(The administrators of this website would like to say that this book is extremely beneficial, especially when it deals with matters of science and the connection of Islam and Science. However, the author is making some mistakes, such as claiming the "Jafari" school as a fifth school of thought, or saying that Saudi Arabia follows the Hanbali Madhhab. If these errors are ignored though, the book is an excellent and careful exposition about the truth of Islam).

(Original Source: http://www.usislam.org/00toc.htm)

History of Truth

The Truth about God and Religions

Dr. Adel M. Elsaie, Ph.D.

DEDICATIONS

To The God of the universe.

Thank You for showing me Your way.

• O Allah, I bear witness that there is no god but You.
• 
• O Allah, all Praises are to You for Your Glory, Mercy, and Bounty.
• 
• O Allah, please accept this humble effort and forgive me for my shortcomings.
• 
• O Allah, help me to disseminate this knowledge to all those who need it.
• 
• O Allah, Help me to live as a Muslim, and die as a believer.
• 
• O Allah, bless anyone who seeks the truth, and Your way.
• 
Amen.

The author owes immeasurable gratitude to his daughter Dr. Hanan Elsaie, DDS, for the continuous encouragement and the interminable patience for sharing her knowledge about God and life sciences.

Many friends shared their valuable comments on the manuscript. Special thanks to Imam Moujahed Bakhach of Islamic Association of Tarrant County, Texas, Imam Dr. Yusuf Kavakci of Islamic Association of North Texas, Brothers K. A. Shariff, Dr. Fouad Elrefai, and David McClung.

The author would like to express his appreciation to the staff of the Islamic Research Academy of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, for their diligent review of the manuscript, and approval to publish this book.

• To all who contributed – my undying gratitude.
• 
• To all who seek the truth – my unfaltering encouragement.
• 
 

Translation of Al-Azhar’s approval for publishing this book

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful

AL - AZHAR

ISLAMIC RESEARCH ACADEMY

GENERAL DEPARTMENT

For Research, Writing & translation

Dr. Adel Mahmoud Elsaie

May Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.

Following your request for examining and reviewing your book:

"History of Truth, The Truth about God and Religions."

We would like to inform you that this book follows Islamic beliefs, and can be published at your expense.

Please ensure the utmost accuracy of the verses of the Quran and the Prophetic Sayings.

May Allah guide your steps.

May Peace be upon you, and the mercy and blessings of Allah.

General Manager

Department of Research, Writing & translation.

Signed and stamped.

NUMBERING SYSTEM

During the course of this book, a simple convention of a numbering system will be adopted that allows us to use a very large and very small numbers to be written in a compact form. The very large numbers will be used to describe the universe, while the very small numbers will be used to describe atoms and cells. The system used is called the exponential system. Let us begin with everyday numbers: since 10,000 = 10 x 10 x 10 x 10, it is written as 1E4, which means 1 multiplied by 10 four times, or 1 followed by four zeros. The letter E refers to the exponential system.

A million = 1,000,000 or 1E6

A billion = 1,000,000,000 or 1E9

A trillion = 1,000,000,000,000 or 1E12

Very small numbers are written in an analogous way. One millionth (that is 1 divided by 1 million) will be written as 1E-6, or 0.000001.

One billionth = 0.000000001 or 1E-9

One trillionth = 0.000000000001 or 1E-12

There is a price for such compactness. It is easy to forget the difference between 1E4 and 1E8, since both are large numbers, or the difference between the small numbers 1E-4 and 1E-8. Let us not forget that the difference between the above two sets is 10,000 or 1E4, which is a big number.

If we accept that the size of the observable universe is 1E26 Meters and the size of the smallest part of an atom is 1E-14 Meters, then, the ratio of the largest to the smallest known sizes is 1E26/1E-14, or 1E40. This is 1 followed by 40 zeros, or 10 thousand trillion trillion trillion times!

The human brain cannot even come close to comprehending these huge or tiny numbers. But they exist. Similarly, one cannot attempt to grasp the concept of the eternal, limitless, omnipotent, omniscient and Mighty God. But He exists.

PREFACE

Throughout time immemorial, man has been in search of the truth. The truth, relative to physical phenomena and spiritual experiences, has lead mankind to a winding course. Sometimes, confusion and disorientation of the principles of life, unfortunately, can taint this course. Religion and philosophy are the historical vehicles for the search of truth. While religion presents the Divine aspect of the purpose of life, philosophy is a human attempt to gain a higher intellectual knowledge of oneself, morality, and the underlying meaning of life. The current tendency to separate science and religion imposes disgraceful restrictions on science to achieve even more prosperous horizon. This book incorporates theology, natural sciences, and philosophy in an attempt to satisfy the eternal quest for the search of the ultimate truth.

It is easy to go through life avoiding difficult questions about our origin and our destiny. It is easy not to talk about dying, or why people suffer. However, life would not be the same if there were no questions and answers. It is important to have an accurate understanding of our origin, and yes, its pursuit is worthwhile. Everyone needs a sense of identity, purpose, and personal goals. This is impossible without a sense of origin. What a person believes about human origin will condition that person’s life style and affect one’s ultimate destiny. Our origin goes back, perhaps, tens of thousands of years, and our destiny takes us from the present time to eternity. Although our life on this earth spans through, perhaps, 60 or 70 years, we are heavily involved with this short time while neglecting our origin and destiny.

Sometimes we have very interesting and yet vital questions that linger in our minds:

•Why do humans suffer and how can one be happy?

•What is the purpose of this life?

•What will happen to us after death?

•Does God exist?

•Were we created or did we evolve from apes?

•Why do we have this huge universe?

When one asks these questions to anyone, one gets different answers such as:

•I do not care, and I just want to enjoy my life.

•Leave me alone. I am trying to survive.

•I do not know. I never thought about that.

•I know that God exists, but I am confused with all those religions. I do not know which one is right. I will try to live a good moral life, and that is it.

•I know that God exists, but I am not really doing a good job in preparing myself to meet Him. Maybe I will do that when I retire and have more time.

Only a small percentage of people know why they exist, and they are living their lives the way it is supposed to be. Those are the people who understand their priorities in life and act accordingly. Those are the people who appreciate human knowledge and know its limitation. Those are the people who realize the difference between science and reality. Einstein said "One thing I have learned in a long life - that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike... Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

In the present time, it seems that science and technology have an answer for everything. Consequently, many people may tend to think that they know everything. If you ask one of those persons about life and how it started, the answer will be quick, and most likely will be: life started as an organic substance that came to earth through a comet that collided with earth billions of years ago. Life after that evolved according to Darwin. Ask him again about human behavior, and he will start referring to Freud. Then, most people tend to think that we know all the answers about everything. The reality is that we know very little about few things. And if you don’t believe this statement, just ask a pharmacist how aspirin works, a brain surgeon how the brain works, or a psychoanalyst how we dream.

One of the top priorities of anyone in this life, regardless of one’s wealth or social status, is to make one’s house comfortable. The English language provided the word "home" to emphasize a feeling of comfort, security, peace, and love in a house. Humans spend a lot of time and energy to change a house into a home. If someone plans to move to another house, he usually reserves his energy and money to the next house. However, everyone knows that all our homes are temporary, and sooner or later everyone will move to another house or home called "the grave." Should we not be wise and invest a little bit in making sure that this grave is a home? Should we not make sure that this home will have "light and heat"? Would we not like to have this grave as a piece of paradise? Ancient Egyptians dramatized this concept 5000 years ago. They did not just build graves; they built pyramids. The fourth dynasty pharaoh Khufu (also known as Cheops) built the great pyramid of Giza, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, as his tomb. The pictures of this tomb do not do the pyramid any justice. This pyramid is much larger than anyone would think. It covers 13 acres and contains more than 2 million blocks of stone. This proves that what the ancient Egyptians experienced in their daily life was just as important as what awaited them beyond the death’s gate. They firmly believed in an afterlife that was not all that different from the normal life. This concept of ensuring comfort in the afterlife, although practiced by polytheists, had its root in the original monotheist religion, perhaps by Enoch (Prophet Idris in Arabic). Some scholars believe that Prophet Idris was the same as the ancient Egyptian god Osiris.

The questions, that everyone should ask, are:

•Should I invest heavily in a home that I will live in, perhaps, for tens of years, or in the home that I will live there for, perhaps, thousands of years?

•How can I make this home for thousands of years extremely comfortable?

The Quran goes one step further than that by labeling life in the grave as only a visit, which indicates a short stay, compared to eternity.

Over thirty years ago after graduation from college, I found myself thinking about religion and God. I wanted to search for the ultimate truth. I wanted to know the true purpose of life. Taking answers for granted from someone was not good enough for me. I wanted to "feel" the answers, and not just "know" them. I wanted to have a strong faith based upon logic. A few times during prayer, I was wondering if I was just following a ritual. How do I make sure that God exists? How do I achieve strong belief? And, how do I know that I am following the right religion? My religion tells me that it is the true religion. This is also the same for Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, and all the rest of the religions. I want to be sure that I am following the right religion. Humans have choices to select a religion, but they cannot control the consequences of their choices. Consequently, I started my search with an open mind and a total objectivity.

I started reading books that addressed the existence of God. To my delight, I found an Arabic book about God and the modern sciences written by Dr. Abdel-Razek Nofal. This book had a great effect on me throughout my life because it convinced me that God truly exists. This can be demonstrated by the numerous examples that show the perfect balance in the universe and the intricate design of the earth, its atmosphere, and its different life forms. Then I asked myself the next basic question; what is the right religion? I read about Moses, Jesus, Buddha, and Confucius. I excluded Judaism since it is not a universal religion and not just anyone can be Jewish. It is hard to believe that God, the Ultimate Just, has chosen only about 15 millions Jews as His people at the present time, and the 6 billion gentiles on Earth have no chance for salvation. A Muslim has to believe in Moses, his message, his miracles, as well as the Jewish and all other prophets. This makes the original Judaism included in Islam. I read the Bible and the Quran. I had so many troubles with the Bible. My first problem was the eternal confusion of the mystery of the trinity. Is God one, or two, or three? My Christian friends told me that God is one. But there is a statement in the Bible that says that Jesus ascended to heaven and sat on the right hand side of God. This makes them two separate beings. I was told that they are two but they are one, and I just had to have faith. Every time I discuss this subject with my Christian friends, we found ourselves involved in a Byzantine argument where no conclusion could be reached. It is interesting to note that the term Byzantine argument was coined in the second century AD, when Christians argued about the nature of God as compared to the nature of Jesus.

Next, the last words of Jesus on the cross are very confusing. First, there are four different versions of the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This raises major questions about the accuracy of recording a Holy Book. These verses are part of a Christian doctrine of divine inspiration. If God had inspired these four gospel writers, why did God inspire them to record different words? These verses are not just different words, but totally different concepts. It seems that the closest statement should be the one that Jesus said in his own Aramaic language:

"Jesus cried with aloud voice saying Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani? That is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46, & Mark 15:34, though it is Eloi instead of Eli in Mark.) Which means God, God, why have you abandoned me?

It is hard to believe that Jesus said that God abandoned him. There are three possibilities:

•He said that. Then, why did the son of God think that his father abandoned him? Jesus told the disciples that he would die and rise from the dead in three days. He knew that he would die and be resurrected, so how can that be called abandonment? If he is the son of God that came to save humanity with his blood, so how can that be called abandonment? If he knew his mission in life, so how can that be called abandonment? This statement simply contradicts all the New Testament. Many Christian scholars have the same trouble justifying this statement.

•He did not say that. This means that Matthew and Mark were not accurate, and God did not inspire the Gospels, because God would not allow any inaccuracies.

•The man on the cross was not Jesus! This may seem at first sight as an unreasonable idea. But if we know that the same sentence, word for word, exists in the songs of David, Psalm 22.1, one may be tempted to suggest that the man on the Cross was a Jew asking God for help from his Old Testament.

It is interesting to note that Christian theologians introduced a branch called Apologetics to provide answers to criticisms against Christian beliefs. Apologetics started early in Christian history to resolve many contradictions in the New Testament. It is no secret that the word Apologetics came from the Latin word "apology", and the Greek origin "Logos." Some apologists suggest that Jesus said all the above versions. This is in spite of the fact that no single Gospel included all the four versions. Analyzing the Apologetics reasoning of the above four versions of Jesus’ last word does not present a satisfactory argument. Also, recent Apologetics advocates that historical and archeological evidences support early Christian history. That is a fair statement. However, historical and archeological evidences support the historical Jesus only, and cannot be extended to support the Christian belief about the nature of Jesus. In the New Testament, Jesus always presented himself as the "son of man." He never said that he was the son of god. Forty years later, Paul made him the "Son of God," and in the first Ecumenical Council of Churches, 325 AD, Athanasius made Jesus of the same Divine "substance" as that of God.

The three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam originated in the Middle East. Islam and Christianity share many common beliefs and history that no other two religions may claim to share: Oneness of God, Day of Judgment, resurrection from the dead, eternal afterlife, and the moral values of peace, freedom and justice. While there are differences between Muslims and Christians about the nature of Jesus, (Pbuh i.e. Peace be upon him) there is no disagreement in the Middle East about the Name of God, or the status of many of the common prophets in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Noah (Pbuh), Abraham (Pbuh), Moses (Pbuh), and Jesus (Pbuh), are also prophets in Islam. The Quran declares Mary as the holiest woman ever (Chapter "Surah" 3, verse "Ayah" 42) - not Muhammad’s (Pbuh) mother, daughter, or wife. One complete chapter in Quran is devoted to Mary with her name as the title of chapter 19. The Bible does not give Mary the same honor. The Quran mentions Jesus and Mary 34 time and Muhammad 4 times.

Arab-speaking Christians and Muslims recognize Allah as the only name of God. Any Arab-speaking Christian, when asked about the name of God, would answer Allah! The English Old Testament starts with: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and earth." The Arabic Old Testament starts with: "In the beginning, Allah created the heaven and earth." The name of God throughout the Arabic Old and New Testament is Allah.

It is ironic that the Western Christians are unaware of the name of God of their Arabic brothers. The differences in the stature of the prophets in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam involve only Jesus and Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Them. Jews do not recognize Jesus and claim that he was a false Messiah, and Christians do not recognize Muhammad and claim that he was a false prophet.

Moreover, some Christian may feel that the Quran has satanic origin, God forbid, because the Quran does not recognize the divine nature of Jesus (Pbuh). This is a false notion. Satan is rejected and accursed in many verses in the Quran. Also, Muslims have to seek the protection of God from Satan every time they recite the Quran.

After extensive readings and thinking, I became convinced that Islam is the righteous religion, and Islam has the answer to all our social, economic, and judicial troubles. That is when I decided to write this book with the only motive to make the truth known.

To try to reach answers about vital questions, assumptions and criteria have to be adopted. The guidelines followed in reaching conclusions in this book are as follows:

1. This book is for anyone, from any faith, who seeks the truth.

2. Not a single attempt was intended to offend any faith, or lack of, for that matter.

3. The search for knowledge should be approached with open mind, heart, and soul, and that search should not decrease or stop.

4. Our logical approach is real and meaningful, with no deception or arrogant ideas.

5. Divine Creation is not subjected to any or all the laws of physics.

In the present time, there are serious challenges to monotheism:

1. High-powered scientists, armed with tremendous marketing tools, promoting atheistic concepts that a layman has no way of challenging.

2. Global education system that fails to stimulate a comprehensive thinking process, but rather introduces subjects such as history, physics, and life sciences in a fabricated form to exclude God from our lives. Again, students have no way of challenging their teachers.

3. Overwhelming western culture that promotes fake images of success. Again the layman anywhere on earth has no chance but to accept the western image for success.

Having watched all that, I feel compelled to agree with John Calvin, the Protestant theologian, who said:

"I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and would remain silent, without giving any sound."

I tried to study the approaches taken by the true scientists, such as Newton and Einstein, along the history of humanity. I admired tremendously their reasoning and logic because their goal was knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and not for business, publicity, or marketing by twisting facts. Accordingly, this book represents a scientific attempt to answer the following questions:

1. Does God exist?
2. 
3. Should there be a universal religion and what is that right religion?
4. 
5. How can one be constantly sure that his or her conclusion is accurate?
6. 
The first question is the most difficult one if we do not know where to look. Therefore, I will answer the first question by examining the known facts about the universe and life. I will attempt to present these subjects in a simple context and not just as pure scientific abstracts. The divine Law of Repetition will be introduced. This law simply states that because common guidelines exist, in all living organisms or physical objects, then the Designer or the Creator of all living and non-living objects is the same. With humility and open mindedness, we should believe that God exists. He, then, has to make somehow this existence known to everyone. Some people adopt the arrogant idea of believing in god, but not in any organized religion or any messenger of god. Those people may think that god should communicate directly with them, and they have reached the level of the prophets. How else will they know what god wants from them. Examining the monotheistic religions that believe in One God will follow. Next, one conclusion should become obvious after that: because God is one, then there should be only one religion for this whole universe at any time and any place. This is the essence of monotheism. This is accomplished by establishing criteria for accepting a religion, and then apply these criteria on the three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

It is important to note that I am not writing this book as a biologist, cosmologist, physicist, or theologian. I am writing this book as a human being searching for the truth and purpose of life. In doing so, I am following two religious commands in Islam; first to seek knowledge, and second to spread knowledge. Also, I would ask you to consider the contents of this book with an open mind, because this information could prove to be of greater importance to you than you might yet realize.

In writing this book, technical information has to be introduced and could not be avoided. I tried to make the presented information simple and readable for the average reader. Also a glossary section is added to present definitions of technical or religious terms.

This book is an attempt of recording the Truth, which is one of the Names of God, and is mentioned in the Quran 226 times. It is not about faking lies about Moses, Jesus, or Muhammad (Peace be upon them), who are loved, honored and respected by all Muslims. Some Jewish and Christian "scholars" made it their business to spread unsubstantiated lies about the life of Muhammad, quoting obscure references or preaching half the truth. The main references in this book are the Bible and the Quran, thus it should be easy for the reader to check these references. Also, a good part of the information on Christianity in this book was obtained from Christian authors and friends. Allah addressed mankind to get to know each other, Surah 49, Ayah 13. Consequently, as a Muslim I had to form my ideas about Christianity from its sources. That is something that most of the critics of Islam never tried.

Religion is a serious business. In the present time, there is a statement that declares that all religions lead to One God. Well, I do not accept that. I cannot believe that worshiping a cow or a statue leads to one God. Humans make choices everyday in their lives, but they cannot control the consequences of those choices. It should be a matter of utmost wisdom for everyone to think and plan for the Day of Reckoning. Our faith will lead us to our destiny. Everyone in every faith should be prepared to face God, the Ultimate Judge. Humans will be asked about their faith, and will have to acknowledge the Truth, regardless of their faith. This Day of Judgment is like a court scene, where the Judge knows all, even more than people can tell. As such, this book is also my attempt to do my best to search for God and a religion. I started researching and writing this book in 1992. I believe this time is well spent since this book can be my defense on the Day of Judgment. I will beseech God:

"I did not ignore the important questions about my origin and my destiny. I tried, I thought, I researched, and this is the best within my capacity."

This is the reason I started the first chapter of this book with a question to the reader: "My defense, what is yours?"

1

My Defense,

What is Yours?

One day I had dinner with a friend. We were talking about career, life, present, past, and future, the usual chat. One question came up about plans for the future and what we hope to achieve. He told me that his plan for his life is to retire when he is 64. After that, he would work on his farm growing cattle and enjoying a peaceful life. At the age of 72, he will be sick, and die at 74. I laughed, and asked him how does he know that he is going to die at 74. He answered me with a: "Don't you know statistics? Statistics say that men live until they are 74." He was convinced that he was going to live until 74. A few days later, my daughter came to tell me that one of her colleagues from high school died in a car accident. He was 21. I remembered my friend, and I said statistics do not mean a thing if it is about life and death. Even if statistics shows that 99% of the men die at 74, that is not a guarantee for anyone that he will live that long. He simply could be among the remaining 1%.

