Page 683 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Harun Yahya

to produce the proper (and highly sophisticated) musical sound. Likewise, genes are essential to the devel-
opment of the brain, and must be "in tune" to produce functioning neurons and neurotransmitters. But this
emphatically does not imply that genes make minds any more than a viola or a piccolo makes a sonata. 191

Collins devotes the end of his article to illuminating another reason why human attributes cannot
stem from their DNA, and draws attention to God's superior creation:

For many of us, there is still another powerful reason, wholly apart from the mechanics of science, to reject

the notion that DNA is the core substance of our humanity. It is the belief [in] a higher power... Of course,
some scientists and writers dismiss this spiritual notion as pure superstition. [This is certainly a great error
of theirs!] Thus Richard Dawkins has observed that "we are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to
make copies of the same DNA... It is every living object's sole reason for living." Really? Is there nothing
about being human that is different from being a bacterium or a slug?

Can the study of genetics and molecular biology really account for the universal intrinsic knowledge of right
and wrong common to all human cultures in all eras...? Can it account for the unselfish form of love that the

Greeks called agape? Can it account for the experience of feeling called to sacrifice for others even when our
own DNA may be placed at risk? While evolutionary biologists proffer various explanations for human be-
haviors that undermine the efficient propagation of our genes, there is something about those claims that
rings hollow to us.

The notion that science alone holds all the secrets of our existence has become a religion of its own… Science
is the proper way to understand the natural, of course; but science gives us no reason to deny that there are

aspects of human identity that fall outside the sphere of nature, and hence outside the sphere of science. 192
As Collins noted, chains of molecules consisting of carbon-hydrogen-nitrogen-oxygen compounds

cannot possibly endow a person with such feelings as love, devotion, taking pleasure from art, rejoicing,
maternal emotions, desire or self-sacrifice. If the soul is discounted, a human being is nothing more than
flesh and bone. The genes, which are themselves material entities, do not permit this assembly of flesh

and bone to think, make mathematical calculations, enjoy the food it consumes, miss a friend it has not
seen for a long time, or take pleasure in something beautiful. A human being is an entity created by God,
very different and separate from the body, its brain and cells and genes. It is revealed in the Qur'an that
a human being is an entity with a soul given by God:

He Who has created all things in the best possible way. He commenced the creation of man from clay; then
produced his seed from an extract of base fluid; then formed him and breathed His Spirit into him and
gave you hearing, sight and hearts. What little thanks you show! (Surat as-Sajda, 7-9)

The human soul is breathed into man by God. Evolutionist materialists, unwilling to accept the ex-
istence of God and that human beings possess metaphysical characteristics, seek to keep spreading the
lie that everything is encoded in the genes—which obviously cannot create the human soul, though evo-
lutionists blindly ignore this.

Actually, this distorted belief is by no means new. Throughout history, it has been known under the
name of paganism. In the same way that the ancients made idols out of wood and then claimed that
these were their deities, the theory of evolution maintains that genes are the purpose and creator of

everything. (Surely God is beyond that!) This primitive and dogmatic point of view, which was hoped
to provide a basis for the theory of evolution, has been invalidated by scientific findings. Even Collins,
who led the historic research into genes, openly states that genes actually have no power, and that hu-
man beings are metaphysical entities.
Paganism, ascribing divine status to material entities with no power of their own, is a tradition that

has persisted down the ages and, in the present day, is maintained by the evolutionist mindset. In the
Qur'an, God reveals this about those who ascribe divine status to entities devoid of any power:

But they have adopted deities apart from Him which do not create anything but are themselves created.

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