Do Muslims believe in creationism or evolution?

Karl Hungus

This just popped into my head, and I thought I'd ask. Creationism seems to be something that really only American morons believe (Like I said, seems to be, the reality could be completely different than how it simply seems), but do Muslim countries and such teach evolution or is it creationism in some form or another? I'm not trying to start a debate, it's just a simple query.

Thanks for any answer.

InFront

Karl Hungus wrote: »

do Muslim countries and such teach evolution or is it creationism in some form or another?

As someone who received most of his education in Ireland, I'm not sure of how this works in Muslim countries in general.

Personally I don't adhere to creationism and wouldn't consider myself a creationist. I think it would be wrong to put a specific date on the origin of the world, for example as young Earth creationists do based on the Christian book of Genesis.

It's an extremely interesting interface between science and Islam and I suppose 'intelligent design' would best sum up my personal views on the subject.

I think the crux of the question is in the issue regarding evolution is that of a random mutation. As Muslims we believe that nothing can happen without the authority of Allah, and as such we take the viewpoint that this mutation is the will of Allah - i.e. not so random as it appears. To that end, the design is intelligent, or steered by Allah.

Nevertheless, if someone asks a Muslim what the freezing point of water is, he wil say 0°c, even though he believes water only freezes at 0°c because it is - every time - the will of Allah.
This is also the nature of a random mutation that gives rise to succeeders, in my opinion - it seems so independent, so self-reliant that it is sometimes hard to imagine there is another party there influencing it, but I believe that just like the freezing point of water, or a nucleotide base sequence, there is intent to all of Allah's work, even if it cannot be seen.

Hobbes

IIRC creationism covers where everything came from, which Evolution doesn't.

As for 0c that depends on the pressure the water is under.

estebancambias

Muslims should believe in Creationism. How could any Religous person not? Creationism covers everything including the creator...so a Muslim(or any Religous person) should still believe in Creationsim even if they believe evolution is at work.

SkepticOne

InFront wrote: »

I think the crux of the question is in the issue regarding evolution is that of a random mutation. As Muslims we believe that nothing can happen without the authority of Allah, and as such we take the viewpoint that this mutation is the will of Allah - i.e. not so random as it appears. To that end, the design is intelligent, or steered by Allah.

Nevertheless, if someone asks a Muslim what the freezing point of water is, he wil say 0°c, even though he believes water only freezes at 0°c because it is - every time - the will of Allah.
This is also the nature of a random mutation that gives rise to succeeders, in my opinion - it seems so independent, so self-reliant that it is sometimes hard to imagine there is another party there influencing it, but I believe that just like the freezing point of water, or a nucleotide base sequence, there is intent to all of Allah's work, even if it cannot be seen.

I would call this view theistic determinism as it is a view about the nature of chance in general.

Intelligent design is different in that it believes in chance and random events but holds that evolution through random selection cannot account for the complexity of life we observe and that there must have been an intelligent designer.

I think what the OP means by creationism is specific opposition to evolution in particular the idea that people are descended from apes in favour of a literal interpretation of one's holy book (e.g. the Bible or Koran).

the_new_mr

Well, as a matter of fact, there's a little bit of debate in the Muslim world about what the Quran has to say on the matter.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not sure which is right but I do know this: It doesn't really matter. I believe that whatever happened was/is God's will. It's not going to affect how I live my life from day to day so I won't bother thinking about it. If somebody else wants to then they're free to do that. I'd like to know what they come up with

Hobbes wrote:

As for 0c that depends on the pressure the water is under.

And whether or not it contains impurities

Nerin

Muslims should believe in Creationism. How could any Religous person not? Creationism covers everything including the creator...so a Muslim(or any Religous person) should still believe in Creationsim even if they believe evolution is at work.

im religious, i do not follow creationism, i've my own idea thats logical to me that lets religion and science stand side by side.

Creationism seems to be something that really only American morons believe

i wouldnt say that (in case i got in trouble )
not only do irish morons believe in it,
shock,horror, some irish smart people believe in it also. which can be a little scary at times.

Nevertheless, if someone asks a Muslim what the freezing point of water is, he wil say 0°c, even though he believes water only freezes at 0°c because it is - every time - the will of Allah.

thats a fair enough answer.

Bottle_of_Smoke

the_new_mr wrote: »

Well, as a matter of fact, there's a little bit of debate in the Muslim world about what the Quran has to say on the matter.

any links?

BuffyBot

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/657/ is a basic guide to this I stumbled on not so far back

Bottle_of_Smoke

That's pretty much saying Muslims can't believe Human's evolved from a common ancestor of humans. Can see this causing trouble in the middle east alright.

BuffyBot

It's one view/interpretation. There are others out there.

condra

BuffyBot wrote: »

http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/657/ is a basic guide to this I stumbled on not so far back

Scary!