How little we know. Scientists tell us that this whole universe started 8, 15, or 20 billion years ago, and these days, each person lives for 1, 20, 70, or 90 years. Life span is very small compared to that of our universe. We live our lives in constant trials to improve our way of living. However, we are not sure if we are going to succeed or fail in those trials. But, only one thing is certain and that is everyone is going to die. As a matter of fact, we are born with a sentence of death. Now imagine that our life started in a courtroom when the judge announces that we are sentenced to death. Then our whole life is just like waiting for the judge to announce when, where, and how we are going to die. This is not an attempt to paint a gloomy picture on life. This is an honest attempt to put life in its real perspective, because this concept of living in a prison waiting the decision of the judge can actually improve life, set our priorities in order, and project a sense of humility in our life.

One time, I had problems with the air conditioning unit in my car during a hot summer. My priority at that time was to find an honest car mechanic to fix the car. I had so many troubles finding one. Few days later, I went to my physician to have a physical examination. He told me that he suspected cancer. Now, you can imagine what happened to my car problem! The cancer turned out to be a false alarm, and I am grateful to God for giving me more time.

How many times does a "healthy" person visit a doctor for a routine physical examination to be told that he is terminally ill and has few months to live? How many times does someone driving his car, get involved in a fatal car accident? How many times do people die in a natural catastrophe? The fact is we do not know when, where, and how we will die, and probably we do not want to think about death. However, the first step to understand many facts should start by believing the only shocking fact in our lives: death. To approach that, take the following priority test:

What would you do if you were told that?

You have 20 years to live?

You have 1 year to live?

You have 6 months to live?

You have one month to live?

You may die at any moment?

These are not the kind of questions that you read in a book, only to continue reading the next sentence. Ask yourself these questions, and stop here and think. Try to write your answers. When it comes to the possibility of knowing that you have only one month to live, very many things will change in your life. Your priorities will turn upside down. Things that used to bother you before will loose their significance. And other things that you used to ignore will become important.

The 15 Minutes Criterion

Now, try something else. Imagine yourself laying down in bed, and you are in your final moments. Actually, your final 15 minutes in this life. What are you going to be thinking of? How are you going to evaluate your life? Is there something that you wanted to do and kept postponing it? Did you actually live your life the way you wanted?

Remembering death could be a very positive experience in our lives. You can use "The 15 Minutes Criterion" to overcome many frustrations in life. When you face many of the disappointing situations in your life, you can judge the importance of that frustration by whether or not you will think about it during your last 15 minutes before death. Next time you have a frustrating experience, remember the 15 minutes criterion, and put that experience in its real magnitude.

People who encountered a near death situation tell us that their priorities changed drastically. They say that they started appreciating flowers, human relations, etc. Some even start thinking about God. The question is why should we have to wait for a near death experience to think or feel. And are we going to have a second chance of life or are we not going to have a chance at all.

One day I attended a very interesting speech by Dr. Nizam Peerrwani, the medical examiner of Fort Worth, Texas, about death from a scientific point of view. The following is an extract from his speech:

"Medically, death is only an abstract noun which is meaningful to laymen, lawyers, philosophers and the clergy but which is very inadequate as a biological description. It is, however, a useful and convenient term to describe death as a disintegrating biological process in which we may recognize a beginning and an end, with striking changes in between. Although legally and religiously, there is a precise moment of death, there is really no moment in time at which it occurs. We die in bits and pieces, hence medically, we can only state with reasonable certainty that death occurs when it can be demonstrated that an irreversible disintegrating process has started.

We recognize that there are three independent systems necessary for the maintenance of life, namely respiratory, circulatory, and nervous systems. Failure of any one system leads to the failure of the other two, and thus death occurs. Since the precise moment of death is a legal definition, there had to be some legal criteria based upon medical understanding of the process of death. Death was defined by the simple criteria of the failure of either the cardiac or the respiratory system. No mention, thus far, was made of the nervous system. In the 1960s, the advent of human organ transplantation caused scrutiny to be directed towards the definition of death. Tissues such as heart valves, bone, skin, cornea, and tendon can be used from a non-heart-beating donor. Other organs such as hearts, kidneys, livers etc. can only be used from heart-beating donors. Committees were formed to examine the exact definition of death, tens of whom were physicians representing various medical specialties such as anesthesiology, neurology, pathology, psychiatry, neurosurgery, general surgery, and internal medicine, as well as lawyers, theologians, and historians of science. The purpose of these committees is to try to distinguish true brain death with irreversible termination of brain function from vegetative state in which a patient in a coma may exhibit spontaneous respiration upon removal of life support systems or may have brain stem reflexes. There is no complete agreement on the exact moment of death, and any existing criteria of death may be challenged in courts. The conclusion is that we do not understand fully the only common fact in our lives. And the irony is there are those who claim relentlessly that they know all the facts in the universe."

How can anyone be arrogant after knowing what is going to happen after being pronounced dead. Medically, body changes become evident in the first and subsequent hours after death. These changes include four steps:

1. Body cooling: body begins to lose its temperature at approximately 1/2 - 1 degrees each hour until it reaches that of the environment, provided that the environment is colder than that of the body.

2. Body stiffening: shortly after death, within 3 - 4 hours, the body begins to stiffen. By the 12th hour after death, the entire body is stiff. Once the body begins to decompose, it then begins to lack firmness.

3. Gravitation of blood: with the termination of the heartbeat, blood begins to collect in the dependent portions of the body after death. Within 8 - 10 hours after death, blood is pooled in all these areas and cannot be displaced if the body is turned over.

4. Decomposition: decomposition involves different processes, which may occur singly or in combination. Decomposition of a body includes the following:

Breakdown of cells and organs caused by slow down of chemical processes by lack of heat.

Bacterial growth in the tissues generally arises from the large bowel where they reside in large numbers during life. Bacterial growth affects the tissues by changing their color, producing multiple different gases, and resulting in gradual softening of the tissues.

Mummification when bodies are buried in dry or warm soil due to dehydration.

Some of the fatty tissues are transformed into a soap-like substance.

Thus the human being decomposes to chemicals worth approximately 5 dollars buried in the ground, while some humans, throughout their lives, have pride worth a million dollars. Death transforms the life of a human being from a state of action without knowledge to a state of knowledge without action. If we truly know that we are going to die, how can we be arrogant or stubborn? Arrogance is the main reason why we do not think straight. If you search for one human trait that produced so much pain and suffering, that took humanity in wrong directions, and that started wars: it is arrogance. Hitler started the Second World War because he believed in the supremacy of the German race. History tells us of pharaohs and kings who placed themselves above everyone else to the extent of making themselves gods. Arrogance is the one single character that destroys peace and security that everyone is trying to achieve. After all, it is the original sin of Satan.

Humans start life weak and helpless and end life the same way. But somehow in between, people acquire some power and knowledge and that is when most people acquire varied degrees of arrogance. In many cases, in different professions, you find people that think of themselves as the elite or the chiefs. They think that they know everything, and they have an answer to every problem. They have a complete vision of how this whole world should be run, and how people should think or live. Tyrants and dictators think the same way.

Somehow, humans tend to think that they are immortal and invulnerable. When we attend a funeral, and see a dead body laying in the ground, we feel sad for a while. But then life goes on, and we convince ourselves that it is the other person who died and not we. As a matter of fact, we may convince ourselves that we still have a long way to go. We may even blame the deceased for his death, because he did not know how to protect himself from diseases. But we are smart enough to defend ourselves against viruses and bacteria, and we will do a much better job in protecting ourselves. When someone is paralyzed for life or dies in an airplane or car accident, we may tend to blame the pilot or the car driver for not being careful enough. We do not think for a moment that a car accident may happen because the driver lost his concentration for a split second, as many of us often do. We simply believe that we are invulnerable. One of the effective ways of acquiring humility is to constantly remind ourselves that we are vulnerable, and anything may happen to us on this very day. It is particularly helpful if you start your day by reminding yourself with your vulnerability to any kind of accident or catastrophe, without being paranoid.

I added the last disclaimer "without being paranoid" to avoid the casual use of the "Yes-But" rule of speech as a comment on the last paragraph. Someone may comment: "Yes I will remind myself with my vulnerability, but I don’t have to live in fear." Quite frequently when two persons are discussing a subject, and one presents a point of view, the other uses this rule by saying "Yes" you are right in your statement, "But" you are wrong because you failed to add so and so, or you ignored this or that fact! Watch this rule during conversation, and you will be amazed how much is revealed about the arrogance of the person using this rule!

During the Renaissance in Europe, the rise of science resulted in the healthy and much needed function of freeing Europeans from the stifling grip of the church’s control. This intellectual movement produced great scientists like Isaac Newton who developed the gravitational theory that was very effective in explaining the dynamics of the universe. However, Newton understood his limitations and the limitations of one of the great scientific achievement in history. Newton acknowledged:

"To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age."

He had special trouble trying to understand the actual nature of gravity. While his theory predicted the effects of gravity quite accurately, it said nothing about the mechanism by which gravity acts. Newton was a devout believer. In fact, he believed that gravity is a divine action; in effect, a stone fell because God’s finger was pushing it down. It is interesting to know that hundreds of years later, scientists still do not understand the exact nature of gravity. All what we know about gravity that it exists and it works according to Newton’s theory. But we do not know why it works. Newton was ranked number 2 in "THE 100 a ranking of the most influential persons in history" book by Michael Hart. Jesus was ranked number 3 in that book. I will keep you guessing of who ranked number one in this book, but you will know him near the end of this book.

On the other hand, the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798-1857) developed the sociology as a separate social science. He wanted to get rid of traditional deities. To satisfy the needs of the unsophisticated masses, Comte proposed a new church presided by scientists, not priests, as saints. Comte suggested that he would be willing to serve as Pope of the scientists. However, he became increasingly grandiose and died insane.

Newton and Comte represent scientists with two completely opposite approaches. The former knew his limitations and the limitations of his work, while the latter failed to realize his limitations and did not know when to stop. Throughout history, science has provided answers for questions that start with "how", but has never been able to answer who or why. Religion is the only logical way to provide answers to who and why. The answer is consistently: "God, and He wants it this way."

Humans should be grateful to God for having limited senses, because our lives would be really hell if we had unlimited vision and hearing. Can you imagine yourself having unlimited vision and your eyes having the power of electron microscope? How can you move if you want to avoid all the viruses and bacteria in the air, and they exist by the millions around you? How can you pick up a glass of water to drink if you see all the atoms in the glass and water is mixed with viruses and bacteria? How can you eat if you see every cell, alive or dead, in your favorite meal? Now suppose that your ears have the power of hearing every sound on earth with the same intensity. This would be like having millions of radios with each one tuned to one radio station on the planet earth. All of those radio stations are turned up at the same time. If someone has unlimited vision and hearing, one may not last for 10 minutes before going totally insane. It is therefore a mercy from God that humans have limited senses.

In our time, some scientists treat hypothesis as facts and realities. When some scientists and educators assert that evolution without God is undisputed fact, and imply that only the ignorant refuses to believe it, how many laymen are going to challenge them? When a scientist hosts a TV show explaining discovery of bits and pieces of ancient bones and claims that as proof that we descended from apes, how can laymen argue with him? When a scientist describes the universe and its galaxies and implies that serious modern scientists do not see evidence of God, how many unbelievers or semi believers contradict him? And if one questions their scientific arguments, one would be accused of not being serious or modern or scientific. This sheer weight of authority is brought to the defense of evolution and atheism. Moreover, books, magazine articles, movies, and TV programs treat evolution as an established fact. Often times, we hear or read a sentence like "when man evolved from the lower animals" or "millions of years ago when life started in the oceans."

Some people are therefore programmed and brain washed to accept evolution as a fact, and the contrary evidence passes unnoticed. It is the arrogance of some scientists that prevents them from admitting that there is a possibility that they are wrong. Some scientists do not always base their conclusions on facts. They are also people and much is at stake, for there are decorated prizes in the form of fame, research grants, and publicity. Sometimes science is powered by individual ambitions and is very susceptible to preconceived ideas. The scientist, whose 1992 study linking high voltage power lines to cancer, stirred public fear. In 1999, he was found to have faked his data by using only 7% of his samples to substantiate his conclusion. This scientist received over three million dollars in federal grants for his research.

Some people reject the concept of God because they feel, as it has been said, "seeing is believing." However, in their daily life they acknowledge the existence of many things that cannot be seen, such as air, gravity, radio or television waves, electricity, magnetism, and the Big Bang. We have not seen the Big Bang, but there are evidences that it happened. We have not seen radio waves, but there are evidences that they exist. Similarly, there is no physical way to see or subject God to human analysis, but there are overwhelming evidences that He exists. The irony is that some people accept the existence of the unseen waves or electricity based upon evidences, but they refuse to apply the same standard to God. When it comes to the concept of God, some people prefer to see Him as an old man smoking cigars as in the Hollywood movie "Oh God."

Consider two living beings such as a tiny ant and a huge elephant, do you think that the ant can see or measure the size of the elephant. Does the ant have any way of knowing exactly what the elephant is doing all the time? Even if the ant knows what the elephant is doing at one time, does it know why? It is the arrogance of some people that prevents them from admitting that they are so tiny with limited senses and knowledge. The ant may realize that it is limited to comprehend the existence and size of the elephant, but some people think that they have unlimited senses that they have to see or measure God to believe. This example should be referred to when we are stuck with something that we cannot hope to understand.

Another factor that helps keeping God away from our life is the school systems. In some countries, religion is forbidden from being taught in schools. Other countries, that allow teaching religion in schools, give religious classes the lowest priority after science, history, and languages. In some Islamic countries, religion is the last class when students are tired from school and they are ready to go home. Also, Physics teachers never mention the sentence "praise God" when, for example, they explain gravity. They never mention what Newton himself thought about gravity, or say that we really do not know how it works and ask the students to think about it as a miracle from God. Some biology teachers fail to mention that we do not fully understand the complex chemical processes in the cell or what exactly is the origin of energy required for life and how it works. Teaching in schools does not encourage intellectual or spiritual concepts. Some teachers have their subjects ready to be spilled out upon the students, and that is the end of it.

An additional reason leading to human’s confusion is the failure of the men of religion to convince the masses that they are good examples to follow. The scandals and corruption of the TV Evangelists are a reason for people to think about the religious record of hypocrisy. When one religious leader is found to be a hypocrite, the unreasonable approach, of condemning all religions with hypocrisy, prevails. Moreover, people think that religious institutions have turned into a big show business. They observe religious programs on TV, where the host sings, cries, screams, and dances in a way that competes with the best actor in Hollywood. People have observed clergy support for murderous dictators. They know that people of the same religion have killed one another by the millions in war, with the clergy backing each side. People after that tend to condemn the religion itself and every one that tries to talk about religion.

In the second century, the philosopher Praxeas promoted the idea that God, the father, and God, the son, were so completely unified that both the father and the son were crucified and died on the cross. "God is dead" became a slogan used by several theologians and philosophers. The strong wave of atheism started in the beginning of the nineteenth century using that slogan. The advances in science and technology created a strong drive of atheism and freedom from religion. This was a direct consequence of the doctrines and control of the western church. On one hand Christianity defines itself as a monotheistic religion. On the other hand it is based on the polytheistic concept of Trinity. Also, the crucifixion of Jesus helped fueling the notion that "God is dead."

The nineteenth century was the century in which controversial figures such as Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Sigmund Freud introduced atheistic ideas and philosophies. Their ideas affected most of the human aspects of life such as the origin of life, the economical and political systems, the philosophy, and the human behavior. In the present time, a group of so called scientists and philosophers, adopted the approach of promoting Darwinism more than Darwin, Marxism more than Marx, and Freudism more than Freud. This group considers themselves the elite of the society, and they are using every available means to promote their ideas of atheism.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) was an English naturalist. He wrote his book The Origin of Species in 1856, where he formulated his theory of evolution. In this book he addressed the origin of life, a subject that sparks curiosity for all humans. Charles Darwin was the grandson of the eccentric evolutionist Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). He was appointed as a naturalist on HM Beagle to survey wildlife in South America. In 1871, he published The Descent of Man. In this book, he advocated that humans were the products of biological evolution, and that they descended from primitive animals. He believed that both humans and apes were descendants of a common primitive ancestor. Religious people from all religions considered the evolution a notion contrary to the basic belief of creation by an omnipotent God. The work of Darwin is regarded the most anti-religious and most materialistic propaganda in history. The third chapter of this book will analyze the evolution hypothesis, and will prove that it is a fraud.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a German political philosopher and economist. He founded the communism based upon a materialistic explanation of history. Marx considered the religion as "the opium of people" that produced humans incapable of efficient production. His theory of "historical materialism" advocated that social and political changes were heavily influenced by the class struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeois. God, religion, and spirituality were dismissed from his materialistic system. He suggested that God could not help the human suffering of the oppressed and the poor. He advocated that religion and God were tools in the hands of the Church and the bourgeois to control the masses. The ideas of Marx started the Soviet revolution, and established the Soviet empire that failed miserably in just 70 years. No other empire in history lasted such a short time. The effect of Darwin on Marx is interesting. When Marx read Darwin's book, the Origin of Species, he admired the materialistic and the atheistic concepts of the book. Marx found the material needed to dismantle all religious belief and promote his materialistic approach. The founders of the Soviet Union established a science museum in Moscow, which shows the fossils of ancient species, for the purpose of eliminating religion with the support of scientific data!

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher. In 1882, he adopted the ideas of Praxeas when he proclaimed that God was dead. He wrote, "Where has God gone? I tell you - we have killed him, you and I - we all are his murderers... God is dead. God will remain dead." He believed that eliminating God from the human life would improve the quality of life. He was also plagued throughout his life by poor eyesight, and migraine headaches. He was driven to madness by the complete rejection of his contemporaries to his ideas. The more he was ignored, the more he combated Christianity and its moral claims. Nietzsche claimed that new values could be established to replace the traditional ones, and this led to his concept of the superman. He envisioned the superman to replace God, and to fight the moral values of the Church. Concentrating on the real world, rather than on the rewards of the afterlife promised by religion, the superman stresses the importance of this life, including the suffering and pain that accompany human existence. His superman is a creator of a "master morality" that reflects the strength and independence of someone who is liberated from all traditional values. He believed democracy to be fatal to society, and attributed most of its failure to Christianity. Nietzsche’s ideas profoundly affected the official philosophy and propaganda of the Nazis, where the German race was considered a superior one. He died in Weimar on August 25, 1900, after a life of bitter disappointments.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was an Austrian physician who established the framework of the psychoanalysis. He regarded belief in God as an illusion that requires psychological help. Human Being created the concept of God through the manipulation of the unconscious. Freud viewed God as a projection of human weaknesses and strong desire of mortality. Religion was a necessary step in the undeveloped societies, but now science can take its place. Freud was strongly articulate about his faith in science: "No, our science is not an illusion! An illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give, we can get elsewhere." He suggested that people must outgrow God in their own pace: "to force them into atheism or secularism before they were ready could lead to unhealthy denial and repression." Freud associated the origin of religion to his myth of the Oedipus complex. This myth describes how a group of sons, jealous of their father’s control over their mother, united and killed the father. Then, as atonement for their act of murder, they worshipped the figure of the father as God the Father. It is interesting to suggest that Freud got this idea of God’s projection as a father from the Christian doctrines of trinity. Freud also regarded sexual desires and fears as existing in the unconscious of everyone’s mind. This concept was shocking to the Victorians in the same manner as Darwin’s claim of evolution. Now, a number of new books attacking Freud and his brainchild psychoanalysis for a generous array of errors, duplicities, fudged evidence and scientific howlers. The continuing success of drugs in the treatment or alleviation of mental disorders ranging from depression to schizophrenia undermines the Freudian foundations. In the present time some scientists question if Freud is finally dead!

