When Darwin first published his treatise Origin of Species in 1859, he stirred a thunderous opposition from religious groups. The religious opposition was based, mainly, upon two factors:-
1. Darwin asserted -with convincing proofs- that the universe was not made in six days, as described in the Bible, but in a very very long time with so many stages between the first state and the present form.

2.He denied -without any valid reason, of course- the need of a Supreme Being (God) in the scheme of the universe.

The Jews and Christians of that time believed in the six day-creation quite literally; they could not swallow the idea of the protracted creation easily. And so the conflict between Christianity and Science reached its climax in the later half of the I9th century.
But what about the Muslims?

The Qur'an says that the skies and the earth were created in six "ayyam ". The word "ayyam" has two meanings: 'days' and 'periods'. The Sunni commentators of Qura'n generally followed Ka'bul- Ahbar; a former Jew converted to Islam in the days of second Caliph. It was but natural for him to explain the verses of Qur'an in the light of his previous learning. So he imported every Jewish legend into Islam. Though the Qura'n was silent about the details, the Muslims interpreted the 'ayahs' in such a way that every detail of Genesis (of the Bible) was incorporated in the commentaries of Qura'n and thus became a part of Sunni religious belief.

But the Shi'ahs commentators rejected the idea of six-days-creation right from the early days of Islam. According to them, 'ayyam' in those verses meant 'Periods' and not the 'days'. For instance, see the commentaries of Qura'n by' Ali ibn Ibrahim al-Qummi (died sometime after 919 A.D.) and Muhsin Fayd (d. 1680 A.D.). Also see the Dictionary of Qur'an and Traditions, by ash-Shaykh Fakhru'd-Din at-Tarihi (d. 1676 A.D.). According to them the Qura'n says that the skies and the earth were created in six periods. (Or should we say 'in six stages'!)

Therefore, we, the Shi'ahs, have nothing against the theory of gradual Creation, which is embodied in the theory of evolution. More than that, ours is not a belated attempt of re-interpreting our religion -as Christians are doing now to cover the Christianity's defeat by the science. We were thinking on this line one thousand years before Darwin.

But it must be mentioned here that the acceptance of gradual creation does not mean that we endorse the hypothesis of evolution.

Evolutionists claim that:

1. Living things change from generation to generation producing descendants with new characteristics;
   
2. This process has produced all the groups and kind of things now living as well as others now extinct.
   
3. All these different living things are related to each other.
   

But, as was mentioned in Need of Religion there is not a single fossil-evidence to show that a member of lower species developed into a higher species. It is for this reason that 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. "

It is one thing to say, as we say (and the fossils and scientific data support us) that God created this universe in stages and created the things and living beings on earth one after another with time gaps in between; and quite another, as the Darwinists or neo-Darwinists say (and have no evidence to prove it) that the living things on this earth developed from non-living matter and that unicellular organisms developed stage by stage to become a human being.

So much about the first ground of the conflict between religion and science. Now we come to the second ground of the conflict, that is, the denial of God. Here we, the Shia'hs, as well as other religious (and many scientists of the present generation) are totally against the Darwinism.

The whole deliberation on 'evolution' attempts to answer the question "How the universe came into being?" But it does not touch the other big question: "By whom was it created?" But Darwin and his followers said that as they could explain the sequence of the creation and its working method, so it was automatically proved that there was no God. It is just like saying, " As I can explain the working of an automobile and can guess the sequence of it's manufacturing, so it is automatically proved that there is no manufacturer of that car. "

It may seem absurd, as I have put it on paper here. But the more you read their denial of God the more you will be reminded of this fallacy in their arguments.

Now let us look at one more fallacy of atheism. It has already been mentioned in previous chapters. But here it is repeated to complete the picture. They assert that 'thing' cannot come out of 'nothing'. Therefore, according to them, it is wrong to say that God created the universe out of nothing. There must be a source of every thing. So, they believe that the Matter is eternal; and every thing is a development of the eternal Matter.

This line of argument goes straight until it reaches the stage where begins the phenomenon called 'life'. Nobody has ever succeeded in solving the mysteries of life. Nobody knows where the life came from. Having rejected the belief in God, the atheists are compelled to say, "We do not know; but the life must have come from the Matter. "Now, Matter is lifeless. If 'thing' cannot come from 'nothing', how can the 'life' come from 'lifeless'?

Not only this. Let us proceed further. As they say, there must be a source for everything. And as everybody knows, the Matter is a 'thing'. What was the source of 'Matter'?

