psyah
June 15, 2011, 9:37am
435
Re: Why are Muslims against Evolution?!?
In the Scientific communities word “creationist” is used for a person who believes that a creator has created the Universe and the life.. hence the use of word creationist for Einstein..
Einstein was a creationist who believed in a supreme all intelligent Creator.. although he did not believe in a theocratic God who is concerned with the morals and aims of human beings.. Einstein’s concept of a Creator can be understood from his following quote:
" I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws."..
He did not believe in any sort of evolution.. by God or natural selection..
Richard Dawkins is the most vocal advocate of evolution in present times.. Even he describes himself as agnostic with only 70% tilt towards evolution. I heard one of the his lectures on TED in which he described his agnostic orientation. If you want I can search that lecture for you, although it will be a little time consuming for me because there are I think a million youtubes related to Dawkins..
We know for sure now that life existed on our planet much before the human being evolved or arrived here. Although we do not have a complete chronological record of fossils from the species.. but we know for sure that species come and eventually become extinct on our planet. Even bacterias and simple micro organism which existed billions of years ago are extinct and new form of species populate our planet today. Taking bacterial fossils from deep ice layers and radioactive dating of these fossils have given us a lot of insight on the life forms which existed a long time ago. Even these are insignificant on geological time scale. So basically we have no way of knowing with 100% certainty about how the evolution occurred. It is just assumed by evolutionist that because of the changes which have occurred over the years in life form.. evolution must have occurred..
My take on this is more in line with Dr. Israr than Zakir Naik.. I differ with Dr. Israr on a lot of things.. but agree with him when he said “Scriptures are not books of Science.. They should be read as spiritual guidance, and one should not take them in literal sense as far as Science is concerned.”..
While Naik is all the time trying to take out scientific explanations from Quran like a magician. He twists and changes the meanings to suit his showmanship. He would tell you that Quran said 7 heavens, thus explaining seven layers of earth’s atmosphere 1400 years ago.. but deliberately omits the next Ayah in which Quran says all the stars are present in the first heaven. He would tell you that Quran predicted moon to be borrowed light by calling it noor.. but deliberately omits the fact that Allah called himself Noor in Quran..
I am more at peace with myself after I have stopped taking scriptures as books of Science. I don’t believe Scriptures are against Scientific research or discourage you to study/discuss the Sciences with an open mind..
SubhanAllah yazdi
That is great response and one to which I agree … it seems that we are in violent agreement, which is that we can’t conclusively say whether evolution occurs or does not occur …
Also I agree with the idea that Qur’an is a book of guidance and not a book of science … however I also hold that Qur’an will resonate truths beyond the immeidate wisdom of humans that we can stumble across in time. For example I believe there to be a better explanation than what Dr Naik gave regarding the 7 heavens … and this is in the idea of systems in space that are beyond the visible stars. I also hold that where a reference is intended to be “literal” then it will never conflict with scientific facts and where a reference in the Qur’an is not meant to be “literal” which is usually in where analogies are used then a different set of rules should be employed …
I view the Qur’an as a miracle and for it to be a miracle it has to be perfect - my tools to view it however are not always good enough.