Introduction
Religion is one of the most essential factors or to be very precise one of the most discussed questions in human existence. Religion has its own way of describing the origin of humankind while great scientists have given explanations on the evolution of living beings. And as it goes the ideologies are distinctively different in their ways.
The Creation of man in Religion
There are many religions in the world and almost in all the religions, there are descriptions of how man was originated. Here in our discussion, we will discuss the creation of Man as described in some of the very important religions of the World. In the Bible, there are two distinct versions of how God created man. In the first rendition, the story goes like this. God decided that he would make man as his image and then created man as his image. He also said that man should be the master of the sea, the land, and the sky, to quote from the Bible, (Genesis 1:26-27 KJV)
“And God said; Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Carroll and Prickett 16).
After that, God created males and females in the world and this is one story of the creation of man. The other story is like this; God created man from the dust and breathed life into his nostrils to make man “the living soul”. God later said that man should not be alone and made the man sleep for a long time. During the time he took a rib from the man and created a woman to be the companion of the man. The man is called Adam and the woman is Eve. This is how the first man and woman were born. Jesus Christ was named as “the Son of God” who came to save mankind (Fuller 41).
The Creation of Life from the point of view of Science:
The creation of life is one of the very complicated questions in science. In science, they say that ‘single-cell prokaryote’ is the first living thing on the Earth that perhaps evolved from organic molecules. Later sequences of chemical events leading to the formation of organic and nucleic acids. But there is still no clear idea about what correctly happened at that time. There are a number of models presented by scientists about how life originated. Some of the very important models are as follows:
- Origin of Organic Molecules
- Thermodynamic model of Origin of life
- Autocatalysis
- Extraterrestrial Amino Acid theory
- Clay Theory (Hogan 51-70)
These are some of the important theories of how life originated. After the creation of life, there were many animals and after many evolutions, mammals came on the earth. Mankind has evolved from a type of monkey. The evolution of animals is a very important subject and Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck are the two most important contributors of the evolution theory.
Darwin’s Theory
In his book, The Origin of Species (1859) Darwin discussed the evolution of animals. He said that there are some favorable traits among some of the animals in a species and these favorable traits help these animals to live in the long run and ultimately exist in the changing world. The animals that do not have the features can not stay in the long run and ultimately become obsolete from the face of the earth. The animals naturally selected lives on the Earth (Fuller 99).
Lamark’s Theory
Lamark’s theory is different from Darwin’s. He said that the animals have a desire to live in the world and they struggle to fit in the world. They generally earn some qualities necessary for living in the world and stay in the World. The qualities they earned stays with them and they get developed with these qualities. Mankind has been evolved from very small molecular animals. And the transformation has taken a long time. In this aspect, we can discuss the Creation Theory and the Intelligent Design concept (Hogan 51-70).
Creation Theory
Creation Theory (otherwise known as Creationism) is a religious belief. In this theory, it is said that a “supernatural agency” created the universe and all the things that belong to it. Scientific researches about the origin of the Universe and life have always contradicted the theory but there are a number of persons who believe the theory. Martin Luther has himself said that about 6000 years ago God created the world in “six literal days” (Hogan 51-70).
At that time a lot of new places were being discovered and the diversity of humankind was coming to the front. This huge diversity has made men believe that each of the species has been created by God in different ways. Francis Bacon, in the year 1605, said that if we interpret the Bible in the right way we will learn to appreciate the work of God in nature. It can be said with surety that the “Baconian Method” is the first to introduce the empirical approach which is nowadays one of the very important aspects of modern-day science (King 379).
Later the discoveries of the scientists like Darwin and Lamarck have shown that the creation of animals and plants is the result of evolution. In around 1875, most of the scientists started to believe in the ideas of Darwin and Lamarck, and special interests were taken about discovering the evolution of humans.
The emergence of the Intelligent Design
In this theory, it is being asserted that some features of the universe and the living elements can only be explained by a specified cause or theory which is called “intelligent design”. Natural selection or other scientific theories cannot really describe these things. Intelligent Design was created by a group of American Creationists (King 187).
The original concept of the design can be dated back to the Classical Greek Age. In Greek philosophy the great philosopher Plato, in his book “Timaeus” sad that a “demiurge” is the creator of the universe and it is also the first cause of the cosmos. Aristotle in his book called “Metaphysics” also discussed an idea about an unmoved mover who has created the universe. In the words of Cicero, the divine power, that is the power of God can only be found in the principle of reason, which makes nature. The most famous arguments about this case have been done by Thomas Aquinas and William Paley in the 13th and 19th century respectively. “The Fifth Proof” was discussed by Aquinas in his book ‘Summa Theologiae’ and Paley discussed “the Watchmaker Analogy” in “Natural Theology” (Fuller 113).
Discussion
Sir Thomas Browne’s 1658 essay called “The Garden of Cyrus” is one of the earliest examples where a scholar gave examples of intelligent design in a subject. This work discussed cases of intelligent design on botany. This was also the earliest example of proof of the wisdom of God.
In modern times the movement again began in the year 1984 when The Foundation for Thoughts and Ethics published Charles B. Thaxton’s work titled “The Mystery of Life’s Origin” where the writer dealt with a topic which said that the source that made life was really intelligent. After that Stephen Meyer discussed that the DNA transmitted messages in a cell show specific complexity and it has got intelligence and therefore stressed the fact that the DNA must be originated from something intelligent (King 223).
The idea of intelligent design deliberately does not name or tries to identify the agent or the agents of creation, which is a big departure from science. But the supporters sometimes informally mention the name of Christian God as the agent for creating life and evolution in the world. A lot of common people do believe in the creation of life by some intelligent agent, while a survey among the doctors has shown that most of the doctors generally support the evolution theory (Lamb 56).
The contradiction between the scientific views of the creation of life and the religious views of the creation of life is a long-standing question and still, there is no chance to resolve the question. But there is a general question. In our common knowledge if we just think about the vastness of the universe we will simply be amazed. Let us think about outer space in this context. Outer space consists of numerous astronomical bodies and they move in space in some routine. They do not collide with each other or just interfere in each other’s way. Yes, is understandable that sometimes there are huge collisions in the sky, but that does not affect the world. Can we just imagine the scheme of things in the sky, cannot we just wonder that who has made rules for them?
In the Bible, it is said that man is the fleeting image of God. It can be assumed that man is the most favorite thing of God, and he keeps man safe from everything that happens in the outer sky. We know that the Earth is a very small particle compared to the most astronomical bodies in the sky. If the Earth collides with them it will just end. But it never collides (Hogan 51-70).
Conclusion
Actually, on a personal note, some supernatural element presents in the universe somewhere who likes the Earth and mankind really very much, and by his grace, we have evolved today. Science really cannot provide any satisfactory answer to this. And it will never be. On the contrary, mankind and the green Earth will be safe with the blessings of this unnamed entity forever.
Works Cited
Carroll, Robert L., and Stephen Prickett. The Bible: Authorized King James Version. London: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Fuller, Robert. Wonder: from emotion to spirituality. London: UNC Press, 2005.
Hogan, Karl. ‘Exploring a process view of students’ knowledge about the nature of science’, Science Education, 84.1, (2006): 51-70.
King, Henry. Principals Today. Auckland: HBT & Brooks Ltd, 2006.
Lamb, David. Cult to Culture: The Development of Civilization. Wellington: National Book Trust, 2004.