesy in your own way, okay, in your own way, you prophesy that, you know, there will be a war and America will lose the war, etc. So did John Mearsheimer say the same thing, but he came at it from a similar perspective as you. Now, you call it game theory. You say that, okay, for example, you have a zero-sum situation. Now, zero-sum is there has to be one winner and one loser essentially, right? It's, it's the opposite of win-win where both people can win. That is the, I mean, you're, you're, you're simply articulating, okay, you're simply articulating the realist international relations framework, which is the most established framework, which as I mentioned, is associated with people like John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, because that is exactly what they say. I mean, in the realist framework, they would say that the main area of analysis is that you have states which are self-interested, and survival is the, the ultimate predictor for a particular state, how that state will behave. In contradistinction with, for example, the liberal institutionists who say that, for example, collaboration will be a bigger impact or having a bigger impact in terms of predicting future behavior. The realists turned out to be, I would say, way more accurate, as we can see now with the, with the wars that happening in the world, in terms of predicting future behavior.
Now, the, the point I'm making to you therefore is, I don't think that your analysis is fraudulent. I don't think that you're a stupid man. I don't think you're a fraud. I think you're a very intelligent man. I think that you've, you've clearly, you went to Yale. I think, I believe you went to Yale. You've done an English language degree. You've studied Dante, you've studied Dostoevsky, you've studied, you know, whoever it may be that you've studied all these great authors, and you've taken some of the ideas and you are able to make predictions of a geopolitical nature which are good.
However, the fact is, you know, I wouldn't feel comfortable speaking about something which I'm not qualified in. And I think that's something you should adopt because frankly, that's when the fraudulence will become a stronger case. People say, "Well, this guy's a fraud." Why? Because he's speaking about these things without any peer-reviewed, you know, access or he's not even referencing peer-reviewed texts. And then that's when your otherwise intelligent, okay, geopolitical analysis and excellent analysis on the world scale will become, I would say, would actually become tainted. So yeah, don't speak out too many things. Otherwise, I'd love to speak to you, Jang. I'd love to speak to you, and I don't mind calling you Professor Jang as a matter of courtesy. I mean, I practice Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the gentle art, and we call the coach professor. I mean, it's not something I see as a big thing as, "Oh, you know, you're, you're a fraud, you're a professor, you know, you, you're not a true professor, you haven't done a PhD, you haven't got actually the UK has a different criterion of what is a professor compared to the US, for example, even in those two countries, there's a different criterion." So I don't think it's a huge deal, you know.
However, having said that, I do think what is a big deal, and I have to be honest with you here, is speaking about religions and histories that you're not familiar with, that you don't have access to, that you haven't looked at primary or secondary source details of, you haven't thought about properly, and they're just coming out because people are taking you seriously in one field. You just assume they're going to take you serious because there are people going to fact-check you, bro. With all due respect, and, and that's what is there has to be a level of intellectual humility, frankly. So that's it. I mean, I'm not going to make it too long. And with that, I conclude.
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