These phenomena of the universe cannot be explained without stopping at a certain point and believing that the universe began from it. The atheist says that the Matter is that beginning point. But the Matter is lifeless. So, the existence of life cannot be explained by this theory. And the Matter is senseless. The existence of Sense and Wisdom in the animals and human beings cannot be explained by it.

Therefore, if we are to have a satisfactory theory for the existence of the universe as a whole, we have to accept that there is an Eternal Being Who is the Source of Existence, the Source of Life and the Source of Wisdom. That Being is God.

Why I Am Not A Christian is a collection of Bertrand Russell's essays and papers "on religion and related subjects." Professor Paul Edwards, the editor of the book, says that these essays are "perhaps the most moving and the most graceful presentation of the free-thinker's position since the days of Hume and Voltaire. "

This statement, coupled with the name of Russell, was enough to compel one to study the book with high expectation of scholarly and logical discourses on the subject of religion.
Whether those expectations were justified will be seen from a few comments appended below:-
The first thing, which comes before the eyes, is the inconsistency of the arguments. Russell called himself a freethinker, and during a debate with Rev. F. C. Copleston he said that he was not an atheist but an agnostic.

The position of atheists is that non-existence of God can be proved. The agnostics, on the other hand, say, "man does not and can not in the nature of things know anything about a spiritual existence, either of God or man or of any after-death state. " They assert, "Man's only cognition can be of the phenomenal world (that is, the world which may be perceived by one of the five senses). According to them, it does not mean that there may not be a noumenal entity (that is, an entity known through intellectual institution only) or soul behind the phenomenal world.

The agnostics repudiate even atheism or materialism on the ground that these theories are dogmatic. They say that if you cannot know a thing, you have no right to reject it. An agnostic's one and only answer to all questions concerning soul, God or spiritual existence is that "we do not know and there are so far no reasonable grounds for believing that we shall ever know. In other words, man, being finite, can never comprehend Infinite."

Rev. Copleston had asked Russell at the beginning of their debate (in 1948): "Perhaps you would tell me if your position is that of agnosticism or of atheism. I mean, would you say that the non-existence of God can be proved? Russell replied: "No, I should not say that; my position is agnostic."

If Russell believed in agnosticism, then his only answer about all questions concerning God, or life after death should have been "I do not know." Instead, he declares right on the jacket of the book, "I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive."

Another example: Russell says at the beginning of the preface:

"I think all the great religions of the world -Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and Communism- both untrue and harmful. It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true." After this statement, one would expect him to look at each of the above religions in turn to prove, why even one of them was not true. But he did not feel obliged in any of his essays to bring this argument to its logical end. He just said that, "Since they disagree, not more than one of them can be true, " and then arbitrarily concluded that not even one of them was true!

This type of inconsistency goes on from essay to essay; and one finishes the book with a feeling that if these essays would have been written by a lesser being than Russell, the publishers would not have designed to publish them.

The first article Why I Am Not A Christian was delivered as a lecture in 1927; Russell has tried in this lecture to repudiate the arguments of Church for the existence of God.

He says:

"Perhaps the simplest and easiest to understand is the argument of the First Cause. (It is maintained that every thing we see in this world has a cause, and as you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause, and to that First Cause you give the name of God.) ...I may say that when I was a young man and was debating these questions very seriously in my mind, I for a long time accepted the argument of the First Cause, until one day, at the age of 18, I read John Stuart Mill's Autobiography and I there found this sentence: 'My father taught me that the question, 'Who made me?' Cannot be answered since it immediately suggests the further question, 'who made God? ' That very simple sentence showed me, as I still think, the fallacy in the argument of the First Cause. "

Now, Russell has, perhaps unwittingly, misquoted the arguments of believers. To refresh the memory, the reader is advised to read again Chapter 2 and 3 of this book.

There he will find, inter alia, the following sentences:-

"As every thing in this universe falls under the category of "Mumkenul-Wujoud", (Transient), it has equal relation with existence and non-existence. Once these things did not exist; now they exist; sometime in future they will cease to exist. By their nature, they cannot demand to exist or to cease to exist. Therefore, there must be a source or cause to bring them to existence or to terminate their existence."

And then comes the important point which Russell has missed. The point is that, that source or cause, should not itself be just transient. Otherwise it will itself need a source or cause to bring it into existence. And this chain of cause and effect must stop on a cause, which needs no outside source, or cause for its existence. It means that the final source or cause of this universe must be 'Self-existent'.

If one compares the Islamic version of the argument of 'The First Cause' (as given in this book) with the version of the Church as presented by Russell at the beginning, one finds two important differences:

He said: "Everything we see in this world has a cause." But he should have said: "Everything we see in this world is transient and as such must have a cause for its existence."

