Need of Religion - Chapter 4

Chapter 4.

4. Evolution and Religion

It is said that the 'Evolution' has proved that there was no need of a Supreme Being in the scheme of the universe.

Though the best place to deal with this question would have been in the Unit 2 (God Of Islam); but I propose to give here some points for the student to ponder:

First of all, let it be clear that here I am not talking about the truth or otherwise of the theory of Evolution. This is not the place for it.

Secondly, that mere change within the basic type of living things is not 'evolution.'

"The theory of organic evolution involves these three main ideas: (1) Living things change from generation to generation, producing descendants with new characteristics. (2) This process has been going on so long that it has produced all the groups and kinds of things now living, as well as others that lived long ago and have died out, or become extinct. (3) These different living things are related to each other."

(World Book Encyclopedia 1966).

Thirdly, that inspite of all assertions to the contrary, 'Evolution' is still a theory, not a fact.

'Fact', as Webster's Third New International Dictionary says, is "an actual happening in time or space", a "verified statement."

Now what is the "verification" of this theory?

A prominent evolutionist, W. Le Gros Clark, writes in his book, The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution:-

"The chances of finding the fossil remains of actual ancestors, or even representatives of local geographical group which provided the actual ancestors, are so fantastically remote as not to be worth consideration.

"The interpretation of the paleontological evidence of hominid evolution which has been offered in the preceding chapters is a provisional interpretation. Because of the incompleteness of the evidence, it could hardly be otherwise."

The Science News Letter said in 1965: "The fight is among scientists over just how man did evolve, when he did so and what he looked like.

The above-mentioned Mr. Clark writes: "What was the ultimate origin of man? . . . Unfortunately, any answers which can at present be given to these questions are based on indirect evidence and thus are largely conjectural."

A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science wrote in Science Magazine in 'support' of evolution:-

"Come now if you will, on a speculative excursion into prehistory. Assume the era in which the species sapiens emerged from the genus Homo . . . hasten across the millenniums for which present information depends for the most part on conjecture and interpretation to the era of the first inscribed records, from which some facts may be gleaned."

L.M. Davies, a British Scientist, once said:

"It has been estimated that no fewer than 800 phrases in the subjunctive mood (such as 'Let us assume,' or 'We may well suppose,' etc.) are to be found between the covers of Darwin's 'Origin of Species' alone."

When you ponder upon the statements quoted above and especially the phrase given in italics by us, you will come to the conclusion that Evolution is not an established fact, but only a theory, among many theories which have been advanced since the beginning of mankind to explain the nature of universe. Many of such theories are now discarded, but once they had the same hold on minds as the theory of Evolution has at present. And this hold on minds does not make it any more perfect.

Indeed, one scientist, Dr. T.N. Tahmisian, a physiologist for the Atomic Energy Commission, said: "Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great con men, and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution we do not have one iota of fact," He called it "a tangled mishmash of guessing games and figure juggling." Another scientist, head of a college science department, J.W. Klotz, stated in 1965 that "acceptance of evolution is still based on a great deal of faith."

And this theory has yet to find enough evidence to support itself. How can such a 'theory' be used to refute the existence of a 'Supreme Being'?

Finally, even the evolutionists do acknowledge that there is the need of an "Everliving, All Knowing, Almighty Being," in the scheme of the Universe as explained by the theory of 'Evolution'.

But, once committed to the denial of God, they are attributing these virtues to the 'Nature'. They say that 'Nature' adopted this 'Nature' planned that.

Let us see what is this 'nature' anyway? It is nothing but an abstract idea formed in human brain after careful study of the behaviour of things. It may be found within the things; but it has no independent existence. And in any case, there is no record of any conference of the 'natures' of various things, held to decide how to co-ordinate their functions. Flowers never conferred with the bees to seek the bees' co-operation in their pollination, offering them, in exchange, their nectar. But we know that bees could not live a single day without flowers; and thousands of flowers would long have been extinct but for the bees.

So, you see, the evolutionists recognise the need of a 'Planner', a 'Designer'. But dogmatically go on repeating that that designer and planner was the 'Nature' (which is just an abstract idea) or the 'Matter' which is a 'Senseless, lifeless thing'.