Sometimes I wonder what were the above-mentioned four pioneers of atheism thinking of when they were dying. Were they envisioning that they are going to turn to dust and this is it? Now the new generations of Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, and Freud are gaining power in the TV, magazines, books, and unfortunately in the schools. Sometimes it looks like we are living in a system totally committed to atheism or at least promoting the notion of keeping God in His place if he exists. Between schools, media, and modern serious science many people do not have chance to think about God.

1.1 The Law of Repetition

One Ayah in the Quran in Surah 55 is repeated 31 times. This Ayah states: "Then which of the favors of your Lord will you deny?" This Surah is 78 Ayat (or Ayahs, Arabic: Ayat) and lists many favors that Allah bestows upon us, and after citing each favor; the above Ayah is repeated as a continuous reminder to humanity to acknowledge His unlimited generosity. It is interesting to note that the Arabic word for "humanity" is derived from the same Arabic term that means "forgetfulness."

Another Ayah is repeated 4 times in Surah 54 starting in Ayah 17. The Ayah states "And We have indeed made the Quran easy to understand and remember. Then is there any that will receive admonition?" Moreover, a part of an Ayah is repeated 5 times in Surah 27 starting in Ayah 60 "Can there be another god besides Allah?"

The above repeated Ayat are just examples of the repetition in the Quran. The repetition of a certain Ayah adds to the beauty and eloquence of the authentic Word of God. It touches the hearts and minds of the believers. This repetition may be thought of as part of the style of the Word of God.

It is possible to extend this style of repetition in the Quran to physical phenomena or events. Consequently I will introduce the Law of repetition. Generally the Divine Law of repetition examines the repetitive design or repetitive event in different branches of science. It then attempts to answer the question of who is the cause of this repetition. The Divine Law of Cause and Effect attributes one cause to one effect. This law is a strong proof for the existence of God. The more general Law of Repetition attributes repetitive effects in non-related fields to One God. This law simply states that because common guidelines exist, in all living organisms, physical objects or historical events, then the Designer or the Creator of all organisms, objects or events is the same. This law also states that because a phenomenon exists in different branches of science, then this phenomenon has to be attributed to only one Uncaused Cause. With humility and open mind, we should believe that God exists.

There are overwhelming evidences to believe that the unseen God does indeed exist, because one can observe the signs and the physical results of His creation. One can see these signs in the technical perfection and intricacy of the structure of atoms, solar systems, galaxies, and living cells. They all have a similar design of a nucleus and objects rotating around it. This similarity or repetition in their design reveals that the Designer or Creator of these physical objects is the same, regardless of their size or function.

Humans, animals, and birds have many repetitive features because they all share the Earth’s common environment. On the outside they have symmetrical organs - two hands, two or four legs, two eyes, two ears - all arranged symmetrically. Hair, feathers, and scales are also arranged symmetrically. Even the colored designs on the wings of the butterfly are arranged symmetrically! The internal organs of humans and animals are arranged to use the space inside efficiently. The human left lung has fewer lobes so that it can accommodate the heart, which nestles inside it. Nearly every species, from cow to chicken to human, has its heart on the left. No one really knows the exact mechanism that pushes the cells of the heart to the left during the embryonic stage. No one really knows the exact mechanism that pushes the cells of the ears to each side of the head during the embryonic stage. Etc.

Developing an embryo is more complex than building a skyscraper. In a skyscraper, a supervisor reviews the drawings and instructs workers where to go and which construction material to use. Bit by bit, from the foundation up, the building takes shape. In a living body, the workers are the construction materials, and both are living cells. Each cell has a copy of the master plan inserted into its nucleus in the form of the DNA. Just as the construction supervisor cannot send the roofers before the foundation is poured, cells have to appear at the right time in the right place. Depending on its function, each cell reads a different part of the genetic code from the DNA. Some cells become specialized as proteins, fat or muscle. Others act like conduits signals, carrying messages to other cells. Such signals play a big role in establishing the structure and location of any organ. This is not a simple process, but a very complex one that embryologists have no detailed answer as to why and how.

This whole universe follows certain laws. We know a few of them and may learn some more. One such universal law is "the Law of Repetition." This law is seen in the examples provided by atoms, solar systems, and galaxies. An atom has a nucleus and electrons rotating around the nucleus. Solar system has a star and planets rotating around the star. Galaxies has a nucleus and stars rotating around the nucleus. Therefore, this law may be stated as follows:

The building block of basic objects has a nucleus and smaller things rotating around it.

A human being develops from a single cell, the zygote, which forms when a female egg is fertilized by a male sperm. Immediately after fertilization, the zygote also rotates about the center of the egg. No one knows why! Is it possible that this Law of Repetition represents an act of worship or submission to the Will of God? How else can anyone explain this phenomenon that is valid for the tiny atom and zygote, the midsize solar system as well as the colossal galaxy?

The practice of pilgrimage in Islam follows the same above Law of Repetition. Two million Muslims perform pilgrimage in Mecca each year by circling the Kaabah (the house of Allah) and praising God. Thereby the Kaabah can be looked at as a nucleus and the Muslims are the smaller creatures that rotate around it. Similarly the Quran states in Surah (chapter) 39, Ayah (verse) 75, that the Angels surround the Throne of God, praising their Lord.

Humans are made of cells and cells are made of atoms. Because atoms surrender to the Will of God and are in a constant act of worship, it follows that humans are born into this world with a pure and innocent condition. This also means that the basic nature of humans is righteously created, with no original sin inherited from Adam or Eve.

To expand this Law of Repetition in different branches of science, one has to examine the basics, and then one will find that the basics of one branch of science can be applied to other branches. As an example, all physical systems are in a state of equilibrium or balance. This statement can be expressed by many equations in different branches of science. An example of this case is Newton’s third law, which states "for every action, there is a reaction equal to the action and opposite in direction." The equation in this case can be written as:

Action = Reaction

The mathematical symbol of the equal sign, =, means the right hand side of the equal sign is balanced or in equilibrium with the left-hand side of the equal sign.

All studies in different branches of engineering schools consist of studying and solving equilibrium equations, studying the physical properties of matter, and then designing a system that satisfies equilibrium and the properties of material. This is all what a student learns in engineering school. When dealing with forces, the equilibrium equations can be stated as the applied forces equal to the reactions. In the case of balancing energies, the equilibrium equations are stated simply as the input energy equals to the output energy.

Let us look at the different sciences in the school of engineering:

Structural engineering: Studying equilibrium of structures and the physical properties of steel and concrete.

Aerospace engineering / Aerodynamics: Studying equilibrium of air and the physical properties of air.

Civil Engineering / Hydraulics: Studying equilibrium of flowing fluids in pipes or channels and the physical properties of these fluids.

Electrical engineering: Studying equilibrium of flowing electric currents in circuits and the physical properties of electric and magnetic fields

Chemical engineering: studying of equilibrium of chemical processes and the physical properties of the elements involved in the chemical processes.

Mechanical engineering / Thermodynamics: studying the equilibrium of different kinds of energies such as heat and the physical properties of those energies.

Mechanical engineering / Vibration: studying equilibrium between potential and kinetic energies based upon the physical properties of the vibrating objects.

The entire school of engineering is based upon studying equilibrium and properties of matter. Equilibrium can be static for stationary systems such as buildings or bridges or dynamic for moving systems such as cars, aircraft, or planets.

The Law of Repetition is demonstrated in engineering as follows:

All systems are in a state of static or dynamic equilibrium.

This law of equilibrium did not just happen in nature by evolution or some other mechanism. There is no physical explanation as to why equilibrium is happening everywhere and at all time, unless we extend Newton’s explanation of the nature of gravity to include equilibrium as another divine action. Perhaps equilibrium is God’s way of telling us that His creation is always balanced and perfect. In this case, studying science is just the human way of understanding some of God’s laws for the purpose of appreciating His power and supremacy.

As an extension to the above law, chemical reactions happen all the time in a human body. Every chemical reaction is subject to chemical equilibrium. A disease can be defined as an imbalance in one of those reactions. Taking medication restores the balance. Pharmacology is a branch of medicine that studies the known chemical reactions in the human body and the effect of medication on diseases. Studying in the school of medicine involves the equilibrium of the chemical reaction inside the body as well as the properties of each organ and system in the human body. In that sense, the similarity of engineering and medicine becomes obvious.

A further demonstration of the Law of Repetition is that all systems are uniform on a large scale, but display irregularities on a small scale. If you look at the sky at night, you see the uniformity of the void, with a few scattered stars that represent the irregularities in that huge void. In this case, the stars represent the irregularities in the huge, otherwise uniform, void. Human beings are also uniform on a large scale. Taken as a whole, the population’s height, weight, intelligence, behavior, health, etc. can be quantified with an average value for each trait. Many people are healthy while others suffer an irregularity such as disease. Trees also are uniform on a large scale. They all have roots, stems, branches, and leaves. But, the bearing of different kinds of fruit or no fruit at all, even the different shapes of leaves can be thought of as small scale irregularities. And the list can go on and on.

From a human standard, the irregularities can be beneficial or harmful. The irregularities exist for a reason that we cannot understand each one of them. The solar system is a huge void with the sun and the planets existing as tree leaves in a vast desert. Atoms have the same structure as the solar system with the nucleus and electrons separated by relatively large distance. And since the human body consists of atoms, it can be seen that it is mainly empty space with the nuclei and electrons as the exceptions to this huge void. Why is that? Recall the above-mentioned example of the ant and the elephant! The ant does not know what is in the mind of the elephant, and we will never know what is in God's mind unless He reveals some of His Knowledge. This is simply the system that He chooses, and we do not know why. Hence, this Law of Repetition can be stated as follows:

All systems are so uniform on a large scale, with some irregularities on a small scale.

This Law may also help us understand some of the aspects of human suffering, such as some babies that are born with birth defects. These defects are the exceptions, and the uniformity is that the majorities are born healthy. We may be able to suggest that we know why that happens. People should be grateful to God that they do not have defected babies. But guess how many people on earth actually thank God when they have healthy babies? How many people thank God that they are not sick? How many people thank God that they can find food, water, and shelter? The great lesson of the few who suffer is that the majority should be grateful for all the favors that God bestowed on them. What about those people who suffer in this life? The answer is who knows what God prepared for them in heaven? May be they will be happier for a long time than those who appear to be fortunate on Earth. I do not claim to know the exact answer, but I have full confidence in God’s Wisdom and Justice.

Years ago, as a student studying my Ph.D., I encountered a problem in my thesis that I could not find its solution right away. I felt extremely concerned and sad. Then I went for a walk to calm myself down. There, I saw a man without legs begging for few pennies to eat. I looked at him and thought here was a man whose ambition was to eat, and he was trying to get help for his hunger. And there I was, feeling sad for a luxury item that I could not get fast enough. That was about thirty years ago. I try to remember that scene when I face some problem in my life and compare my problems with that man's problem. This really forced me to say thank you God for what I have.

Another application of the Law of Repetition is the old cliché that states "history repeats itself." Let us understand what this statement means. In one way it means that civilization and power in certain countries rises to a peak, and then citizens become blinded by success, then this civilization reaches its demise, and another civilization starts, and so on. Everyone knows that. But, did you also notice that the more ancient empires lasted more than the following ones. History books tell us about the following civilizations and empires:

Sumerian civilization in Iraq (3500 - 800 BC)

Egyptian civilization (3000 - 1070 BC)

Minoan civilization in Crete (3000 -1000 BC)

Creek civilization (2000 - 300 BC)

Chinese civilization (1523 BC - 906 AD)

Indian civilization (1500 -185 BC)

Mexican civilization (1200 - 300 BC)

Roman Empire (753 BC - 476 AD)

Byzantine Empire (330 - 1453)

Islamic Caliphate (632 - 1526)

Ottoman Caliphate (1300 - 1923)

British Empire (1558 -1982)

French Empire (1804 -1962)

Russian Empire (1689 -1917)

Soviet Empire (1917 -1992)

American civilization (1865 -)

History books show that the duration of civilizations used to be a few thousand years, then several hundreds. Now we live in an era where "superpowers" last a few hundred years, or even less than a hundred years as in the case of the Soviet Union. People who can be affected by preconceived ideas write history books, which can also be audited and adjusted by governments according to the political climate of that time. The Ottoman Caliphate is a case in point. Historians claim that it was an empire. History books in many Islamic countries consider that empire a case of colonization. Very few history books mention that it was an Islamic Caliphate that united many Islamic countries. This is a fact that many governments choose to ignore. If we recognize the Ottoman Caliphate as an extension of the previous Islamic Caliphate, it would make its duration from 632-1923 or about 1300 years. Consequently, the next Law of Repetition states the following:

Duration of civilization decreases with time.

The only exception to this Law is the Islamic Caliphate. Since the Muslims lost the Ottoman Caliphate, Islamic revival is growing in all Islamic countries, and Islam is the fastest growing religion in non-Islamic countries.

If you want to let your mind wander about this Law of Repetition, you can find many other interesting examples about the Law of Repetition.

Now for those who want a proof that God exists, The Quran provides the answer in Surah (chapter) 41, Ayah (verse) 53:

"Soon will We show them Our Signs in the (furthest) regions (of the earth), and in their own souls, until it becomes manifest to them that this is the Truth. Is it not enough that thy Lord doth witness all things?"

Almost all Quranic interpretations agree that the above verse addresses the unbelievers, but I feel that this verse inspired many Muslims to look at the universe and their bodies to strengthen their faith. This verse identifies two groups of people:

1. Those who are looking for proof or a technique to become faithful can achieve that by looking at the skies and to the human bodies. The complexity of the design of the universe and the living cell leaves one's mind spinning. People need to contemplate and ponder to arrive at the highest conclusion in this universe.
2. 
3. Those who have faith, and accept God’s Word that He is a witness of His Existence without a need for further proof. They know that He exists by their hearts. This is truly a blessed group.
4. 
The first group represents the non-Muslims and the Muslims who seek scientific and rational evidences for the divine creation. Those are, also, who base their faith on a logical approach and an analytical procedure. They usually become strong advocates to Islam, and in some cases they have stronger faith than most of the traditional Muslims. This group challenges the strong wave of materialism and atheism in favor of the clear moral values that Islam represents.

2

The Universe

Studying the universe can be an overwhelming spiritual experience. We see pictures of our solar system, distant stars, and galaxies, but the human minds fail to comprehend the size and complexity of this huge universe. In this chapter, you will encounter a host of theories and names. I attempted very hard to make the presented material simple, so you can get an appreciation of the splendor and grandeur of this universe. However, if you are temporarily stunned, you are sharing the astonishment of the scientists who lived through the development of their theories, and who at times saw nothing but increasing complexity with little hope of understanding. If you stick to it, you will share the excitement of the scientists, and the humility of the believers. If you keep asking questions: Who, Why, and How, you will have only one logical answer: God exists and He made it His Way."

From time immemorial, people have wondered at the starry heavens. On a clear night, the beautiful stars hang like shining jewels against the vast darkness of space. The parade of sunrise and sunset, the changing phases of the moon, and the silent convoy of the stars across the black dome of heaven have long proven a spectacle and a puzzle. The spectacle has inspired the artist, the musician, and the poet. The puzzle has intrigued philosophers and scientists. Just what is out there in the space? What is the meaning of it all? How did it start? Is there life out there? We don't know. But, who has any idea of what God can do?

The spectacle of the heaven above charges the believers with humility and faith. They realize that they are a grain of dust on a grain of dust on a grain of dust. Yet, God gives us the intellect to contemplate all of this. The recent Hubble telescope discovery increased the estimates for the known galaxies from 10 billion to 100 billion, with each galaxy containing billions of stars, and perhaps planetary systems. When we discover new galaxies, stars and planets, this should make us aware of how great God is, and how little we know. God simply revealed some of his magnificence.

To ancient peoples the sky exhibited many repetitive behaviors. The bright sun, which divided daytime from nighttime, rose every morning from one direction, the east, moved steadily across the sky during the day, and set in a nearly opposite direction, the west. At night more than 1000 visible stars followed a similar course, appearing to rotate in permanent groupings, called constellations, around a fixed point in the sky, which was known as the north celestial pole.

Observation of the stars that appear in the west after sunset or in the east before sunrise showed that the relative position of the sun among the stars changed gradually. The Egyptians may have been the first to discover that the sun moves completely around the sphere of the fixed stars in approximately 365 days.

Several ancient peoples, notably the Egyptians, the Mayans, and the Chinese, developed interesting constellation maps and useful calendars but the Babylonians accomplished even greater achievements. To perfect their calendar, they studied the motions of the sun and moon. It was their custom to designate as the beginning of each month the day after the new moon, when the lunar crescent first appeared after sunset.

Due to limited knowledge, the earliest civilizations developed inaccurate model of the universe. At about 4000 BC, the Mesopotamians, believed that the Earth is the center of the universe and that the other heavenly bodies move around it. Later, in ancient Greece, the challenge was resumed, and a new view taken of the universe. The Greek Aristotle and the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy expanded the nightly motion of stars across the sky from a dome to a sphere. In doing so, the Greeks took the first step towards realizing that the universe is larger than it appears. They also developed an elaborate mathematical way of describing the cyclic motion of the Moon and planets around the Earth, which, on what seemed good evidence, appeared fixed at the center of universe. The Greek astronomer Aristarchus of Samos maintained, about 270 BC, that the Earth revolved around the sun. However, because of Aristotle's authority, the Greeks regarded the colossal, heavy Earth as a motionless globe around which the universe revolved. This theory, known as the geocentric system, remained virtually unchallenged for about 2000 years due to the widely accepted model of the universe according to the famous Aristotle. Had humanity believed Aristarchus, our knowledge of astronomy would have been more advanced than our present case.

Greek astronomy was transmitted eastward to the Syrians, the Hindus, and the Arabs. The Arabic astronomers compiled new star catalogs in the 9th and 10th centuries and subsequently developed tables of planetary motion. Arab astronomers recognized the Great Nebula in Andromeda, the first galaxy other than our own, as a faint blur as early as 964 AD in the vast loneliness of the universe. Al-Battani (known also as Albatenius), leading Arab astronomer and mathematician of his time, made his astronomical observations in Syria for a period of more than 40 years. He published his work as "De Motu Stellarum" (Concerning the Motion of the Stars, 1537), and corrected errors of Ptolemy in regards to the length of the year.

In 1543, the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus published his theories "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres". The Sun, not the Earth, was put at the center of the universe, the planets were set in orbits about it, and the human beings were abdicated from their throne at the center of all creation.

2.1 Models and Mathematics

Discovery of the structure of the universe, the atom, or the DNA started by developing a model that describes the behavior of these structures. The modeling procedure is the same for different scientific disciplines, although the details of the modeling vary between different disciplines. Modeling of the same problem also changes with time as more knowledge is acquired.

In the above description of the relationship of the Earth to the sky, three different models were introduced, namely:

1. A model of the Earth at the center of the universe with the sky as a dome above Earth.
2. 
3. A model of the Earth at the center of the universe with the sky as a sphere above Earth.
4. 
5. A model of the Earth rotating around the sun.
6. 
Development of physical models will be illustrated by presenting a simple model of a vibrating pendulum or yo-yo. A basic property of the pendulum is frequency. There is nothing complex in this idea; if one watches a pendulum oscillating up and down, the number of oscillations in a second is called the frequency of vibration. This pendulum consists of a spring and a block attached to it. If the spring is held fixed, the block will be stationary at vertical equilibrium position. The spring provides the restoring force against gravity. If the block is to move from equilibrium position, the spring is stretched and it stores potential energy and a force is developed in the spring. When the block is released, the spring force pulls the block towards the equilibrium as the potential energy is converted to kinetic (motion) energy. This process of energy transfer between the potential and kinetic energy continues and causes the block to oscillate about the equilibrium position.

The frequency of the pendulum can be calculated by equating the potential and kinetic energy. This solution is subject to certain assumptions, which should only be made if the solution is easier to solve and the results are accurate enough for whatever use they are intended. Some of the logical assumptions for that spring-block system include ignoring the effects of earthquake and wind. One should not assume that the results would be correct if the pendulum is moving in a windy place or during an earthquake. If wind and earthquake are included in the solution of this system, the resulting equations are usually very complex.