Suff

I agree with the info in the link. and in regards to the theory of evolution...its a theory after all, I Don't understand how people taking it as a confirmed one!

Suff

Suff wrote: »

I agree with the info in the link. and in regards to the theory of evolution...its a theory after all, I Don't understand how people taking it as a confirmed one!

Scientific theory does not mean "idea". It means a highly backed-up explanation of actual facts.

Ciaran500

Suff wrote: »

I agree with the info in the link. and in regards to the theory of evolution...its a theory after all, I Don't understand how people taking it as a confirmed one!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

yeah, those of us that read and post here try to be respectful and open to learning regarding islam when we do.. the least you give is is the same consideration towards science. 'it's only a theory' is as flawed an argument as the recent islam hates teddy bears threads.

condra

Suff wrote: »

I agree with the info in the link.

It is basically saying, "it says it in the koran so it must be correct and true".
This is utter naivity.

and in regards to the theory of evolution...its a theory after all, I Don't understand how people taking it as a confirmed one!

I don't understand how any intelligent, rational human could deny evolution, unless they haven't spent at least a few minutes reading about it and contemplating it. It is simple, elegant, logical, and backed up by overwhelming evidence.

wes

Suff wrote: »

I agree with the info in the link. and in regards to the theory of evolution...its a theory after all, I Don't understand how people taking it as a confirmed one!

That argument is used quite a bit by creationists, its been pretty much destroyed at this point.

Evolution is very much a fact. There are many resources that you can read to learn about it.

Also, plenty of Muslims can reconcile evolution with there faith. Just like plenty of Christians, Jews etc.

Suff

My arguments are foucusing on the evolution of Man:

The theory hasn't been validated yet, its been based on a study of great apes fossils. the group is called "Hominidae" today it includes humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans. this is based on DNA studies. but humans also share very simular DNA with other creations such as dogs and cows (stem cells studies).

The 98.5% similarity with chimps has been misleading because it depends on what is being compared. There are a number of significant differences that are difficult to quantify. the differences include Cytogenetic differences which are differences in the type and number of repetitive genomic DNA and transposable elements, abundance and distribution of endogenous retroviruses, the presence and extent of allelic polymorphisms, specific gene inactivation events.

Examples of these differences include:

1- Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes while chimpanzees have 24. Evolutionary scientists believe that one of the human chromosomes has been formed through the fusion of two small chromosomes in the chimp instead of an intrinsic difference resulting from a separate creation.

2- At the end of each chromosome is a string of repeating DNA sequences called a telomere. Chimpanzees and other apes have about 23 kilobases (a kilobase is 1,000 base pairs of DNA) of repeats. Humans are unique among primates with much shorter telomeres only 10 kilobases long.

3- 18 pairs of chromosomes are ‘virtually identical’, chromosomes 4, 9 and 12 genes and markers on these chromosomes are not in the same order in the human and chimpanzee. these could be intrinsic differences because of a separate creation.

4- The Y chromosome in particular is of a different size and has many markers that do not line up between the human and chimpanzee.

5- Scientists have prepared a human-chimpanzee comparative clone map of chromosome 21 in particular. They observed a large, non-random regions of difference between the two genomes. They found a number of regions that might correspond to insertions that are specific to the human lineage.

Most studies only considered substitutions and did not take insertions or deletions into account.they have missed perhaps the greatest contribution to the genetic differences between chimps and humans. Missing nucleotides from one or the other appear to account for more than twice the number of substituted nucleotides.

Regardless of whether the similarity was reduced even below 90%, evolutionists would still believe that humans and apes shared a common ancestor. using this percentages hides an important fact. If 5% of the DNA is different, this amounts to 150,000,000 DNA base pairs that are different between them!

A number of studies have demonstrated a remarkable similarity in the nuclear DNA and mtDNA among modern humans. the DNA sequences for all people are so similar that scientists generally conclude that there is a recent single origin for modern humans, with general replacement of archaic populations.
the estimates for a date of a ‘most recent common ancestor’ (MRCA) by evolutionists has this recent single origin about 100,000 - 200,000 years ago, which is not recent by creationist standards. In contrast, some studies that have used pedigrees or generational mtDNA comparisons have produced a much more recent MRCA from 6,500 years ago.