Again, he said: "As you go back in the chain of causes further and further you must come to a First Cause. " But he should have said: "You must come to a Cause which is not transient, which is Self-existent (whose very essence is the existence itself)."

Read his version with these amendments, and see how his objections loose every weight.

Russell thought it sufficient to scoff at this argument off-handedly. "I can illustrate what seems to me (the believers) fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother and it seems to me (their) argument is that therefore the human race must have a mother, but obviously the human race hasn't a mother."

It seems to me that it is Russell who is indulging in fallacy. He has failed to note that the believers do not say that 'every transient thing has a transient cause; therefore, the whole universe should have a transient cause. Our argument is that, as all the components of the universe are transient, and as a collection of billions of transient things is still transient, the whole universe is still transient, and as such must have an external cause to bring it into existence. And that cause must be Self-existent. And as He is Self-existent, the question, 'Who made God?' doesn't arise.

Russell further wrote: "If there can be anything without a cause it may just as well be the world as God."

The reason why the world could not have existed or come into being without a Cause, is that its components some times exist and some times cease to exist. So there is nothing in their essence, in their nature, to demand existence. If they exist, it must be because of a hand, which tilted the scale in favor of existence; if they cease to exist it must be because that hand has now tipped the scale towards non-existence.

Russell: "Nor there is any reason why it (the world) should not have always existed. "

The claim that the world may have always existed is refuted by all prevalent theories of science: This is quite apart from the fact that a collection of transient things could not exist "always".

The reader should read Chapter 7 again, where he will find that whatever view one takes, matter cannot be proved to be eternal (without beginning and without end).

Again he says: "There is no reason why the world could not have come into being without a cause. "

Before commenting further on this sentence, let me quote his words (from the same article) where he refutes the idea that there is any "natural law".

He writes:-

"There is, as we all know, a law that if you throw dice you will get double sixes only once in thirty six times, and we do not regard that as evidence that the fall of dice is regulated by design; on the contrary, if the double sixes came every time, we should think that there was design."

Here Russell admits that if events appeared in the same sequence again and again it would be a proof that there was design. Now, one wonder why he did not spare a few moments looking at the well planned and superbly executed movements of the galaxies, stars, planets and moons? Let us suppose that there is some one in outer space who has never heard about earth or human beings. Then one day he sees a space ship streaking past and after some time another one, and then another one. Of course, their paths are not the same, and the gap between their appearances is not systematic so that it might be measured and estimated in advance. But he knows that each space ship contains thousands of parts, which are well connected to each other, and together they form a superbly efficient apparatus.

What would Russell think of him if he were to declare that those space ships had come into being without a creator?

And how strongly would he have condemned the arrogance of that inhabitant of outer space, if all the space ships would have been well regulated in their paths and frequency?
And, remember that those space ships have no connection with each other. Compare that with this universe of uncounted millions of galaxies, each having millions of solar systems, each system containing numerous planets, and the planets having their various moons etc.
And all of them "bound" together in the chain of gravity, each influencing its neighbor, and in turn being influenced by it. And then think that Mr. Russell says that it was not proof of any design.

Frank Allen, former professor of Biophysics in University of Manitoba, Canada, writes in his articles: The Origin of the World: By Chance of Design: -

"If in the origin of life there was no design, then living matter must have arisen by chance. Now chance, or probability as it is termed, is a highly developed mathematical theory, which applies to that vast range of knowledge that are beyond absolute certainty. This theory puts us in possession of the soundest principles on which to discriminate truth from error, and to calculate the likelihood of the occurrence of and particular form of an event.

"Proteins are the essential constituents of all living cells, and they consist of the five elements, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur, with possibly 40,000 atoms in the ponderous molecule. As there are 92 chemical elements in Nature, all distributed at random, the chance that these five elements may come together to form the molecule, the quantity of matter that must be continually shaken up, and the length of time necessary to finish this task, can all be calculated. A Swiss mathematician, Charles Eugene Guye, has made the computation and finds that the odds against such an occurrence are 10 160 to 1, or only one chance in 10 160, that is, 10 multiplied by itself 160 times, a number far too large to be expressed in words.2 The amount of matter to be shaken together to produce a single molecule of protein would be millions of times greater than that in the whole universe. For it to occur on the earth alone would require many, almost endless billions (10 243) of years.

" Proteins are made from long chains called amino acids. The way those are put together matters enormously. If in the wrong way they will not sustain life and may be poisons. Professor J. B. Leathes (England) has calculated that the links in the chain of quite a simple protein could be put together in millions of ways (10 48) (that is 48 zeros written after number 1). It is impossible for all these chances to have coincided to build one molecule of protein."