Similarly, when dealing with the dynamics of the universe, one cannot include the effects of every phenomenon in the equations describing the motion of the universe. There are two reasons for that: first there are still many unknowns in the universe; second, including some known phenomena could make these equations impossible to solve. Theories dealing with the dynamics of the universe have much observational studies to support them. Mathematical reasoning is the only way to understand the fundamentals that lie behind observations. This is so because mathematics is a language in which ideas can be formulated and followed in logical steps. Many times mathematics has provided insights available in no other way. Unfortunately, some people suffer mental blocks when they see a simple equation. However, our civilization would scarcely exist without the physical laws and intellectual techniques developed by mathematical research. No one could balance his checkbook without applying mathematical rules. Many of the world’s great thinkers have decided that mathematics represents the absolute truth. "God ever geometrizes," Plato said. "God ever arithmetizes," echoed the 19th Century Prussian scientist Jacobi. In our time the British physicist Sir James Jeans declared, "The Great Architect of the Universe now begins to appear as a pure mathematician."

Today, although mathematicians affirm the universality of their subject, some deny that it possesses any absolute qualities of truth. Bertrand Russell defines mathematics as "the subject in which we never know what we are talking about nor whether what we are saying is true." He may be talking about some mathematicians who expect the universe to follow their theories, instead of searching of the actual laws that describe the behavior of the universe.

2.2 Creating the Universe

Understanding the universe that began from a primal void may be the greatest intellectual search ever. If the intellect of mere mortals seems too weak for the challenge, the imagination may be up to it. Cosmology and particle physics are both required to understand the evolution of the universe. Cosmology is the study of the birth and development of the universe, the largest entity known. Particle physics is the study of the basic building blocks of matter, the smallest entity known. The union of the two fields resulted in a scientific revolution.

The universe started with an enormous explosion, in which space, time, energy, and matter were created. There is almost complete agreement of this among scientists. The evidence that makes them so certain that the Big Bang model is correct comes from discoveries in astronomy and subatomic physics as well as astronomical observations based upon the analysis of light emitted from distant stars. Light is usually described as consisting of light waves. When raindrops intercept the sunlight, rainbow is produced with the familiar band of colors. Colors of the rainbow range from red, with lower frequency and longer wavelength, to violet, with higher frequency and shorter wavelength. A prism has the same effect of separating white light into its component colors. Many dark lines cross the spectrum of visible light. These lines are very important because the number and position of the lines reveals much information. Two dark lines surround each color. Spectroscopy is a process that separates light captured from distant stars or galaxies into its component wavelengths - its colors. By measuring how much light of various wavelengths and intensities an object emits over time, astronomers can determine many things: the object’s chemical composition; its temperature; its rotation; whether it is moving towards or away from Earth, and how fast; plus in many cases, its mass, its age and its distance from Earth.

The spectrum of waves extends from radio waves of one kilometer long (from crest to crest) to gamma rays with wavelength of a fraction of one-millionth of a millimeter. The visible light from the sun extends over a very small fraction of the spectrum of waves.

In 1912 the American astronomer Vesto M. Slipher (1875-1969), working at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, discovered the "red shift," which paved the way to one of the greatest discovery in this century. All the dark lines in the visible part of the spectrum of all galaxies were shifted toward the red, and the lines in the red part of the spectrum are shifted into the infrared, and so on. This happens because the crests and troughs of the electromagnetic radiation are shifted towards the red, with the lower frequency, if the galaxy is moving away faster. This can be understood by a simple analogy. If you compress a coil spring, the number of coils in one inch will increase. But if you expand the coil spring, the number of coils in one inch will decrease. The number of coils in one inch is similar to the number of wave. Thus compression increases the frequency and expansion reduces it. In wave physics the shift towards the red end of the spectrum always indicates velocity of recession, i.e. moving away or expanding.

Another example to understand this is related to sound. Sound is pressure waves that excite the ear, when compressed against the ear and give the sensation of hearing. Suppose you are standing in a railway station, an express train is approaching at a high speed, with its whistle blowing. As it passes you, the pitch of the whistle drops suddenly. This has nothing to do with the whistling or your ear; it is due to the speed of the train. This can be explained as follows:

Suppose the speed of sound is 344 meters per second and that the approaching whistle is 344 meters away. Half a second later it is 172 meters away. Treat these as two separate instants, and you will see that the second sound reaches you, the stationary listener, only half a second later than the first. The wavelengths are being compressed because of the movement of the train is toward the listener. This is similar to the compression of a coil when it hits a wall. So the wavelengths are shortened, and the frequencies increase to a higher pitch. As the train passes the stationary listener, the process reverses, and each successive sound wave has a greater distance to travel. The interval between the successive peaks, therefore, is longer than the interval between their emissions, and accordingly, the pitch of the sound will be lowered. This is what is known as the Doppler effect.

The same thing applies to light waves, but in this case the speed is not that of sound, 344 meters per second, but of light, 300,000,000 meters per second. The instrument in this case is not the human ear, but the spectroscope, spreading out radiation into their color frequencies. The visual equivalence can be stated as follows:

1. An increase in auditory pitch (increase in frequency and decrease in wavelength) is a shift of the spectral lines towards the violet end of the spectrum, if the source is approaching the receiver.
2. 
3. A decrease in auditory pitch (decrease in frequency and increase in wavelength) is a shift of the spectral lines towards the red end of the spectrum, if the source is moving away from the receiver.
4. 
A red shift, therefore, indicate the velocity of recession of the source, such as a star. If the faintness of a galaxy is accepted as an indication of its distance, and the red shift of the spectra as the velocity of recession, then the velocity of recession is proportional to the distance of the object. The further the star from us, the faster its speed of recession.

The American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) demonstrated that our galaxy is not the only one in the universe. In 1929 he announced the discovery of the linear relation between distant galaxies and their red shifts. This has been achieved by plotting the distance of some twenty-four relatively bright galaxies against their red shifts. He also gathered the first evidence that the universe is expanding. The red shifts of the much fainter and more distant galaxies are much higher. When he observed the distant galaxies moving away from Earth at a tremendous speed, they looked to him like they had been expelled in some primordial explosion. If their flight path could be run backward, they would unite into the original fireball. But the Big Bang got its enduring name when English astronomer Fred Hoyle, who believed the universe always had and always would exist in a "steady state," ridiculed the sudden birth notion. Hoyle suggested that the universe always looks the same from any viewpoint and at any time. Therefore, although galaxies are born, evolve and move away from each other, newly created matter, in the form of hydrogen gas continually replaces them, which evolve into galaxies and stars in due course. This means that the universe is in a state of constant creation of matter. The creation term is a misnomer, because as an atheist, Hoyle did not believe in God. His model suggested that the universe has no beginning and no end. He claimed the steady state theory explained the observed abundance of deuterium (a form of hydrogen), hydrogen, and helium, which are so successfully explained by the Big Bang. The steady state theory has now been completely abandoned by cosmologists - even by Hoyle himself.

There is doubt about precisely when the Big Bang happened. It was somewhere between 15 and 20 billion years ago. Recently, the Hubble space telescope was used to estimate the age of the universe. The question of the age of the universe is not only fascinating in its own right but also bears directly on just about every other cosmic mystery from the universe’s history to its eventual fate. The Hubble delivered its new verdict that suggested that the age of the universe is between 8 and 12 billion years. That may seem imprecise, but it was specific enough to throw astrophysicists into a state of high anxiety. The problem is that our own galaxy has stars believed to be 14 to 16 billion years old. And it makes astronomers uncomfortable to try to explain how stars could have been formed before the universe began. This uncertainty arises because it is unknown how tightly the universe is packed with matter. The gravity from high-density matter would have slowed the universe’s expansion considerably by now, meaning that the age of the universe could be closer to 8 billion years old. Most theorists think the density of the matter is indeed high, although observers have not been able to calculate exactly how high. Therefore, scientists may have to modify the details of the Big Bang.

However, among the astronomical observations that support the Big Bang, four strong evidences are important:

1. The first is that galaxies are all moving away from each other at a tremendous speed. Galaxies are observed using electronic detector attached to a telescope. The further the galaxy from us, the faster its speed of recession. Astronomers have detected this by the red shift in the galaxy’s spectrum. By measuring the red shifts, astronomers can determine the speed of recession of the galaxies. Since they know the further off they are the faster they move, they can calculate their distances. This is possible if we know exactly how the speed increases with distance. At the moment there is uncertainty about this. That is why the age of the universe is estimated to be 15 to 20 or 8 to 12 billion years. The ratio of the speed to distance - called Hubble constant - ranges between 15 to 30 kilometers per second per million light years. The speed is then determined from the red shift and the distance is determined using Hubble’s constant by simple calculation.

2. The second piece of evidence is the discovery in 1965 of radiation reaching us from every direction of the universe. These are similar to the electromagnetic radiation from light bulbs, from lightning flashes, and from any hot object. The discovery happened during the testing of a sensitive microwave receiver. This cosmic microwave background is of equal intensity from every part of the sky, and its maximum intensity occurs at a wavelength of 1.1 mm. What we are seeing is the glow of a primordial universe as it was at a very early date. Now, after about 15 billion years, this radiation has cooled to a few degrees above the absolute zero. This is the temperature to be expected today if the radiation had originated in an extremely hot Big Bang.

3. The third item of evidence of the Big Bang comes from nuclear physics. Studies of how the chemical elements would evolve after the Big Bang suggest that in the present day universe a ratio of deuterium and helium should be reached. Astrophysicists have verified that the existing ratio is what the theories predict.

The fourth evidence came in 1994, when NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer satellite - COBE - discovered landmark evidence that the universe did in fact begin with the primeval explosion. In order for gravity to make galaxies out of atoms, it needs some chunks in the space in which the atoms are closer together, regions with greater than average density so that they could draw surrounding matter. And if they are present, they should be visible to a sensitive probe such as COBE in the form of warm and cool spots staining a microwave background. Indeed that is what happened. The signals from COBE shows a map of the sky with spots of all sizes indicating regions where the microwaves are minuscule 30 millionths of a degree warmer or cooler than the average. Scientist George Smoot, an astrophysicist at the university of California at Berkeley, when seeing the computer map, proclaimed:

"If you are religious, it is like looking at God"

The hypothesis of a primordial explosion is therefore extremely well founded. However, there are some variations of the theory. For now, there are not enough evidences for an alternative to the Big Bang, and the future may present another model of how the explosion started. Nevertheless, the Big Bang will remain one of the greatest constructs of the 20th century scientific thinking. It tells a story that spans for billions of years of the universe to an end that can only be assumed. One of those assumptions deals with whether or not the Big Bang is a cyclic phenomenon, with the universe alternately expanding and contracting like a spring forever, without a need for God! Even if the universe behaves like a spring, one should raise the perpetual question: Who started it?

At the birth of the universe, all matter and energy were compacted into an almost infinitely hot and infinitely dense point somewhere in a dark void. There was no space and no time. According to the theory of creation called inflation, the cosmos expanded at a furious rate in the first fractions of a second of existence. Then suddenly all the particles, energy, time, and space in the universe appeared. According to the Big Bang theory, a single point called a singularity, exploded spontaneously. This was not a burst of matter into space, but rather an explosion of the space itself. Mathematically speaking, singularity is defined as a point where no solution exists. A simple way to understand singularity is to try to divide a number, any number, by zero. The answer is infinity! But what is infinity? Infinity is a number that is larger than any number one can think of. If someone uses a calculator or a computer and tries to divide a number by zero, the result will be " error"!

The suggested steps for creating the universe can be described as follows:

1. The earliest moment that can be spoken of with certainty came after a period called the Planck time - the incredibly short time of 1E-43 second, a 1 preceded by 43 zeros or a ten millionth of a quadrillionth of a sextillionth second! At that time, the entire universe, which might have been only part of some unknown whole, was much smaller than an atomic nucleus. As suggested by calculation, 1E+20 as many as the universe at that time could fit in an atomic nucleus! All the four fundamental forces - gravitational, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and the electromagnetism - were combined together in one super force. The present theories fail to predict what happens in that short time, but they can be cautiously applied after the Planck time.

2. The next major event occurs after 1E-35 second, where the universe was propelled by the fragmented super force into the four basic forces. The universe inflated, not just expanded but doubling its size every 1E-35 second. Its borders (the space) rushed out at a speed that is faster than the speed of light (Einstein's theories may not allow matter or energy to travel through space faster than light, but they place no such restriction on space itself). During this inflation period from 1E-35 to 1E-33 second, the universe increased to about the size of a grapefruit. At this time, there were no atoms, but only quarks which constitute the nucleus of atoms, appeared as separate entities. Alan Guth at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposed this inflation model in the 1980s. The most startling part of inflation is the notion, as Guth puts it, "that the universe is a free lunch" - something comes from nothing.

3. At 1E-20 second after the Big Bang, cosmic strings, if they exist, would have formed and later served as seeds for galaxies. The laws of God observed today have emerged. Perhaps a small loop of strings attracted, with its gravity, enough matter to form a galaxy; a bigger loop might attract enough to form a galactic cluster. Cosmic strings seem to offer a good model for explaining the pattern of galaxies. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that strings exist.

4. At 1E-5 (0.00001) second, the universe was a soup of quarks, leptons, and radiation. It was cool enough for quarks to bind together in triplets to form protons and neutrons, the building blocks of atomic nuclei.

5. The Plasma period started three minutes later and simple atomic nuclei of heavy hydrogen, helium and lithium were formed. The name plasma is applied to a high temperature gas when the outer electrons became separated from their atoms. It is the plasma that glows inside a fluorescent tube or advertising sign. The universe was too hot for the atoms to hold together. They were ripped apart by the intense radiation as soon as they were created. The plasma period lasted for 300,000 years. The universe was like a dense smoke of free moving charged particles that light could not penetrate.

6. After 300,000 years simple atoms were formed when electrons were finally able to orbit protons without being immediately knocked out of their orbits by photons, the radiation or wave particles. The light that emitted during these atom formations is now the microwave background radiation that was detected in 1965. The universe became transparent to light. Theoretically, some areas were denser than others and thus were warmer and emitted more light. These areas later formed gas clouds or smoke.

7. From 300,000 to 2 billion years, under the influence of gravity, the colossal smokes gradually broke up into smaller galaxy-size structures.

8. After that, stars were formed in galaxies, and the universe continued to expand at a rate of 5 to 10 % every billion years.

In trying to explain the development of the universe, we are left with many unanswered questions:

1. What was there before the explosion started?

2. Why did the universe start at a very hot point?

3. Why did the universe start at a critical temperature and critical rate of expansion that separate models from collapsing as soon as it starts from those that go on expanding forever? After billions of years the universe is still expanding at almost the same rate. If the rate of expansion one second after the explosion had been smaller by even a part in a thousand billion billion, the universe would have been collapsed before it ever reached its present size.

4. What is the origin of the density fluctuations of the early universe that started the stars and galaxies?

The existing laws of physics offer no answer to the above questions. Those questions represent a great test of human faith or arrogance. Marc Davis from the University of California at Berkeley said:

"We all had to say that those were just God-given conditions"

This is one scientist that appreciates the limitations of the human knowledge. Other scientists introduce arrogant ideas when they encounter problems that they cannot hope to understand. They may blame God Himself for not revealing all of His secrets and His full list of laws in a way that everyone should understand. Some are even frustrated that they do not know all the laws that apply to the universe before 1E-20 second after the Big Bang. Steven Hawking, in his book "A Brief History of Time" writes in page 122:

"One possible answer is to say that God chose the initial configuration of the universe for reasons that we cannot hope to understand. This would certainly have been within the power of an omnipotent being, but if he had started it off in such an incomprehensible way, why did he choose to let it evolve according to laws that we could understand?"

Moreover, Hawking considers the Big Bang as a model that places limits on when and how God might have been carrying his job! In page 9 of the above-mentioned book, Hawking wrote:

"An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!"

The late Carl Sagan of Cornell University of New York wrote in the introduction of this book:

"Hawking is attempting, as he explicitly states, to understand the mind of God. And this makes all the more unexpected conclusion of the effort, at least so far: a universe with no edge in space, no beginning or no end in time, and nothing for a Creator to do."

The above statement is elaborated in the same book in page 141.

Sagan’s idea is analogous to the creation story in Genesis, that God created the universe in six day, and then rested the seventh day. The suggestion here according to Hawking and Sagan that the seventh day is so long that it started right after the Big Bang and God is still resting and has nothing to do!

Now suppose, for the sake of argument, that two persons were brought together one from the seventh century and the other from the twentieth century. What may happen if the latter person were to explain the Big Bang and the theory of relativity to the former person? Could you visualize their discussion? The first person would appear extremely puzzled and incapable of understanding or believing the second person. Because we do not understand everything that God did or is doing, and because our existing knowledge fails to explain many of the mysteries of the universe, some of our present time scientists tend to think that the problem is not in our limitation, but in the limitation of God Himself.

The subject of evolution of the universe is a very complex one, and we do not know all the details of the Big Bang. With time, our knowledge will expand and we may improve on the existing model of the universe. Some Scientists may be disappointed that 90 to 99 percent of the universe is unknown to mankind. But, what else is new? Nearly, the same percentage of the human brain is unknown. We cannot determine the weather precisely, nor can we predict the location and intensity of the next earthquake.

2.3 Understanding the Known Universe

Probably, you are reading this book in a room with four walls in your home, and you feel that you are not moving. Your place exists on a tiny planet called Earth. The Earth is one of nine planets orbiting around the Sun. The sun is a typical star of intermediate size and luminosity. The Sun is one of the 100 billion stars traveling together that makes up a spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. Galaxies are generally not isolated in space but are often members of small or moderate-sized groups, which in turn form large clusters of galaxies. The Milky Way is one of a small group of about 20 galaxies that astronomers call the Local Group. The spiral galaxy Andromeda is also a member of the Local Group. The Large, Small, and Mini Magellanic Clouds are nearby satellite galaxies, but each is small and faint, with about 100 million stars. Further work revealed a concentration of clusters of galaxies that are called superclusters. Ours is called the Local or Virgo supercluster. There seem to be no observations to lead astronomers to assume any structure larger than superclusters. This grouping from the solar system to the supercluster systems is based upon the observation that each system travels in concert or as a group.

Now, let us try to see how much your actual speed in the universe is. According to classical mechanics, persons in a uniformly moving train behave as they would be if the train were at rest. With the windows covered, it would be impossible to tell whether the train was moving. To an observer on the ground outside the train, the persons inside the train would seem to have the same speed as that of the train. However, if a person inside the train started running in the same direction as the train, the outside observer would see that person moving faster than the train. As an example, if the train is moving with a speed of 100 Km/hr, and the person is moving with a speed of 10 km/hr, then the observer would see that person moving with 110 km/hr (100+10=110). Therefore, it can be concluded that the actual speed of the person inside a train can be found by adding his speed in the train to the speed of the train. In the same way, let’s find your speed by adding the following:

Speed at the equator of Earth due to its rotation about its axis = 0.44 km/sec

Orbital speed of Earth about the Sun = 29.8 Km/sec

Speed of the Sun relative to the center of the Milky Way = 250 Km/sec

From that, we conclude that your speed relative to the center of the Milky Way is 280 km/sec or 174 mi/sec! That is an incredible speed. And, you don’t even know it or feel it!

Superclusters and Clusters of Galaxies

An unknown process created the density differences in the universe. They become marked only after some two billion years. Where density was greater, Protogalaxies, the first celestial bodies, were formed. The process of expansion of the universe had made it possible for galaxies to form in considerable numbers. The resulting galaxies would have an immense range of sizes - from one hundred times the size of our galaxy down to a hundred-thousandth of it. According the existing model of the Big Bang, the largest structure appeared first. Protogalaxies are assumed to be formed first after 2 billion years from the Big Bang. Protogalaxies shrank to become galaxies.