References:

-Archidiacono, N., Storlazzi, C.T., Spalluto, C., Ricco, A.S., Marzella, R., Rocchi, M. 1998. ‘Evolution of chromosome Y in primates.’ Chromosoma.
-Britten, R.J. 2002. ‘Divergence between samples of chimpanzee and human DNA sequences is 5% counting indels.’ Proceedings National Academy Science.
-Gagneux, P. and Varki, A. 2001. ‘Genetic differences between humans and great apes.’ Mol Phylogenet Evol.
-Gibbons, A. 1998. ‘Which of our genes make us human?’.
-Sigurgardottir, S., Helgason, A., Gulcher, J.R., Stefansson, K., and Donnelly P. 2000. ‘The mutation rate in the human mtDNA control region.’ Am J Hum Genet.

wes

Suff, what your saying isn't really a case for creationism from what I can see. Its a question on mans origins. Hardly a challenge against Evolution. I don't really see what your trying to get at.

Suff

wes wrote: »

I don't really see what your trying to get at.

My point, Humans and chimps do share a number of DNA characteristics and propeties however the differences are major and sizable enough to lable them as separate beings.

wes

Suff wrote: »

My point, Humans and chimps do share a number of DNA characteristics and propeties however the differences are major and sizable enough to lable them as separate beings.

I don't think anyone says that we are the same as chimps. We have a common ancestor and thats about it.

nesf

bluewolf wrote: »

Scientific theory does not mean "idea". It means a highly backed-up explanation of actual facts.

Suff wrote: »

I agree with the info in the link. and in regards to the theory of evolution...its a theory after all, I Don't understand how people taking it as a confirmed one!

Both of you need to nail down the concepts you are using to examine this a bit better to be honest. I'm not trying to be cruel here but the two quotes above capture the lack of precision/understanding on both sides.

izzyflusky

wes wrote: »

That argument is used quite a bit by creationists, its been pretty much destroyed at this point.

Evolution is very much a fact. There are many resources that you can read to learn about it.

Also, plenty of Muslims can reconcile evolution with there faith. Just like plenty of Christians, Jews etc.

Evolution IS NOT a fact by any means. And creation is also backed up by science and there are many sources where you can read about it too. The problem is most people discard creation straight away, and don't even bother reading or gettin to know more about it. Not saying you do, because I don't know you, but many people do.

wes

izzyflusky wrote: »

Evolution IS NOT a fact by any means. And creation is also backed up by science and there are many sources where you can read about it too. The problem is most people discard creation straight away, and don't even bother reading or gettin to know more about it. Not saying you do, because I don't know you, but many people do.

Creationists need to do a lot of work if they want to respected as a legitimate science. The work is not there. I don't think it ever will be. I have seen there arguments proven wrong time and again.

izzyflusky

Maybe you haven't looked for it enough. Now, I'm not a big expert on the subjects but I have read plenty of articles on it. So the work is there, the only difference its that the media, i e. famous magazines, publishers, etc. don't want to publish the work. And more often than you think misleading information is given to the public. Not misleading because a creationist scientist says so, but also evolutionists scientists agree that it's not true. As long as it is bought you know...

nesf

izzyflusky wrote: »

Maybe you haven't looked for it enough. Now, I'm not a big expert on the subjects but I have read plenty of articles on it. So the work is there, the only difference its that the media, i e. famous magazines, publishers, etc. don't want to publish the work. And more often than you think misleading information is given to the public. Not misleading because a creationist scientist says so, but also evolutionists scientists agree that it's not true. As long as it is bought you know...

You do realise that the media publishing or not publishing something has no real relevance when it comes to scientific work?

izzyflusky

It does in the way that that's what people end up believing. As in scientist claiming that they've discovered this which proves evolution, when even other evolutionists say it's not true. It comes out in science magazines, etc so people think it must be true. Thats what I meant

nesf

izzyflusky wrote: »

It does in the way that that's what people end up believing. As in scientist claiming that they've discovered this which proves evolution, when even other evolutionists say it's not true. It comes out in science magazines, etc so people think it must be true. Thats what I meant

What people end up believing and what science is about are two very different things. At times we might want people to believe what science has shown, for all intents and purposes, to be the case, but that isn't what science is about itself. What goes on in technical journals is a long way from what your average person on the street believes to be the case. Generally because what goes on in those journals is stuff that that person couldn't care less about.

wes

izzyflusky wrote: »

Maybe you haven't looked for it enough. Now, I'm not a big expert on the subjects but I have read plenty of articles on it. So the work is there, the only difference its that the media, i e. famous magazines, publishers, etc. don't want to publish the work. And more often than you think misleading information is given to the public. Not misleading because a creationist scientist says so, but also evolutionists scientists agree that it's not true. As long as it is bought you know...

The evidence for Creationism isn't very good at all. The onus is on Creationists to make there case, they simply haven't done a good job. To me it smacks of people trying to pass religion off as science and doing so, does both religion and science a disservice.

Haris83

A muslim cannot believe in evoulution, because it is against basic concept of Islam. Personally, I find it very hard to believe in 'random rule' in defining species.

For opinions of islamic scientists on evolution, you can visit www.harunyahya.com