But there are incalculable billions of molecules of protein in only one human body, let alone the whole earth.

They are created systematically and still Russell clings to his theory of chance!
Frank Allen goes on to say:-

"But proteins as chemicals are without life. It is only where the mysterious life comes into them that they live. Only Infinite Mind, that is God, could have foreseen that such a molecule could be the abode of life, could have constructed it, and made it live."

Russell has endeavored to challenge this argument in these words:-

"You all know the argument from design:

Everything in the world is made just so that we can manage to live in the world, and if the world was ever so little different we could not manage to live in it. That is the argument from design. It sometimes takes a rather curious form; for instance, it is argued that rabbits have white tails in order to be easy to shoot. I do not know how rabbits would view that application. It is an easy argument to parody. You all know Voltaire's remark, that obviously the nose was designed to be such as to fit spectacles. That sort of parody has 'turned out to be not nearly so wide of the mark as it might have seemed in the eighteenth century, because since the time of Darwin we understand much better why living creatures are adapted to their environment. It is not that their environment was made to be suitable to them, but they grew to be suitable to it, and that is the basis of adaption. There is no evidence of design about it."

Let us suppose, for the time being, that the living creatures adapted themselves to their environment. But was Russell really blind to the fact that long long before the "living creatures" came on this earth, this earth, its atmosphere, its whole structure, together with its relations with sun and other planets and moon had been "made" in such a way that the life became possible at all. Does he want us to believe that the living things, that is, the animals and man, before their own existence, influenced the whole system of universe in general, and that of this earth in particular, so that they might be born here untold millions of year in future?

Frank Allen writes in the same article:-

"The adjustments of the earth for life are far too numerous to be accounted for by chance.

First, the earth is a sphere freely poised in space in daily rotation on its polar axis, giving the alternation of day and night, and in yearly revolution around the sun. These motions give stability to its orientation in space, and, coupled with the inclination (23 degrees) of the polar axis to the place of its revolution (the ecliptic), affords regularity to the seasons, thus doubling the habitable area of the earth and providing a greater diversity of plant life than a stationary globe could sustain.

"Secondly, the atmosphere of life-supporting gases is sufficiently high (about 500 miles) and dense to blanket the earth against the deadly impact of twenty million meteors that daily enter it at speeds of about thirty miles per second. Among many other functions the atmosphere also maintains the temperature within safe limits for life; and carries the vital supply of fresh water vapor far inland from the oceans to irrigate the earth, without which it would become a lifeless desert. Thus the oceans, with the atmosphere, are the balance wheel of Nature.

"Four remarkable properties of water, its power of absorbing vast quantities of oxygen at low temperatures, its maximum density at 4 degrees 'C' above freezing whereby lakes and rivers remain liquid, the lesser density of ice than water so that it remains on the surface, and the power of releasing great quantities of heat as it freezes, preserve life in oceans, lakes and rivers throughout the long winters.

"The dry land is a stable platform for much terrestrial life. The soil provides the minerals which plant life assimilates and transforms into needful foods for animals. The presence of metals near the surface renders the arts of civilization possible.

"The diminutive size of the earth compared with the immensity of space is some times disparagingly referred to. If the earth were as small as the moon, if one-fourth its present diameter, the force of gravity (one-sixth that of the earth) would fail to hold both atmosphere and water, and temperatures would be fatally extreme. If double its present diameter, the enlarged earth would have four times its present surface and twice its force of gravity, the atmosphere would be dangerously reduced in height, and its pressure would be increased from 15 to 30 pounds per square inch, with serious repercussions upon life. The winter areas would be greatly increased and the regions of habitability would be seriously diminished. Communities of people would be isolated, travel and communication rendered difficult or almost impossible.

"If our earth were of the size of the sun, but retaining its density, gravity would be 150 times as great, the atmosphere diminished to about four miles in height, evaporation of water rendered impossible, and pressures increased to over a ton per square inch. A one-pound animal would weigh 150 pounds, and human beings reduced in size to that of say, a squirrel. Intellectual life would be impossible to such creatures. "If the earth were removed to double its present distance from the sun, the heat received would be reduced to one-fourth of its present amount, the orbital velocity would be only one half, the winter season would be doubled in length and life would be frozen out. If its solar distance were halved, the heat received would be four times as great, the orbital velocity would be doubled, seasons would be halved in length, if changes could even be effected, and the planet would be too parched to sustain life. In, size and distance from the sun, and in orbital velocity, the earth is able to sustain life, so that mankind can enjoy physical, intellectual and spiritual life as it now prevails."