Overall, the distribution of clusters and superclusters in the universe is not uniform. Instead, superclusters of tens of thousands of galaxies are arranged in long, stringy filaments, around large voids. The Great Wall, a galactic filament discovered in 1989, stretches across more than 500 million light-years of space. Clusters of Galaxies include from two to thousands galaxies. Superclusters or clusters of Galaxies are detected by groups of galaxies that travel together.

Galaxies

A Galaxy is a massive group of hundreds of millions of stars, all gravitationally interacting, and orbiting about a common center. All the stars visible to the unaided eye from Earth belong to the Earth's galaxy, the Milky Way. The sun with its associated planets is just one star in this galaxy.

The most distant galaxies known, near the edge of the observable universe, are faint blue objects called "blue fuzzies" because of their appearance on photographic plates. The images were obtained by aiming a telescope at apparently blank regions of the sky and using a solid-state charge-coupled detector to gather the very faint light, then processing the images by means of a computer. The galaxies, moving away from Earth at about 88 percent of the speed of light, may have been formed about 2 billion years after the origin of the universe.

A Muslim Persian astronomer, Al-Sufi (903-36), is credited with first describing the spiral galaxy seen in the constellation Andromeda. By the middle of the 18th century, only three galaxies had been identified. In 1780, the French astronomer Charles Messier (1730-1817) published a list that included 32 galaxies. These galaxies are now identified by their Messier (M) numbers; the Andromeda galaxy, for example, is known among astronomers as M31.

In the early years of the twentieth century, it was already known from the work of the English astronomer William Huggins that nebulae (Latin for "clouds") were of two kinds: hazy patches of gases with spiral or elliptical shapes. Since 1900 galaxies have been discovered in large numbers by photographic searches. Galaxies at enormous distances from Earth appear so tiny on a photograph that they can hardly be distinguished from stars. The largest known galaxy has about 13 times as many stars as the Milky Way.

When viewed or photographed with a large telescope, only the nearest galaxies exhibit individual stars. For most galaxies, only the combined light of all the stars is detected. Galaxies exhibit a variety of forms. Some have an overall globular shape, with a bright nucleus surrounded by a luminous structureless disk. Such galaxies, called ellipticals, contain a population of old stars, usually with little apparent gas or dust, and few newly formed stars. Elliptical galaxies come in a large range of sizes, from giant to dwarf. In contrast, spiral galaxies are flattened disk systems containing not only some old stars but also large populations of young stars, much gas and dust, and molecular clouds that are the birthplace of stars. Often the regions containing bright young stars and gas clouds are arranged in long spiral arms that can be observed to wind around the galaxy. Generally a halo of faint older stars surrounds the disk; a smaller nuclear bulge often exists, emitting two jets of energetic matter in opposite directions.

Other disklike galaxies, with no overall spiral form, are classified as irregulars. These galaxies also have large amounts of gas, dust, and young stars, but no arrangement of a spiral form. They are usually located near larger galaxies, and their appearance is probably the result of a tidal encounter with the more massive galaxy. Some extremely peculiar galaxies are located in close groups of two or three, and their tidal interactions have caused distortions of spiral arms, producing warped disks and long streamer tails.

Our Milky Way Galaxy

Earth is a planet orbiting one of 100 billion stars that constitute a large spiral galaxy. William Herschel, a pioneer of the study of the skies, first introduced the concept of these islands of stars in the 1780s using large telescopes. On the basis of counting the stars visible in different directions, he concluded that the sun lay at the center of a star system that was flat and elongated in shape. Astronomers have known this system as the Galaxy - from "galaxias" -, which is what the Milky Way was called in ancient Greece.

The observations of radio telescopes have confirmed that this system is fully disklike with four spiral arms. They are the Centaurus, Sagittarius, Perseus, and the Orion arms. The Sun lies in the Orion arm of the Galaxy.

At the center of the Galaxy, as of all spirals, there is a concentrated core of stars. These form a bulge at least 20,000 light-years in diameter and some 3,000 light-years thick. The Sun is 30,000 light-years from the center of the Galaxy. The Sun, about halfway out towards the edge moves at a speed of 250 Km/sec and takes no less than 200 million years to complete each rotation, a period sometimes called the cosmic year. Since its formation, the Sun has managed only twenty round trips. If we assume that the cosmic year is divided into 365 cosmic days, and the cosmic day is divided into 24 cosmic hours, then humans were created on Earth, perhaps, only 2 cosmic hours ago!

Our Solar System

The first astronomers, long ago, noticed that there were five special "stars" that gradually moved through the sky. They became known as the "wanderers" or planets. Planets shine with a steady light, but real stars often twinkle. All the planets visible in the night sky are members of the Sun’s family, or the solar system. The five planets that can be seen without a telescope are Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. After the invention of the telescope, astronomers found three more distant planets. Uranus was discovered in 1781, Neptune in 1846, and Pluto in 1930. All nine planets travel in orbits around the sun.

Johannes Kepler studied the motion of the planets. In 1609 he discovered that the orbits of the planets are slightly stretched circles, called ellipses. A circle has one focal point called the center, while an ellipse has two focal points. For each planetary orbit, the sun is at one of the focal points. Thus the distances of the planets from the sun change by small amounts as they travel in their orbits. Kepler discovered how the planets moved, but it was Newton who realized that the force of gravity holds the planets in their orbits. If the Sun’s gravity did not constantly keep pulling at the planets, they would fly away into the depths of space.

Now we know that our solar system consists of the sun; the nine planets and their satellites; the asteroids, comets, and meteoroids; and interplanetary dust and gas. The planets are commonly divided into two groups: the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and the outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto). The inner planets are small and are composed primarily of rock and iron. The outer planets (except Pluto) are much larger and consist mainly of hydrogen, and helium. The sun consists of 73.5% hydrogen, and 25% helium.

The dimensions of this system are specified in terms of the mean distance from the Earth to the sun, called the astronomical unit (AU). One AU is 150 million km (about 93 million mi). The most distant known planet, Pluto, has an orbit at 39.44 AU from the sun. Comets achieve the greatest distance from the sun; they have highly eccentric orbits ranging out to 50,000 AU or more. This solar system is the only planetary system known to exist, although in the 1980s a number of relatively nearby stars were found to be encircled by swarms of orbiting material of indeterminate size or to be accompanied by suspected brown dwarfs. Many astronomers think it is likely that solar systems of some sort are numerous throughout the universe.

If one could look down on the solar system from far above the North Pole of Earth, the planets would appear to move around the sun in a counterclockwise direction. All of the planets except Venus and Uranus rotate on their axes in this same direction. The entire system is remarkably flat—only Mercury and Pluto have obviously inclined orbits. Pluto's orbit is so elliptical that it is sometimes closer to the sun than Neptune is.

Current theories connect the formation of the solar system with the formation of the sun itself, about 4.7 billion years ago. The fragmentation and gravitational collapse of an interstellar cloud of gas and dust, triggered perhaps by nearby supernova explosions, may have led to the formation of a primordial solar nebula. The sun would then form in the densest, central region. At larger distances from the center of the solar nebula, gases condense into solids such as are found today from Jupiter outward. The association of planet formation with star formation suggests that billions of other stars in our galaxy may also have planets. The high frequency of binary and multiple stars, as well as the large satellite systems around Jupiter and Saturn, attest to the tendency of collapsing gas clouds to fragment into multibody systems.

The satellite systems mimic the behavior of their parent planets, but many more exceptions are found. Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune each have one or more satellites that move around the planets in retrograde orbits (clockwise instead of counterclockwise), and several satellite orbits are highly elliptical. Jupiter, moreover, has trapped two clusters of asteroids (the so-called Trojan asteroids).

Asteroids are small rocky bodies that move in orbits primarily between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Numbering in the thousands, asteroids range in size from Ceres, which has a diameter of 1000 km (620 mi), to microscopic grains. Some asteroids are perturbed into eccentric orbits that can bring them closer to the sun. If the orbits of such bodies intersect that of the Earth, they are called meteoroids. When they appear in the night sky as streaks of light, they are known as meteors, and recovered fragments are termed meteorites. Laboratory studies of meteorites have revealed much information about primitive conditions in our solar system. The surfaces of Mercury, Mars, and several satellites of the planets (including Earth's moon) show the effects of an intense bombardment by asteroidal objects early in the history of the solar system. On Earth this record has eroded away, except for a few recent impact craters.

Some meteors and interplanetary dust may also come from comets, which are basically collections of dust and frozen gases about 5 to 10 km (about 3 to 6 mi) in diameter. Comets orbit the sun at distances so great that they can be perturbed by stars into orbits that bring them into the inner solar system. As comets approach the sun, they release their dust and gases to form a spectacular coma and tail. Under the influence of Jupiter's strong gravitational field, comets can sometimes adopt much smaller orbits. The most famous of these is Halley's comet, which returns to the inner solar system at 75-year periods. Its most recent return was in 1986.

The Sun: Our Daytime star

The Sun lies on the spiral Orion arm of our Milky Way galaxy, which is marked by dark and bright nebulae from which new stars are constantly born. The sun is a typical star of intermediate size and luminosity. Yet if the Sun is indistinguishable among its celestial neighbors, it is immense by terrestrial standards. It diameter is 1,392,000 Km, more than 109 times the equatorial diameter of the Earth. Its volume is 1,303,600 times that of our planet. In light-years, the Sun’s average distance to the Earth is 8.3 light-minutes (which means that light from the Sun reaches the Earth in 8.3 minutes), whereas the distance to the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is 4.28 light-years, 250,000 times greater than the distance from the Sun to the Earth.

Sunlight and other radiation are produced by the conversion of hydrogen into helium in the sun's hot, dense interior. The temperature of the Sun’s core is about 15 million degrees in the Kelvin scale. Although this nuclear fusion is destroying 600 million metric tons of hydrogen each second, the sun is so massive (2 E+30 kg, or 4.4 E+30 lb.) that it can continue to shine at its present brightness for 6 billion years. This stability has allowed life to develop and survive on Earth.

The table below shows the dimensions and properties of the solar planets:
  Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto
Distance from Sun (million km) 57.8 108 149.6 228 778 1430 2871 4500 5900
Diameter (1000 Km) 4.88 12.1 12.8 6.79 143 120 51.8 49.5 2.3
Mass * 0.055 0.815 1.00 0.11 318 95.2 14.5 17.2 0.002
Gravity * 0.28 0.88 1.00 0.38 2.34 0.93 0.79 1.12 0.04
Year * 0.241 0.615 1.00 1.88 11.86 29.46 84.03 164.8 248
Orbital speed km/sec 47.9 35.0 29.8 24.1 13.1 9.64 6.81 5.43 4.74
Density ** 5.60 5.20 5.52 3.95 1.31 0.704 1.21 1.67 2.03
Inclination of orbit in degrees * 7.00 3.39 1.00 1.85 1.30 2.49 0.77 1.77 17.2
* (Earth = 1), ** (Water = 1)

Mercury: The Closest to The Sun

Mercury can be observed either before dawn or after sunset as a bright, silvery, starlike object. Since its orbit lies within the Earth’s, Mercury presents phases similar to our moon. Mercury is seen only when it is furthest away on the opposite side from the Sun. Mercury is never further from the Sun than 69.7 million km, and with its elliptical orbit, it gets as close as 45.9 million km.

Because it is close to the sun, it gets 4.7 times more heat, light and other radiation per unit area than the Earth. Its surface temperature can reach 467 deg. C. At night the temperature plunges down to –200 deg. C because there is no blanket of atmosphere to trap the heat. Mercury resembles the Earth in its internal structure. It is surprisingly dense because it has an unusually large iron core, twice as much as the Earth’s. With only a transient atmosphere, Mercury has a surface that is covered with craters caused by heavy bombardment by asteroids early in its history. The spacecraft Mariner 10 detected a very weak magnetism around Mercury.

Venus: The Hot Planet

Venus is one of the easiest planets to pick out in the sky, and is sometimes called the evening star. If you observe Venus with even a small telescope, you will see that it has phases like the Moon. When Galileo discovered this behavior he realized that Venus must orbit the Sun at a closer distance than the Earth. Venus is the twin-planet of the Earth. It is close in size, weight, and internal composition of the Earth. Like the Earth, it has similarly sized, dense nickel-iron core and a rocky mantle. However, their atmospheres are very different. Venus has a carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times thicker than that of Earth, causing an efficient greenhouse effect by which its atmosphere is heated. The resulting surface temperature is the hottest of any planet - about 477 deg. C (about 890 deg. F). When the Earth first formed, it may have been rather like Venus is today. Life on Earth has broken down the dense carbon dioxide atmosphere that once existed here as well.

Earth: Our Unique Planet

Earth is the third in distance from the sun and the fifth largest of the planets in diameter. It is the only planet known to support life, although some of the other planets have atmospheres and contain water. Earth prospers with life, sustained by very complex systems that provide light, air, heat, water, and food all in exquisite balance. It shows evidence of having been created specially to accommodate living things. The mean distance of the Earth from the sun is 149,503,000 km (92,897,000 mi.). This is exactly the right distance. If the Earth were much closer to the Sun or farther away from it, the temperatures would be too hot or too cold for life.

The Earth and its satellite, the moon, move together in an elliptical orbit about the sun. The eccentricity of the orbit is slight, so that the orbit is virtually a circle. The approximate length of the Earth's orbit is 938,900,000 km (583,400,000 mi), and the Earth travels along it at a velocity of about 106,000 km/hr (about 66,000 mph). This speed is precise enough to offset the gravitational pull of the Sun and keep the Earth at the proper distance. If the speed were decreased, the Earth would be pulled towards the sun, and could become a wasteland like Mercury. If the Earth’s orbital speed were increased, it would move farther away from the sun, and could become an icy waste like Pluto. The Earth rotates on its axis once every 23 hr 56 min. 4.1 sec (based on the solar year). A point on the equator therefore rotates at a rate of a little more than 1600 km/hr (about 1000 mph). This provides regular periods of light and darkness. But what if the Earth rotated on its axis once every year, it would mean that the same side of the Earth would be facing the sun all year long. That side would become like a furnace desert, while the side away from the Sun becomes an icy wasteland. Few, if any, living creatures could survive in those extreme temperatures.

Man has been able to study the surface of his own planet for as long as the Earth has been inhabited. Yet, it is strange to think that before orbiting the spacecraft had actually returned colored pictures of the Earth, no one had predicted accurately what it would look like from space. Now we know the Earth as a beautiful blue and white planet. From beneath the spiraling patterns of brilliant white clouds, the familiar shapes of the continents loom into view.

Many factors make the Earth unique in the solar system. It is the only planet with substantial amounts of water. The oceans cover more than three quarters of the surface. This huge amount of water coupled with the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere is a powerful force of erosion. Shifting weather behavior and long term changes in climate rapidly wear down the continental rocks. Glacier, wind and rain smooth mountains. Mighty rivers engrave channels through the rocks and the lowland plains, carrying sand from one place and laying it down in another.

Volcanoes and earthquakes are mechanisms that permit the Earth to release pressure that builds up internally as the rocks beneath our feet slowly slide. Earthquakes are sudden, unpredictable, and fatal in many parts of the globe, but they teach geologists about the inner structure of the Earth. Vibrations spreading out from an earthquake are measured all over the Earth. The manner in which these vibrations travel shows that the Earth is made of five parts:

1. The atmosphere is the gaseous envelope that surrounds the solid body of the planet. Although it has a thickness of more than 1100 km (more than 700 mi.), about half its mass is concentrated in the lower 5.6 km (3.5 mi.). The atmosphere contains the right proportions of the gases that are essential for life. Some of those gases, by themselves, are deadly, but because air contains safe proportions of these gases, we can breathe them without harm. One such gas is oxygen, making up 21 % of the air we breathe. Without it all life would vanish in minutes. But too much oxygen would endanger our existence. Pure Oxygen becomes toxic if breathed too long. In addition, the more oxygen there is, the more easily things burn, also, combustible materials would become highly flammable, and there would be fires everywhere. Thank God, oxygen is diluted with other gases, mainly nitrogen, which makes up 78 % of the atmosphere. But nitrogen is much more than just a dilutant. During thunderstorms, millions of lightening bolts occur on Earth every day. This lightening causes the oxygen to combine with nitrogen. The compounds produced are carried to the Earth, by rain, and plants make use of them as fertilizer. Carbon dioxide makes up less than 1% of the atmosphere. This percentage is just the right amount for the plants to survive, giving off oxygen in return. Humans and animals breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. An increase in the percentage of the carbon dioxide is harmful to humans and animals. A decreasing percentage could not support plant life. What a marvelous, precise, self-sustaining cycle has been arranged for plant, animal, and human life! The atmosphere does more than sustain life. It serves as a protective shell too. About 15 miles above ground, a thin layer of ozone gas filters out harmful radiation from the Sun. Without this layer, such radiation could destroy life on Earth. Also the atmosphere shields the Earth from bombardment by meteors. Most meteors never reach the ground because they burn up in their descent through the atmosphere, appearing to us as falling stars. Otherwise, millions of meteors would strike all parts of the Earth, resulting in extensive damage in life and property.

2. The hydrosphere is the layer of water that, in the form of the oceans, covers approximately 70.8% of the surface of the Earth. The hydrosphere consists mainly of the oceans, but technically includes all water surfaces in the world, including inland seas, lakes, rivers, and underground waters. The average depth of the oceans is 3794 meter (12,447 ft), more than five times the average height of the continents. The mass of the oceans is approximately 1,350,000,000,000,000,000 (1.35 E+18) metric tons, or about 1/4400 of the total mass of the Earth.

3. The lithosphere consisting mainly of the cold, rigid, rocky crust of the Earth extends to depths of 100 km (60 mi.). The rocks of the lithosphere have an average density of 2.7 and are almost entirely made up of 11 elements, which together account for about 99.5% of its mass. The most abundant is oxygen (about 46.60% of the total), followed by silicon (about 27.72%), aluminum (8.13%), iron (5.0%), calcium (3.63%), sodium (2.83%), potassium (2.59%), magnesium (2.09%) and titanium, hydrogen, and phosphorus (totaling less than 1%). In addition, 11 other elements are present in trace amounts of from 0.1 to 0.02%. These elements, in order of abundance, are carbon, manganese, sulfur, barium, chlorine, chromium, fluorine, zirconium, nickel, strontium, and vanadium. The elements are present in the lithosphere almost entirely in the form of compounds rather than in their free state. These compounds exist almost entirely in the crystalline state, so they are, by definition, minerals. The lithosphere comprises two shells—the crust and upper mantle—that are divided into a dozen or so rigid tectonic plates. The crust itself is divided in two. The upper crust, of which the continents consist, is made up of rocks whose average chemical composition is similar to that of granite. The lower crust, which forms the floors of the ocean basins, is made of darker, heavier rocks.

4. The mantle: The mantle and core are the heavy interior of the Earth, making up most of the Earth's mass. The dense, heavy interior of the Earth is divided into a thick shell, the mantle, surrounding an innermost sphere, the core. The mantle extends from the base of the crust to a depth of about 2900 km (1800 mi.). Except for the zone known as the asthenosphere, it is solid, and its density, increasing with depth. The upper mantle is composed of iron and magnesium silicates, as typified by the mineral olivine. The lower part may consist of a mixture of oxides of magnesium, silicon, and iron.

5. The core: Seismological research has shown that the core has an outer shell about 2225 Km. (1380 mi.) thick. This shell is probably rigid, and studies show that its outer surface has depressions and peaks, the latter forming where warm material rises. In contrast, the inner core, which has a radius of about 1275 Km. (795 mi.), is solid. Both core layers are thought to consist largely of iron, with a small percentage of nickel and other elements. Temperatures in the inner core may be as high as 6650 deg. C (12,000 deg. F).

