By Roshan, New Age Islam
15 September 2015
Among the most fundamental questions we could ask ourselves—and probably every one of us has reflected, however fleetingly, on them at some point or the other in our lives—are: Where have we—individual human beings and Homo sapiens as a species—come from? How did we come into being? What is the purpose of our life here on earth if we all have to leave this planet one day, our own death being one of the only things about our future that we can be utterly sure of?
All theistic religions stress that we humans have not come about on our own or just by fluke. Rather, they inform us, we have been created by a higher Being—God, or what some people today call the Intelligent Designer or the Supreme Intelligence. They also tell us that God has created us for a purpose, and that this life is a testing-ground and a prelude to eternal life after death.
The dominant understanding of the Darwinian theory of evolution, which enjoys the support of a significant section of scientists today, proffers a completely different response to questions about the origins and purpose of life. Many evolutionists claim that life came about on its own—by chance or accident. It was not created by a Higher Being or God, they argue. Living beings, they contend, are simply bits of inert chemicals that have accidentally combined together. Through a long evolutionary process, they contend, these chemical blobs, responding to different environmental challenges, evolved, entirely on their own (through what they term as ‘natural selection’) into hundreds of thousands of different species of living creatures, Homo sapiens being the climax of this long and convoluted process. Since they do not believe in the existence of a Creator, such evolutionists believe that life, including human life, has no ultimate purpose at all. Once we are dead, we are gone for good. Being simply bundles of chemicals, they say, when our bodies stop functioning, that is the final end of us.
Charles Darwin claimed to have been an agnostic and asserted that he had never been an atheist ‘in the sense’, as he put it, ‘of denying the existence of a God.’ But his theory of evolution played a major role in boosting the tendency to exclude theology from scientific discussion. Darwinist evolutionism contends that there is no necessary role for God in accounting for the origin of life, since Darwin controversially claimed that what he called ‘natural selection’ could account for new life forms. Not surprisingly, Darwinism has played a central role in undermining religious belief, replacing the theistic worldview not only in science, but also in other disciplines, like law and education. At the same time, though, it functions like a surrogate religion for its adherents. It provides them with a complete worldview, and its adherents fervently believe in and defend it as the ultimate truth, in just the same manner as many believers in religion ardently champion their faith.
“We shall show them Our signs in the universe and within themselves, until it becomes clear to them that this is the Truth”, the Quran (41:53) says. Signs of the Creator God are scattered all across the universe, and within our own selves, too, and they convincingly disprove the atheist evolutionists’ claims.
You don’t need to be a highly-trained scientist to know that the atheist evolutionists’ theory that you are simply a bundle of chemicals that came together by accident and that the universe came into being all on its own, by sheer chance, is downright absurd. You could convince yourself of this by conducting two little experiments that together won’t take you more than a minute or two. These are among a vast number of possible experiments that can prove the same point.
Look up at the sky and take quick a peep at the sun. Then, close your eyes and bring to your mind the fact that without the sun, life would on earth would be impossible. There would be no plants on earth, for instance (because sunlight is needed for photosynthesis). Therefore, all other life forms, which depend, directly or indirectly, on vegetation for survival, would be impossible, too. You and I wouldn’t be here if the sun were not around.
Bring to your mind another fact now—that without the sun, the world would be utterly dark and cold—and that for this reason, too, there would be no possibility at all of life on earth.
Now, after recognising how indispensable the sun is for life on our planet, reflect on how the sun might have come into being. Obviously, humans or other living beings have not made it. That leaves us with just two possibilities: that it was fashioned deliberately, by a Creator God, or that it came about by accident or sheer chance. There is no other theoretical possibility that one could conceive of in this regard.
Now, let your mind dwell on this question: Is it really possible, as Darwinists argue, that this immense ball of fire and light, without which life on earth would be impossible, came about all on its own?
Think also of the fact that sun is just the right distance from the earth for life on earth to flourish. Could this really be simply a coincidence, as atheist evolutionists claim it is?
You will instinctively realise, without having to read voluminous scientific treatises on astronomy, that the answers to both these questions are definitely in the negative, and that there is certainly some great being—God—that created the sun and put it in its right place!
Now the second experiment. Close your eyes and begin to observe yourself. Move your mind down your body, from head to toe. Do you really feel you are simply a motley collection of bits of inert matter that make up the various parts of your body, as atheist evolutionists insist you are? Your consciousness instinctively recoils at the idea! You intuitively know, without having to consult any ponderous biology textbook, that you simply cannot be reduced to your body, as atheist evolutionists insist you must. There is something more to you, you realize at the very core of your being, than the blobs of chemicals that Darwinists claim is all that you really are!
And that obviously means that you haven’t come into being, as atheistic evolutionists claim, out of pure accident, but, rather, that you have been created by someone—by God.
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