Mars: The Red Planet

Viewed through a telescope, Mars looks like a rusty-red disk. Its surface has various light and dark parts, as well as white ice caps at the north and south poles. Like our Earth, Mars experiences a cycle of seasons - while one half of the planet has summer, the other half has winter. The markings on Mars and their changes led astronomers to speculate for many years that Mars might have simple plant life. Spacecrafts Viking I and Viking II both landed on Mars in 1976. They have taken thousands of photographs from space so that a very great deal is now known about what Mars is really like. Mars has a core of iron and iron compounds with a diameter of 3,000 Km. It also has a mantle of silicate materials. The whole planet is a great desert. The red color is typical of desert rocks that are found in many places on Earth and comes from the rusting or oxidation of iron. Even the sky looks red on Mars, due to red dust in the air. Sometimes great dust storms develop, and about every ten years there is such a huge hurricane that the whole planet becomes engulfed in choking dust. Meteorites that crashed onto the surface from space created many craters. Volcanic activity too has contributed to the scenery on Mars. Mars is an inhospitable place. This cold and dry world has an atmosphere that is very thin compared to our Earth. The Martian air consists mainly of carbon dioxide, so people or animals could not breathe it. There is almost no oxygen. We know now that there are no plants on Mars.

Jupiter: King of the Planets

Jupiter is one of the giant planets that include Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They have the major share of all the planets’ mass. The giant planets have over a hundred times as much material as the tiny planets circling the inner solar system. The outer planets are mainly made of light gases such as hydrogen and helium, whereas the inner planets are made of rocks and iron. These giant planets are considerably larger than the inner planets. Jupiter, for example, is eleven times the diameter of the Earth and it has a volume over one thousand times as large. These giants are not so dense as the Earth either, for their densities are closer to that of the water than of rock.

All of the giants spin rapidly on their rotation axes. Jupiter takes less than ten hours to make a single spin. This high speed twirling makes the planets bulge out at their equators. A further interesting feature of the outer planets is the many moons, over thirty in all. Jupiter and Saturn each have a moon that is slightly bigger than the planet Mercury. And Saturn, of course, has intrigued us for centuries with its splendid system of rings.

At times Jupiter outshines all the stars in the night sky - only Venus gets brighter. Jupiter shows a variety of features, some of which can be seen by small telescope. The dark and light colored bands of clouds are well known. The Great Red Spot (GRS) is the dominant feature of the Southern Hemisphere of Jupiter, which has been observed through telescopes ever since the 1650s. Pictures from the spacecraft Voyager I show the circulating nature of the GRS and show small puffy features within the spot itself. It rotates counterclockwise with a period of 6 days and is currently about 26,200 km long by 13,800 km wide.

Jupiter emits radio waves and has a large and strong magnetic field. Like that of the Earth, this field is a dipole, similar to a bar magnet. Because of this magnetic field, Jupiter possesses a magnetosphere, which extends into the space around the planet. Jupiter’s magnetosphere is very different from that of the Earth. First, Jupiter’s magnetic field is about 100 times larger than that of the Earth and, second, the effect on it of the solar wind is some 25 times less because Jupiter is much further from the sun.

Another odd fact about Jupiter is that it sends out more heat than it receives from the Sun! This is because Jupiter is still shrinking, by about one centimeter each year. This shrinking releases heat energy.

In the year 1610 Galileo discovered Jupiter’s four main moons. They are named Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. All four are easily spotted even with binoculars.

Saturn: The Ringed Giant

Saturn is similar to Jupiter in many ways, except that it has a magnificent series of rings. Saturn has ten satellites. One of them, Titan, is nearly 6000 Km across, which makes it the largest moon in the solar system. Titan has its own atmosphere, made up of methane and ammonia. Saturn is not even as dense as water - a lump of Saturn matter would float on the sea.

Galileo first saw Saturn’s ring system in July 1610 with his newly developed telescope. His instrument was not good enough to show the rings clearly, and all Galileo could report was that Saturn appeared to be a triple planet. When he was observing it some seven years later, it was near its edge and the rings were invisible to him. Saturn, he said, seemed to have swallowed its own children. The Dutch astronomer Huygens, who managed to observe that there was, indeed, a ring around Saturn, finally cleared the mystery in 1655. But the true nature of the rings was not discovered until two centuries later, in 1856, when James Clerk Maxwell analyzed the evidence and showed that the gravitational field of Saturn would tear any solid ring to pieces. Maxwell concluded, therefore, that the rings could be composed of tiny particles in orbit around the planet. Subsequent studies, including results obtained from the Voyager probes, confirm Maxwell’s conclusion.

The rings are a magnificent spectacle with no more than 1,000 meter thick. They extend outwards from 7,000 km above the cloudy surface of Saturn to more than 74,000 km. The most accurate counts to date show that there are at least 10,000 rings.

How the rings were formed is something of a mystery. There are two competing theories. The first is that they are the debris left behind after a satellite was torn apart by the gravitational forces of Saturn. The second is that they consist of material that failed to combine into a satellite at the time the planet was forming. The second theory is now thought to be the more likely.

Uranus: The Tilted Giant

The astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus on the 13th of March 1781. Although Herschel had intended to work as a musician, he found astronomy fascinating. He taught himself about the skies and in 1773 he made his own reflecting telescope. With this he started to look at the stars. As his enthusiasm and knowledge grew, he built larger and larger telescopes

Herschel decided to make a map of the stars and to record their positions and brightness. During one of these careful searches, he found an entirely new planet. This greatly surprised scientists who had not suspected that there were any more planets. Herschel wanted to name his new planet after King George III who then reigned England. Eventually, however, it was agreed to call the planet Uranus. The choice of Uranus was made because in mythology Uranus was the father of Saturn, and Saturn was the father of Jupiter.

Uranus has a diameter four times larger than the Earth and it takes 84 years to orbit the Sun. Occasionally, one can just about catch a glimpse of Uranus with the naked eye on a very dark night if one knows where to look. With an up-to-date chart of planet positions, one can find it with a small telescope. One odd feature about Uranus is that it is a planet lying on its side. The rotational axis is tipped over at an angle of 98 Degree. This means that the seasons on Uranus must be very strange indeed. For several Earth years, the Sun does not shine at all in one hemisphere, while the other is continuously bathed in sunlight.

Neptune: The Last Giant

Astronomers located Neptune in 1846 after a remarkable piece of detective work by mathematicians. After many years of careful observation, Uranus puzzled observers. It did not keep to the path around the Sun that astronomers predicted on the basis of Newton’s law of gravity. Something kept knocking it off course. English and French mathematicians realized that another planet might be tugging Uranus to one side. These wizards computed where the unseen planet must be. An observatory in Berlin worked on these calculations, and they found a new dot of light: planet Neptune had been found.

Pluto: The last Planet

Soon Neptune started to go off course after its discovery. Could there be yet another planet further out that was pulling Neptune to one side, astronomers wondered? In 1915 Percival Lowell worked out where it must be but nothing could be seen. Then, in 1930 Clyde Tombaugh found the ninth planet, almost by accident, after a long search. He named it Pluto.

Pluto seems similar to the larger, icy satellites of Jupiter or Saturn. Pluto is so distant from the sun and so cold that methane freezes on its surface.

Every so often, newspapers report that someone has predicted the existence of a tenth planet out beyond Pluto, and even calculated its location. All these sensational claims eventually turn out to be based on wrong calculations. Planetary scientists now think that there cannot possibly be a large unknown planet in our solar system. If it really existed we should by now be well aware of its gravitational pull on other planets.

2.4 Searching the Missing Universe

At the Carnegie Institution of Washington, astronomers have been measuring the speed of distant galaxies for years. They do that by measuring the amount of red shifts of bright stars at various distances from the galactic center. Their conclusion, based upon many measurements, was a tremendous surprise. In spiral galaxies, the stars move in circular orbits, with velocities that increase with increasing distances from the center. At the edges of spiral disks, velocities of 300 km/sec (about 185 mi/sec) have been measured at distances as great as 150,000 light-years. This increase in velocity with increase in distance is unlike planetary velocities in the solar system, where the orbital velocities of planets decrease with increasing distance from the sun. This difference tells astronomers that the mass of a galaxy is not as centrally concentrated as is the mass in the solar system. A significant portion of galaxy mass is located at large distances from the center of the galaxy, but this mass has so little luminosity. Although scientists have seen its gravitational effects, no one has identified this "dark matter." But apparently there is a phantom universe out there, consisting of 90 to even 99 percent of the mass of the cosmos, and we have little knowledge of it!

Besides the ultimate question of how really the universe started, there are many other questions still hanging in the minds of cosmologists:

• What is the age of the universe?

• Where and what is the missing 90 - 99 % of the mass of the universe?

Since Hubble’s heyday in the 1920’s, astronomers have known that the universe is expanding. Scientists use the Hubble constant to deduce the age of the universe. As mentioned before, Hubble constant is the ratio of the speed of recession of the galaxies and their distances. There are these two loopholes though, what is the right distance and what is the right speed? It is extremely hard to measure how far away galaxies are. If they came in standard brightness, like 100-watt light bulbs, the astronomers could just figure that a dimmer galaxy was more distant than a bright one. Unfortunately, they don’t. Edwin Hubble himself did not realize this and triggered an earlier "age crisis" in the 1940’s, when he announced that the universe is 2 billion years old. Geologists already knew that the Earth was over 4 billion years old!

To make this puzzle more complex, Hubble Constant may not be constant after all. It is hard to imagine that distances, speeds, and distribution of the galaxies do not affect Hubble constant. Hubble constant is a simple ratio of speed and distance. But what if Hubble constant is called Hubble variable, and the latter is in the form of much more complicated formula.

Moreover, astronomy’s most reliable light bulb is a type of star called the Cepheid variable, whose inherent brightness can be easily calculated. But Cepheid variable can be spotted only in the neighboring few galaxies. But nearby galaxies are virtually useless in filling the other half of the equation - the expansion rate. The reason is that: in a universe that is expanding everywhere, neighboring galaxies are flying apart at a much slower speed than distant galaxies. Nearby galaxies are also subject to their neighbor’s gravity. The Andromeda galaxy, for example, is being pulled closer to our Milky Way, despite the overall cosmic expansion.

Therefore, since accurate distances can be measured only nearby, while useful speed of galaxies are found only deep in space, astronomers do the best they can to bridge the gap. They use the close galaxies to estimate the distances to the far away galaxies. But the method is inexact, which is why astronomers have not been able to agree on what the age actually is. The current estimate of the age of the universe ranges from 8 to 25 billion years, which indicates that "something" is very wrong!

Over the past few years, astronomers have uncovered the existence of the Great Wall, a huge conglomeration of galaxies stretching across 500 million light years of space; the Great Attractor, a mysterious concentration of mass pulling much of the local universe in the direction of the constellation Hydra and Centaurus; the Great Void, where few galaxies can be found; and galaxies caught in the agony of formation a mere billion years after the Big Bang, when they should not exist.

The existence of the Great Wall, the Great Attractor, the Great Void, superclusters, and clusters of galaxies indicate that the universe is full of extremely massive matters with heavy gravity pulling those structures together. These mysterious matters account for 90 to 99 % of the mass of the universe! Lately scientists have revived an old idea called the cosmological constant. This is a kind of powerful "antigravity" force that forces the galaxies to fly apart even as ordinary gravity tries to draw them together. It was first conceived by Einstein himself, who then rejected it as "the greatest blunder of my life." Einstein in 1915 thought that he needed it in his general relativity to balance the influence of the gravity. He was sure that the universe had to be static that he modified his theory to make this possible by introducing this cosmological constant. The relativity equations showed that without a cosmological constant, the universe would have to be either contracting or expanding. If he had stuck to his guns, he might have won another Noble prize. Recent research work suggests that the cosmological constant may be responsible for 65% of the expansion of the universe!

The universe makes a lot of sense if one can assume that just after it was born, all of the space went into overdrive, exploding outward for the briefest fraction of a second. This inflation theory explains, among other things, such mysteries as why the universe looks pretty much the same in all directions, and how a smooth distribution of matter evolved into today’s lumpy distribution, with clusters of galaxies surrounded by empty space. The inflation theory does not just explain cosmic phenomena; it makes predictions. It suggests that the blackness of space is only seemingly empty. In fact, it probably is abundant with vast amount of matter and energy that cannot be directly detected because they do not shine.

Dark matter is more than merely theoretical. The first hint that the cosmos contains more than what meets the eye came back in the 1930’s, when astronomer Fritz Zwicky pointed his telescope at the Coma cluster of galaxies and realized that it should not exist. Individual galaxies in the cluster were orbiting each other so fast that they should long since have flown out into deep space - unless gravity from unseen matter was keeping them together. No one took Zwicky too seriously; the idea was crazy, first of all, and besides, the measurements of orbital speed were difficult to make and prone to errors. In the 1970’s astronomers discovered that some galaxies are rotating too fast on their own axis indicating an extra gravity from unseen matter.

Not until a decade ago was the dark matter finally accepted as a huge problem rather than a nagging anomaly. Observation after observation showed that galaxies moved as if they were embedded in cloud of an invisible matter containing 10 times as much mass as was accounted for by visible gas and stars. Clusters of galaxies behaved as if there was 30 times as much dark matter as visible matter exerting its gravitational pull. To satisfy inflation theory, the ratio would have to be even greater: 100 times as much dark matter as visible.

The challenge of identifying and understanding the dark matter that forms 90 to 99 % of the mass of the universe has become one of the most irresistible and frustrating quests in science. For about a decade, the search of the missing universe has proceeded on two fronts:

• Attempts to directly observe the missing matter.
• 
• Attempts to identify it using computer models. This is based upon the assumption that dark matter is made of a given particle or substance. Then the behavior of the universe is simulated to see if the result will look like the present universe.
• 
The missing universe could be composed of any, some or none of the following dark matters:

Neutrinos: These are ghostly subatomic particle that have no electrical charge and interact only weakly with ordinary matter. They are also known as hot dark matter because they fly through the space at nearly the speed of light. They are known to exist in great numbers that they may account for some 20 % of the dark matter.

Wolfgang Pauli first suggested neutrinos in 1930 as a factor to permit an understanding of the energy distribution of electrons. They have been detected in 1953 in a high-power nuclear reactor. The sun emits plenty of neutrinos from the nuclear furnace at its core and, at night, these particles from the sun come up from below, the Earth being almost transparent to them. In 1987, light from an exploding star in the galaxy of the Large Magellanic Cloud reached Earth after traveling for 170,000 years. Enormous numbers of neutrinos were generated in this explosion and a sensitive neutrino detector in Japan picked up about 10 of them.

Neutrinos, left over from the Big Bang, are the most abundant particles of physics. In the time it takes to read this sentence, billions and billions of them pass through the body of every human being on Earth, leaving no trace! They pass through ordinary matter as though it was not there at all. Unless a neutrino scores a direct hit on an atomic nucleus, it leaves no hint of its passage. And such hits are so unlikely that the average neutrino can easily penetrate a slab of thick lead a trillion miles thick without impacting a single atom.

Recently, physicists from Canada and Japan have found the most convincing evidence yet that neutrinos have a tiny mass after all. The neutrino's mass cannot be much, around one billionth of a proton's. This finding means that scientists will have to adjust their theories of the universe.

WIMPs: (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). These are also known as cold dark matter because they are slow moving. However, they are purely hypothetical particles derived from speculative theories. They perform somewhat better in computer models, but cold dark matter cannot account for the newly discovered features of the cosmos as Great Wall, Great Void, and Great attractor.

MACHOs: (Massive Compact Halo Objects). They are assumed to be large planets similar to the size of Jupiter or very dim stars made of ordinary matter. This is the simplest theory, but so many would be required that it seems unlikely that all the dark matter could be made of them.

Recently, scientists found a planet orbiting a star known as 47 Ursae Majoris, 200 trillion miles from Earth in the Big Dipper. This planet is twice the size of Jupiter (the size of Jupiter is 1300 times that of Earth). A second planet, circling the star 70 Virginis, in the constellation Virgo, has six times the mass of Jupiter. These planets, like Jupiter, probably consist of gases such as hydrogen, ammonia and methane.

Picking out a planet by a telescope against the glare of a star is like trying to spot a 100-watt bulb next to the sun. Astronomers find it much easier to look for the subtle influence of a planet on its parent star, such as the effect of gravity of planets on the motion of an orbiting star.

Black holes: These are objects with gravitational pulls so intense that light cannot escape from them. They are strongly predicted by the general theory of relativity, but their presence in such abundance should have been detected already.

Astronomers had evidence that some galaxies were strong emitters of X-rays, the source of which was not known. Donald Lynden-Bell at Cambridge University suggested that super dense bodies could provide the answer. Such a body would attract matter, accelerating it to a huge speed as it fell in. The falling matter would move at an immense speed, emitting X-rays in huge quantities. The extreme density of such a body would create an intense gravitational field. This would mean that space-time around the body would be so strongly curved as to cause the interior to be closed off from the outside universe. Nothing could escape from them. This is why such objects are now called black holes.

The British cosmologist Stephen Hawking and his colleagues have established that such black holes can be described by the equations discovered first by Roy Kerr of New Zealand. Hawking believes that minute black holes could have been formed from very dense matter crushed together at an early stage of the Big Bang. But black holes of larger masses probably exist in the central region of spiral and elliptical galaxies. They also form after the collapse of very massive stars.

Physicists and astronomers, hoping to observe dark matter directly, have searched for objects both large and subatomic. On the theory that the dark "thing" is made of some as yet undiscovered particles, they have built every conceivable sensitive detector. They have looked for all the above and more, but results have been inconclusive. Neutrinos with mass might help solve the problem of the missing universe and thus provide support for the inflation theory. But in some ways that would just make the crisis in cosmology worse. The more dark matter in the universe, the harder it is to explain the new findings about the younger universe of 8 to 12 billion years.

If the universe has a lot of dark matter, as the inflation theory predicts, its gravity would be slowing down the expansion of the universe, making the universe younger than it looks. If, on the other hand, there is relatively little matter, the expansion would be slow, and the older universe would be the more accepted theory.

We live on a planet in a universe with no concrete evidence of its age and with over 90 % of its mass is missing. And only God knows the best.

2.5 Applications of the Law of Repetition

The Law of Repetition may be used to predict behavior in different branches of science. If one branch of science is developed fully, while a second branch is not yet fully developed, and if the two branches agree in their basic laws up to a certain point, then we may be able to extend the second branch based upon our knowledge of the first branch. This concept will be applied to include repetitive phenomena in aerodynamics and relativity. Aerodynamics is fully developed below and above the speed of sound, while the relativity is developed only below speed of light. The aerodynamic model may be applied on the relativity model, leading to a very interesting conclusion. The analogy of aerodynamics and relativity can be shown as follows:

1. In aerodynamics, Mach number (M) is defined as the speed of an object divided by the speed of sound. And in relativity, the speed parameter (R) is defined as the speed of an object divided by the speed of light.
2. 
3. In aerodynamics, Prandtl-Glauert factor is defined as 1/ 1-M2. And in relativity, Lorentz factor is defined as 1/ 1-R2.
4. 
5. Both factors are used to predict quantities at different speeds, and both factors reach infinity if M=1, R=1.
6. 
The theory of relativity advocates that the maximum speed of any object is the speed of light. This is based upon the fact that Lorentz factor reaches infinity at the speed of light and there should not be an infinite value in the physical laws. But, as it was mentioned before that at the Big Bang the speed of the universe rushed out at a speed that is faster than the speed of light. It was suggested that speed of light is a limitation on objects in space, but not on space itself. This statement negates the notion that the ultimate speed is that of the speed of light in all conditions.

In aerodynamics, before approaching the speed of sound, it was thought that aircrafts would never reach the speed of sound. The air resistance of aircrafts increases dramatically as the speed of sound is approached. Theoretically, this air resistance should become infinite at the speed of sound, hence the term "sonic barrier." However, wind tunnel testing of aircraft models showed that the air resistance increases when approaching the speed of sound, but it does not reach infinite value at the speed of sound. The coefficient of air resistance reaches a finite high value at the speed of sound, then starts decreasing at speeds higher than the speed of sound. Actually, Prandtl-Glauert factor is changed from (1/ 1-M2) at subsonic speeds to (1/ M2 -1) at supersonic speeds.

In 1964 Bertozzi conducted an experiment of accelerating electrons to various measured speeds and – by an independent method – also measured their kinetic energies. He found that as the force that acts on a very fast electron is increased, the electron’s measured kinetic energy increases to very large values but its speed does not increase appreciably. He concluded that no matter how much energy an electron is subjected to, its speed should not exceed the "light barrier."

From the above, the similarity of the aerodynamic and relativity models is quite obvious below the speeds of sound and light.

So the following questions arise:

Is it possible that two models are similar at speeds higher than the speeds sound and light?

Is it possible that Lorentz factor behaves like that of Prandtl-Glauert factor at speeds higher than the speeds sound and light?

Is it possible that Lorentz factor becomes (1/ R2 -1) at speed larger than the speed of light?

If the answers of the above questions are affirmative, then the Law of Repetition is much more powerful than we ever imagined!

3

Life

Life is as complex as the universe, and if the last chapter provided you with a dose of spiritual experience, this chapter will supply you with another dose. The factories, inside your 100 trillion cells, will bewilder you. The length of the DNA in your body, which exceeds the distance between the Earth and the Sun, is incomprehensible. The optimal structural design of the birds’ bones attests to an Omnipotent Creator. Yet the evolutionists want to convince everyone that we have gone from hydrogen to human! In doing that, they are introducing the following definition of the hydrogen gas:

"Hydrogen as an odorless, tasteless, flammable, invisible gas which, if given enough time (say 10 billion years), becomes people!"

Again, as you read this chapter, keep asking questions: Who, Why, and How, you will have only one logical answer: "God is the Mighty Creator and He made it His Way."

What exactly is life, and how and where did it begin. Scientists’ answers to these questions are changing as discussions and theories pour in from fields as diversified as oceanography and molecular biology, geochemistry and astronomy. Did life start as organic soup in a warm pond, or under the hellish skies of a planet, unknown to us, racked by volcanic eruption and threatened by comets and asteroids. Then the intruders from outer space may have delivered the raw material necessary for life. The basic concept of evolution is that life started spontaneously, here on Earth or on an unknown planet, and took a very slow process to evolve from atoms to amino acids to proteins, to cells, to fish, to amphibian, to reptile, to mammal, and finally to human. This idea is very similar to some monster like Frankenstein, pieced together from different dead elements and jolted into life by lightening bolts.

Proteins are the building blocks of living organisms. They make up much of the structure of all life forms. At the atomic level, a protein molecule consists almost entirely of a handful of elements - hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur, and most importantly carbon. Because carbon easily forms multiple bonds with as many as four other atoms at once, it acts as a kind of glue cementing together the pieces of life’s complex molecules. The reason that carbon bonds so easily is that it has relatively few electrons. In a carbon atom, electrons orbit a nucleus in what may be thought as concentric shells. In all atoms, each shell may hold certain number of electrons. The inner shell accommodates as many as two, while the next one can hold eight electrons. But a carbon atom has only six electrons; two electrons in the inner shell and four in the next, leaving four vacancies in the outer shell.

Proteins are large complex organic compounds, made up of twenty different kinds of smaller compounds called amino acids. Large protein molecule consists of hundreds of thousands of amino acids. One protein differs from another in its number, sequence, kind, and arrangement of amino acids. A peptide is a two or more amino acids kept together by a chemical bond called the peptide bond. Hair and fingernails are proteins that differ because of amino acids. Hemoglobin is a blood protein made of 4 chains of amino acids. The twenty different kinds of the amino acids can form an almost endless number of proteins, 2.5E18 or 2.5 billion billion. It is estimated that the number of kinds of proteins in a human body ranges from 10,000 to 50,000.

It is hard to imagine that a human being starts as one single fertilized egg. It grows and develops inside its mother until birth. At birth, a baby is made up of over 60 trillion cells. As early as 1900, scientists knew that chromosomes were located inside the nucleus of a cell. They also knew that chromosomes carried hereditary information in complex molecule called DNA, short for deoxyribonucleic acid. DNA is named for the sugar deoxyribose, which it contains. However, the structure of the DNA was not known until 1953, when scientists suggested a model for DNA. That model looks like a twisted ladder with rungs, made up of four nitrogen bases. One molecule of DNA may contain 20,000 pairs of these bases.

When a cell is divided and replicates itself, by a process called mitosis, the DNA molecule must also make exact copies of them. First, the DNA molecule comes apart like a zipper being unzipped. The two halves of the DNA separate between the base pairs. Then new bases, from the contents of the nucleus, attach to each half like puzzle pieces. Thus two identical DNA molecules are formed. Like a biological librarian, DNA preserves the information needed to fashion the protein molecules. A similar compound called RNA, short for ribonucleic acid, helps turn these instructions into reality. No evolutionist can be sure how or when DNA and RNA first emerged on Earth. The key to the DNA-RNA partnership is a shared language, spelled out along the DNA strands in three-letter "words" called codons. A codon is made up of the bases of three successive DNA nucleotides. The most common codons simply specify a particular amino acid.

If codons are words, genes are the sentences they form, beginning with a special initiator codon and ending with a terminator. A gene’s message consists of a list of required amino acids, arranged in an order needed to make a particular protein. DNA’s genetic messages are readily duplicated by messenger RNA, a molecule that effectively assembles itself during the copying process. Incorporating DNA’s instructions in its own structure, the messenger RNA then travels out to the machinery of the outer cell, where it begins the manufacturing of a specific protein molecule by following the recipe it carries.

To translate genetic information into proteins, living organisms follow a complex manufacturing process. Work begins as a strand of messenger RNA enters the cell’s protein assembly area, carrying a genetic code for a particular protein. The messenger RNA goes on its way through the watery interior of the cell in search of a structure called the ribosome. Typically a millionth of an inch across, these sophisticated protein assembly machines are equipped both to read the messenger RNA’s orders and to carry them out.

Once the messenger RNA docks at a given ribosome, the ribosome looks for the beginning of the RNA message, then attaches there. Messenger RNA proceeds to wiggle through the ribosome, allowing it to read the RNA codons in sequence. For each codon, the ribosome chemically signals to the transfer RNA, a type of RNA, whose job is to deliver a single amino acid. When the transfer RNA arrives, carrying the required amino acid, it touches down just long enough to unload its amino acid. Then, the ribosome links the incoming amino acid to a growing peptide chain. This process is remarkably efficient even in a bacterium; one ribosome can attach twenty separate amino acids to a peptide chain every second!

After the final codon has been read and its message obeyed, the ribosome releases a finished peptide chain into the cell. The peptide’s electrochemical properties will quickly wrap it and other peptides into the folded arrangement that forms a particular protein molecule. The molecule’s work will depend on its identity: the protein known as collagen provides structural support in bone and ligaments, for example, while proteins called antibodies fight disease.

Assuming that all of the above was self-developed without the Hand of a Mighty Creator is analogous to believing that a monkey randomly throwing pieces of brick, iron, wood, and glass over a long span of time to make a magnificent high-rise building!

It is extremely hard to believe that a biology teacher explaining the above process without getting excited. This is not a simple process. Yet, this is a simple proof that God exists, and He is the Only One that can design this process.

Would you do yourself a favor? Read the above process again, and ask yourself who directed this step? It is inconceivable that nature could organize this process with such detail and efficiency.

3.1 Facts and Assumptions

To approach this chapter that describes life, its complexity, and its models of existence, it may be useful to tell the following story of "Who has done it!"

One time, a police detective received an emergency phone call that there was a murder case in a house. He rushed to the murder scene to find a man in bed, with blood spread over his chest as well as the bed. The detective found a gun on the bed near the hand of the deceased.

"Based upon these evidences, the detective concluded that the man committed suicide."

After further investigations, the detective found out that the window of the bedroom was opened. Searching the house, the detective found that it looked like a robbery.

"Based upon these evidences, the detective concluded that the man was murdered in an armed robbery."

After further investigations, the police found the robber, who swore that he had found the window opened, and the man was laying in bed, and all what he did was to rob the house. He insisted that he did not kill the man. The murder weapon was determined to belong to the victim. Further investigations revealed that the man was married and he had life insurance with his wife as beneficiary. A few days later, the detective found out that the wife tried to collect the insurance money, and made preparations to leave the country. When the wife was questioned, she confessed that she killed her husband for his insurance money.

"Based upon these evidences, the detective concluded that the man was murdered by his wife."

In the above simplistic murder case, evidences were showing a suicide case, then a homicide case by a robber, and finally by the wife. Assumptions based upon incomplete and inconclusive evidences at certain times may not be correct and may never reach the status of facts. If someone is on a mission to prove an assumption and if he becomes obsessed to reach a certain conclusion, facts and evidences may be twisted or even fabricated to present one's point of view.

I remember this story every time the news come on to support or discredit the evolutionary theory. A small fossil discovery somewhere in Africa or Siberia sometimes is hailed as the final evidence that will prove the evolution model. A few months later, a Big Bang of complex life existence on Earth is confirmed in the Namibian desert. This Big Bang of life presents another proof that the evolution theory is a Big Bust.

In considering the questions related to the origin of life, popular opinion or emotion sways many times. To avoid this and to reach logical conclusions, we need to consider the evidence with an open mind. It is interesting to note that evolution's best advocate, Charles Darwin, indicated an awareness of his theory's limitations. In his conclusion to "The origin of Species," he wrote of the grandeur of the "view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into few forms or into one," thus making it evident that the subject of the origins was open to further investigations. But the present day evolutionary theory generally eliminates any mention of a Creator.

Before proceeding further, a clarification may be in order: Scientific achievement is not the issue here. Every informed person is aware of the amazing accomplishments of scientists in many fields. Scientific study has dramatically increased our knowledge of the universe, the Earth and of living creatures. Studies of the human body have opened up improved ways of treating illness and injuries. Therefore, it is only right to respect the skills and the achievements that have added so greatly to our knowledge. Now let us introduce the following two models:

• Evolution Model, as used in this book, refers to organic evolution - the theory that the first living organism developed from non-living matter. Then as it reproduced, it is said to have changed into different kinds of life forms, producing ultimately all forms of life that have ever existed on Earth, including humans. And all of this is accomplished without divine intervention.

• Creation Model, on the other hand, is the conclusion that the appearance of all life forms can only be explained by the existence of the Almighty God, who designed and made the universe and all the basic life forms on this Earth.

3.2 History of Evolution

It is hard to say at what time before the nineteenth century that the idea of evolution in the animal kingdom was first raised. Several Greek philosophers thought that the living world was subject to transformations. Their conclusions were based on philosophical ideas and speculations.

In 1801, the French naturalist Lamarck became the first to introduce the concept of evolution. He published his work in a book called Zoological Philosophy. Cuvier, another French naturalist published History of Fossilized Bones" in 1812, in which he compared present day animals with fossils showing the existence of extinct species.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882), British naturalist, laid the foundation of the evolutionary theory with his concept of the development of all forms of life through the slow-working process of natural selection. After graduating from Cambridge in 1831, the 22-year-old Darwin was taken aboard the English survey ship H.M.S. Beagle. He noted, for example, that certain fossils of supposedly extinct species closely resembled living species in the same geographical area. In the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, west of South America at the equator, he studied some forms of life such as huge turtles and swimming lizards not found anywhere else in the world. Darwin saw that these animals were similar to more common forms. The similarities convinced him that the Galapagos animals were related to more common turtles and lizards. In Galapagos, Darwin saw finches that shared so many features, but differed mainly in their beak structures, eating habits, and their sizes. He thought they must have had a common ancestor. Each of the 13 famous finches of Galapagos was identified as a distinct species.

After returning to England in 1836, Darwin began recording his ideas about changeability of species in his Notebooks on the Transmutation of Species. Darwin's explanation for how organisms evolved was brought into sharp focus after he read An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), by the British economist Thomas Robert Malthus, who explained how human populations remain in balance. Malthus argued that any increase in the availability of food for basic human survival could not match the large rate of population growth. The latter, therefore, had to be checked by natural limitations such as famine and disease, or by social actions such as war. Malthus introduced the term "Natural Selection" that Darwin popularized. Darwin immediately applied Malthus's argument to animals and plants, and by 1838 he had arrived at a sketch of a theory of evolution through natural selection. For the next two decades he worked on his theory and other natural history projects.

Darwin's theory was first announced in 1858. In a paper presented at the same time by Alfred Russell Wallace, a young naturalist had come independently to the theory of natural selection. Darwin's complete theory was published in 1859, in The Origin of Species. Often referred to as the "book that shook the world," the book was sold out on the first day of publication and subsequently went through six editions.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is essentially that, because of the food-supply problem described by Malthus, the young born to any species intensely compete for survival. Those young that survive to produce the next generation tend to embody favorable natural variations (however slight the advantage may be) and these variations are passed on by heredity. Therefore, each generation will improve adaptively over the preceding generations and this gradual and continuous process is the source of the evolution of species. Natural selection is only part of Darwin's conceptual scheme; he also introduced the concept that all related organisms are descended from common ancestors in his second book, Descent of Man (1871).

In The Origin of Species, Darwin did not offer solid evidences of human evolution, only suggesting in the conclusion that in the future, "Much light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history." In the same book, Darwin described serious challenges to the whole concept of natural selection in three chapters with the following titles:

• Difficulties of the theory, chapter 6.
• 
• Miscellaneous objection to the theory of natural selection, chapter 7.
• 
• On the imperfection of the geological record, chapter 10.
• 
In his second book, Darwin presented his guesswork about humans and apes. He believed that humans were the products of biological evolution, and that they descended from primitive ancestors. His hypothesis did not state that humans descended from any of the great apes: orangutan, gibbon, chimpanzee, and gorilla. Both humans and apes descended from some common primate ancestors that are now extinct.

The reaction to The Origin of Species was immediate. Some biologists argued that Darwin could not prove his hypothesis. Others criticized Darwin's concept of variation, arguing that he could not explain the origin of variations. In fact, many scientists continued to express doubts for the following 50 to 80 years. The most publicized attacks on Darwin's ideas, however, came not from scientists but from religious opponents. The thought that living things had evolved by natural processes denied the special creation of humankind and seemed to place humanity on a plane with animals; both of these ideas were serious contradictions to orthodox theological opinion.

3.3 Discrediting Evolution: Origin of Life

What do algae, a whale, a giant tree, and we have in common? These are just four of the 1,500,000 different living organisms found on Earth. They are about as different as living things can be; yet they are all alike in at least two ways. First they all carry on basic life processes. Second, they all are made up of cells. In the late 1600's, people started using microscopes to observe things smaller than the naked eye could see. An Englishman called Robert Hooke was examining materials under the microscope. One of these materials was a piece of cork. He cut a very thin piece of cork and examined it under the microscope. He observed tiny, orderly, empty spaces that reminded him of the cells in a honeycomb. He called them cells.

The cell is the fundamental structural unit of all living organisms. Some cells are complete organisms, such as the unicellular bacteria and protozoa; others, such as nerve, liver, and muscle cells, are specialized components of multicellular organisms. Cells range in size from the smallest bacteria, which are 0.1 micron in diameter, to the egg yolks of ostriches, which are about 8 cm (about 3 in.) in diameter. Although they may differ widely in appearance and function, all cells have a surrounding membrane and an internal, water-rich substance called the cytoplasm, the composition of which differs significantly from the external environment of the cell. Within the cell is genetic material, DNA, containing coded instructions for the behavior and reproduction of the cell and also the chemical machinery for the translation of these instructions into the manufacturing of proteins. Viruses are not considered cells because they lack this translation machinery; they must parasitize cells in order to translate their own genetic code and reproduce themselves.

All cells are dynamic at some stage of their life cycle, in the sense that they use energy to perform a variety of cell functions: movement, growth, maintenance and repair of cellular structure, reproduction of the cell, and manufacture of specialized cell products such as enzymes and hormones. These functions are also the result of interactions of organic molecules.

The structure and functions of our cells could be compared to a central government or a factory. A factory, for example, is a place of great activity. Fuel and raw materials are delivered to the factory; the plant workers follow a set of directions from the main office as they do their jobs. Fuel is burned in the generators to provide energy. Energy is used to put the raw materials together into finished products. During the manufacturing process, wastes are produced, and need to be removed. The finished product is packed, and stored until it is shipped out of the factory. These manufacturing processes inside a factory are very similar to the life processes carried out inside a cell. The finished products are the compounds that form the many parts of the cell. The main office and the planning department of our factory cell are the nucleus. The nucleus of the cell is the control center that controls everything that happens inside the cell.

To have an appreciation of your human body:

• The human body contains 100 trillion cells (100,000,000,000,000 cells)
• 
• There is a nucleus inside each human cell (except red blood cells). The size of the nucleus is less than four ten-thousandths of an inch in diameter.
• 
• Each nucleus contain 46 chromosomes arranged in 23 pairs, one chromosome of every pair is from each parent. Our 46 chromosomes "threads" linked together would measure more than six feet.
• 
• The chromosomes are filled with tightly coiled strands of DNA. The length of the DNA in your body is more than the distance from Earth to the sun.
• 
• Genes are segments of DNA that contain instruction to make proteins - the building blocks of life.
• 
Each of the 100 trillion cells in each human functions like a walled city:

• Power plants generate the cell’s energy.
• 
• Factories produce proteins, vital units of chemical commerce.
• 
• Complex transportation systems guide specific chemicals from point to point within the cell and beyond.
• 
• Guards at the barricades control the export and import markets, and monitor the outside world for any sign of danger.
• 
• Disciplined biological armies stand ready to grapple with invaders.
• 
• A centralized genetic government maintains order.
• 
Is there a chance that all of the above came from a hydrogen atom. Human being had to be created by a Mighty God. When the theory of evolution was first proposed, scientists had no clue of the fantastic complexity of a living cell.

Early Atmosphere

Scientists agree that the early atmosphere of the Earth was far different from what it is now. Some feel that it consisted of methane, ammonia, and water vapor. Others think it was composed of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Most believe that the main elements of organic compound - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen - existed in the early atmosphere. In 1953 Stanley Miller circulated hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water vapor that he thought to be part of the early atmosphere throughout a chamber. He subjected these gases to electric discharges. The discharges represented the assumed sources of energy (lightning bolts and ultraviolet radiation) of the early atmosphere. Water vapor condensed and settled at the bottom of the chamber. At the end of one week, water was studied and found to contain large quantities of some of the many amino acids that are the building block of proteins (organic compounds).

It was therefore concluded that organic compounds could have been produced in a similar manner in the early atmosphere of Earth. This experiment exists in most textbooks of biology, and is presented as a model of the origin of life. Some biology teachers even hail this experiment as a definite proof that "life happened spontaneously on Earth." Miller got only 4 kinds of the 20 amino acids needed for life to exist. Other experiments like this one have produced other kinds of amino acids. However, scientists were still unable to produce all the 20 necessary amino acids under conditions that might simulate the early atmosphere. Some scientists still thinks that this is startling evidence that life can start spontaneously when the conditions are right.

Miller assumed that Earth’s early atmosphere was similar to the one in his laboratory. He said, "The synthesis of compounds of biological interest takes place only under reducing (free oxygen does not exist) conditions." But evolutionists maintain that oxygen was present in the early atmosphere. This creates an interesting dilemma that is expressed by Hitching as follows: "With oxygen in the air, the first amino acid would never have got started; without oxygen, it would have been wiped out by cosmic rays."

However, any attempt to predict the composition of the Earth’s early atmosphere can only be based on guesswork or speculation. Our present knowledge does not permit any actual facts about the exact composition of the early Earth’s atmosphere. Although Miller’s experiment is still a classic subject about the early atmosphere, new insights of planetary formations have made it extremely doubtful that methane and ammonia ever existed in the early atmosphere.

Origin of Life

The warm little pond that Darwin imagined as life’s birthplace contained a rich broth of organic soup. Over eons, he hypothesized that they would gradually assemble themselves into primitive organisms. For the next century, Darwin assumption was expanded by the neo-evolutionists that decided that the pond was really the ocean and began trying to figure out where the building blocks of life could have come from.

Most colleges and high schools textbooks in biology, zoology, and life sciences present the origin of life from the evolutionists’ point of view. Life just started through a series of happy coincidences that led to the development of the first living cell. Reading these books, one would find a great deal of usage of speculative sentences like "could have been", "might have been", "it was suggested", and so on. However, the usual final conclusion of this subject is that "life developed on Earth through a series of chemical reactions that just happened when the circumstances were right." This is part of the brainwashing of the education systems that are mostly controlled by evolutionists. No mention of the probability of the occurrence of a single step in this hypothetical scenario. There is no mention of the fact that we do not know exactly the composition and the environment of the early atmosphere. There is no mention of any suggestion that there might be another alternative for the origin of life just in case that the hypothetical steps to start life do not add up. The biggest irony is that the origin of life is presented as a fact using doubtful languages!

Some scientists imagined that simple organic molecules produced in the early atmosphere could have fallen from space during heavy rain. The origin of these molecules could have been under the blazing skies of a faraway planet racked by volcanic eruption and bombarded by comets and asteroids. It is hypothesized that the molecules reacted to form more complex compounds such as fat, protein, and nucleotides. They were then happened to sweep into the newly formed oceans.

What are the chances of the whole above scenario to happen in the above sequence? Realistically speaking, not a single chance. However, in a science fiction movie, a group of scientists traveled back in time to watch the formation of this organic soup! The lightning and ultraviolet would quickly decompose any complex amino acids that formed. Miller saved the 4 amino acids that he obtained only because he removed them away from the discharges. Had he left them there, the discharges would have decomposed them.

However, if it were assumed that amino acids somehow reached the oceans, then under the surface of the water there would not be enough energy to activate further chemical reactions. Water in any case prohibits growth of more complex molecules. Thus, once the amino acids are in the water, they must get out of it if they are to form larger molecules and evolve towards becoming proteins. But once they get out of the water, they are faced with the destructive ultraviolet light again. In other words there are no chances to reach this first and relatively simple step (getting the amino acids) in the evolution of life. It is therefore difficult to see how polymerization (linking together smaller molecules to form bigger ones) could have proceeded in the early ocean, since the presence of water favors depolymerization (breaking up bigger molecules into smaller ones) rather than polymerization. That is to say that water has the property of dissolving matter and not combining them. This is one of the many difficult problems that encounter evolutionists.

To continue this science fiction’s scenario, groups of these molecules could have come together in the oceans. Some kind of a membrane might have formed that kept them separated from the surrounding water. The chemical surrounded by the membrane might be called the first living cell on Earth! But this membrane is extremely complex, made up of proteins, sugar, and fat molecules. The cell membrane includes channels and pumps that specifically control the influx and efflux of nutrients, and waste products. These specialized channels involve highly specific proteins, which could not have been present at the very beginning of life. Other molecules outside the membrane might have been brought together in a simple "life machine." Some protein might have served as enzymes to activate chemical reactions. Sugar might have been formed and used as a source of energy. With energy from respiration that did not use oxygen, because it did not exist freely, early living cells became better organized. Nucleic acids eventually took over control of the activities (including reproduction) of these first cells.

It is also suggested that there was competition for energy sources between the primitive cells. This struggle for existence might have led to the evolution of the first producers. These are organisms that used photosynthesis to make their own food and provided food for the earlier consumers. Photosynthesis would have led to the existence of free oxygen, which in turn could have been used for respiration. As a result, more energy would be available for other functions.

As you read the above sequence of hypothetical events that led to the first living cell, you should ask yourself about the feasibility and the likelihood of each step. The chance of composing a living cell in such a manner is equal to the chance of composing a book by an infinite number of monkeys using an infinite number of computers in 10 billion years!

There are many unanswered questions that face evolutionists. For example, there are actually over 100 amino acids, but only 20 of the 100 are required for life's proteins. These amino acids come in two groups. Should they be formed at random, as in the imaginary organic soup, it is most likely that each half would be from one group. And there is no known reason why either group should dominate living cells. Yet, the 20 amino acids used in producing life's proteins are from one group! It must be admitted that the explanation of this problem still remains one of the most difficult questions. Evolutionists just may never be able to explain it. What is the probability that 20 amino acids, of the same group, would come together by chance to form a protein molecule? To have an appreciation of this question, you may try the following experiment:

Mix a hundred grains of rice with another hundred grains of lentil. The rice represents one group and the lentil represents the other group. Plunge a spoon randomly in the pile as many times as you want. The objective is to get only 20 grains of rice arranged in a specified place in the spoon. How many numbers of times you think it will take you to achieve this objective? Do you think that it is even possible to do that? No. Then how would it have been possible in the hypothetical organic soup?

To understand the meaning of probability of something to happen, assume that you have 2 cards, 1 and 2, with faces down, and you want to get them in ascending order 12. So, if you get 1 and then 2, you are correct. But if you get 2 and then 1, you are wrong. Thus there is one chance in two that you get the right combination. This probability calculation is based upon the assumption that once you get a wrong combination you do not repeat it, because there is a chance that you may be unlucky and always get the wrong combination 2 and then 1.

Now, assume that you have three numbers: 1, 2, and 3, and you want to get the combination in ascending order 123. There are six possible ways to a combination: 123, 132, 213, 231, 312, and 321. Since you are required to get only 123, then you have 1 chance in 6 of success. The number of chances is obtained by calculating the factorial as follows:

Number of combination to 2 cards = 2 x 1 =2

Number of combination to 3 cards = 3 x 2 x 1 =6

Number of combination to 4 cards = 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 =24

Number of combination to 10 cards = 3,628,800

Number of combination to 20 cards = 2.43E18

Number of combination to 100 cards = 1E158

Now, assume that you already have the required 20 amino acids, and you just want to put them in the right sequence in a single protein molecule. If each trial to arrange the 20 amino acids takes one second, you would require 2.43E18 seconds to do that. If we assume that the universe is 30 billion years old, then this number can be calculated in seconds as follows:

30,000,000,000 x 365 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds = 1E18 seconds

It is now obvious that the time required to arrange the 20 amino acids in a single protein molecule (2.43E18 seconds) may be more than double the age of the universe! This is without considering that the 20 amino acids of the same group, and there are over 100 amino acids.

According to Henry Morris in "Scientific Creationism", the chance of even a medium protein molecule forming at random in an organic soup is only one in 1E600 (one followed by 600 zero!). In plain English, this mean that someone may try this 1E600 times before getting a chance to succeed! Mathematicians consider this kind of a chance as never happening. This number of 1E600 is larger than the estimated total number of electrons in the universe, which is 1E80.

Yet another greater difficulties for evolutionary theory involves the origin of the complete genetic code - a requirement for cell production. The old philosophical paradox of "the chicken or the egg?" can now be stated "the proteins or the DNA?" This creates an interesting dilemma that is expressed by Hitching as follows "Proteins depend on DNA for their formation, but the DNA cannot form without pre-existing proteins." Some evolutionists think that they have the answer; they developed by chance together at the same time and in the same place! Does this strike you as reasonable explanation even if this statement is coming from a modern serious scientist?

It is obvious that the origin of life discredits evolution.

3.4 Discrediting Evolution: The Fossil Record

Just as the biological hypothesis on the early atmosphere and the origin of life are hailed as factual evidence of the evolution, the fossil record is acclaimed as the most direct evidence for evolution! Fossils are the remains of past forms of life uncovered from the crust of the Earth. These may be complete remains (mammoths and insects), skeletons or hard parts of them such as teeth, bones, or shells. When most organisms die, they decompose quickly, so no record of their life is left. A hard part may be preserved if it is surrounded by clay or sand soon after death. The surrounding deposits prevent decomposition. Then, when these sediments turn to rock over long periods of time, the part of the organism is preserved.

Fossils formed in the sedimentary rock are the most common fossils. Layers settling on the top of each other form sedimentary rocks. When layers are not disturbed, the lower layers are the oldest, and the upper layers are the newest. The fossil record is important, since no one has witnessed the evolution of a major group of species. But the existing record provides dim and imperfect view of the ancient life. The complete record of the past is always beyond our reach since so many organisms left no trace. Yet incomplete as the record is, biologists rely on new discoveries, and the continued study of the existing fossils.

Darwin devoted one complete chapter in his book on the imperfection of the geological record, chapter 10. He conceded, "The distinctness of specific (living) forms and their not being blended together by innumerable transitional links, is a very obvious difficulty." The existing life forms do not offer any support to the theory of evolution. That is why the fossil record became so important. It was felt that at least fossils would provide the evidence that the theory of evolution needed.

If the fossil records were complete, and the evolutionists were honest serious scientists, every one on Earth would accept the evolution as a fact. This record would show, for example, how a giraffe evolved. The long neck of the giraffe is often used to illustrate the evolution hypothesis. The long neck evolved from short-necked ancestors. The short-necked giraffe could graze on grass, but as the grass became scarce, so the only remaining food source was the leaves of trees. Then each short-necked giraffe would stretch its neck to reach the leaves on the trees. As these giraffes reproduced, the result of the neck stretching would be passed to their offspring. This hypothesis can be criticized on several points. Where are, in the fossil record, giraffes with short necks? There is no answer. Why did this happen only to giraffes? There is no answer. Why don’t we have donkeys, for example, with long necks? There is no answer. Why did not all the grass-eating animals develop long necks? There is no answer.

If evolution were a fact, the fossil record would reveal a gradual changing from one kind of life form to another. There should be at least one fossil that shows these changes. For example, there should be fish fins growing into amphibian legs with feet and toes, and gills growing into lungs. There should be reptiles with front limbs growing into bird wings, back limbs growing into legs with claws, scales growing into feathers, and mouths growing into beaks. But the fossil record does not include any of that. As Darwin himself asserted "The number of intermediate varieties, which have formerly existed, (must) be truly enormous." He is right, but there are no developing organs in the fossil record, except in the imagination of the evolutionists.

In the evolutionary theory, it was suggested that one species evolved to two or three other species. If we know that we have 1,500,000 species on Earth, then we should expect at least 1,500,000 transitional forms. They should be abundant on Earth. They should be everywhere. However, any of the fossils that were manipulated to present a single transitional form cannot lend any credibility. As a matter of fact, the above statement of Darwin, regarding the number of the intermediate forms, should be considered as a final discredit of the whole fiction of evolution.

Evolutionary theorists have argued that the gradual change from one life form to another took a lengthy period of time for which the fossil record was missing! So evolutionists blame the incompleteness of the fossil record for not uncovering links between species. Even Darwin wondered about that. This frustrating situation led him to say: "Why then is not every geological formation and every stratum full of such intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps is the most obvious and serious objection which can be argued against the theory." The fossil record in Darwin’s time proved to be discouraging to him in another way. He explained: "The abrupt manner in which whole groups of species suddenly appear in certain formation has been argued by several paleontologists as a fatal objection to the belief in the transmutation of species." He added: "There is another and allied difficulty, which is much more serious. I allude to the manner in which species belonging to several of the main division of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks. The case at present must remain inexplicable, and may be truly argued as a valid argument against the (evolutionary) views here entertained." Darwin attempted to explain these stubborn problems by attacking the fossil record. He said: "I look at the geological record as a history of the world imperfectly kept, imperfect to an extreme degree."

Now, after extensive excavating of over a hundred million fossils, all catalogued and identified, and the record is still so imperfect in the eyes of the evolutionists. The existing record shows only one fact and one course: basic kinds of living forms appeared in a very short time and did not transform appreciably for long period of time. No developmental links between one major kind and another have ever been established. So what the fossil record actually reveals is the opposite of what the evolution hypothesis predicted.

Evolutionists maintain that life evolved in a very long time by chance through chemical reactions between non-living atoms. The Earth is now known to be formed about 4.6 billion years ago. Life is thought to form sometimes between 4.4 billion and 3.8 billion years ago. But heavy bombardment of the Earth by meteors occurred 4.5 billion to 3.8 billion years ago, and possibly destroyed all existed life. Volcanic eruptions expelled gases and contributed to a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide with traces of ammonia, methane, and hydrogen sulfide. Possible evidence of life was found in the rocks of Greenland about 3.8 billion years ago. The earliest known fossils of the blue-green algae that lived 3.5 billion years ago were found in Australia. The first one-celled organisms with a nucleus lived on Earth 2.1 billion years ago. The first multicelled algae existed 1.8 billion years ago. Thus for 4 billion years and until about 550 million years ago, life on Earth consisted only of algae, bacteria, and plankton. Then at the start of what is called the Cambrian period (between 543 to 510 million years ago), in a burst of sudden creativity lasting no more than 10 million years, an astonishing array of multicelled animals show up in the fossil record. These creatures represent life forms than can swim, fly, and crawl. This time is often called an "explosion or the Big Bang" of life forms. During these 10 million years, all the major group of invertebrates made their first appearance in the most spectacular rise in diversity ever recorded on our planet. Snails, sponges, starfish, and many other complex sea creatures appeared. Some also had efficient and complex eyes more than any human.

After the Cambrian Big Bang of life, the testimony of the fossil record is exactly the same for all kinds of life: All life forms appeared suddenly with no transitional forms. Insects and plants present serious problems to evolutionists. If all life forms evolved from hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and other atoms, then what are the evolutionary ancestors of insects and trees? Cockroaches appeared in the fossil record 280 million years ago. Flies appeared in the fossil record 40 million years ago. Ants appeared in the fossil record 25 million years ago. Cockroaches, flies, and ants in the fossil record are very similar to their present day counterparts. Cockroaches are still Cockroaches. Flies are still flies. Ants are still ants. Cockroaches did not evolve to flies, and flies did not evolve to ants!

As for the trees, they followed the same trend of every other life form. The fossil record contains leaves from oak, palm, and pine trees that existed for 180 million years. These ancient leaves are also very similar to their present day counterparts. The animal kingdom follows the same pattern. There are variations, but all are easily identified as the same "kind."

Another fact, which should discredit the evolutionary theory, is that there exists no evidence in the fossil record of partially formed bones or organs that could be considered the start up of a new function. Evolution’s textbooks are silent about the origin of flying creatures such as bats and birds. Evolutionists speculate about the evolution of one kind of finch to another, because they have common features, but they are silent about the origin of any finch. But none of these transitional forms have been found. There is not even a clue of a credible link.

• Are there any fossils of giraffes or camels with necks of one quarter, one half, and three quarters their present necks? No.
• 
• Are there any fossils of birds evolving a beak from a reptile jaw? No.
• 
• Is there any fossil evidence of fish developing an amphibian pelvis? No.
• 
• Is there any fossil evidence of fish fins turning into amphibian legs, feet and toes? No.
• 
The average layman can produce many other questions like the above ones, and some can be even funny. An unbiased zoologist may expand on the above questions, and write a complete book to further discredit the speculation of evolution. The fossil record is our only authentic evidence that reveals the type of life forms that lived on Earth for hundreds of million years. It clearly indicates that different life forms appeared suddenly and remained distinctly different without any trace of transitional forms. When the evolutionists claim that the fossil record support the speculation of evolution, they are committing a serious mistake. They present incomplete and distorted pictures to the students and the public at large. It does not support the speculation of evolution. It is definitely a strong evidence of sudden creation of separate life forms. The fossil record reveals that the Omnipotent God created insects, trees, animals, humans, and all other life forms in their separate forms.

It is obvious that the fossil record discredits evolution.

3.5 Discrediting Evolution: Humans or Apes?

Nearly 140 years after Darwin’s Origin of species, evolutionists are still promoting his message in the educational systems and in the media. However, the longer scientists study the fossil record, the more convinced they become that evolution did not make a simple transition from ape to human, or that apes and humans both emerged from a common primate. There were many false starts and dead ends. Evolutionists know that a single bone that doesn’t fit in the picture can upset everything. Also, polls consistently show that half of all the Americans reject this atheistic hypothesis. They prefer to believe, against all the marketing tactics of the evolution, the religious account of the creation model. Evolution should be taught as a controversial hypothesis accepted by some scientists, and not as a fact supported by all scientists.

Recall the saying of "A picture is better than a thousand words." Books, magazines, and TV documentaries provide pictures with artists' renderings of ape evolving to human. These artistic pictures supply the transitional links that do not exist in reality. Are apes our ancestors? Evolution hypothesis claims they are. That is why we see articles in magazines with titles such as: "How man began? Or how ape evolved to man? Or the missing link between ape and man." Speculation and very creative artistic pictures answer these big questions.

What we are left with is the imagination of nineteenth century scientists and the marketing of evolution by the twentieth century neo-evolutionists. And we all know what the new techniques in marketing can do to an inferior product. It will still be sold. What is striking in the media is the existence of strong desire coupled with great excitement to announce the discovery of a reconstruction of an ape-man that is older than the oldest one on record. To achieve this, few bones and big imaginations are used. The fossils' discoverer, then, starts collecting on his fame and newfound wealth by overestimating the importance of one’s own work. We watch the message of evolution in an interesting and fascinating show on television, while religious talk shows present subjects that most people knew and heard many times. Sometimes it looks like everyone is gaining from evolution: neo-evolutionists are gaining wealth and fame, and some laymen might not want to accept the notion that God exists.

If the natural selection of Darwin is correct, why, then, only some life forms always move higher on the evolutionary ladder? Evolutionary theory assumes that humans are more advanced than apes, apes are more advanced than the rest of mammals, mammals are more advanced than reptiles, reptiles are more advanced than amphibians, and amphibians are more advanced than fish. According to natural selection, given time and we had 4 billion years, we should have only one species and that is human. We should not have the inferior fish, amphibians, reptiles, or mammals. Only the fittest humans should survive. Then we told that 1.5 million species still exist on Earth.

Why didn’t all the inferior apes evolve to the superior humans?

Why didn’t all the inferior reptiles evolve to the superior mammals?

Why didn’t all the inferior amphibians evolve to the superior reptiles?

Why didn’t all the inferior fish evolve to the superior amphibians?

Why didn’t all the inferior species evolve to one single superior species?

Evolution is an incredible amount of argument over remarkably very little!

The Apes Family

1- Rat-Like Primate:

Mammals existed on Earth for more than 100 million years before they began to dominate the Earth some 70 million years ago. One of the earliest fossils of a mammal claimed to be in the order of primates that gave birth to the lineage of present day apes is a small, rodent like. They were insect-eating quadrupeds about the size and shape of squirrels. This mammal is called prosimian or premonkey. It had thirty-four teeth as compared to most present day monkeys with thirty-two teeth. But is there enough evidence in the fossil record to support that this tiny animal was the ancestor of monkeys? No.

2- Aegyptopithecus:

After a gap of about 40 million years, the Fayum Depression in Egypt yielded remains of the earliest known members of the ape family. It was named Aegyptopithecus - Egypt ape, the suffix "pithecus" means ape. This creature is said to have lived about 30 million years ago. The fossil record does not show how the prosimians evolved into monkeys and apes. Since the discovery of Aegyptopithecus in 1967 to 1980, these apes were called the missing links and the common ancestors of the ape and human families.

3- Ramapithecus:

After another 20 million to 25 million years gap in the fossil record, another fossil creature has been presented as man’s earliest known ancestors. It was given the official name Ramapithecus - Rama's ape (Rama was a mystical prince of India). Fossils of it were found in India about half a century ago, and in Kenya. Not many Ramapithecus specimens have been found so far, a total of some fifteen jaw fragments and more than forty teeth, representing perhaps twelve to twenty creatures. But that was enough to serve as the basis for a number of interesting speculations. These few specimens were found in India, China, Africa, Germany, and Spain. The hypothesis about Ramapithecus came from the study of his teeth and his small canines. A long list of speculations was developed about his size, eating habit, body structure and the tools that he used from 40 teeth. This list includes the usual speculative terms such as "maybe", "perhaps", "there are reasons to suggest"...etc. Using some teeth, and fragmented jaws, an ape was produced through artistic imaginations. This step was followed by the marketing propaganda as another overwhelming missing link in the human ladder of evolution! Natural history magazine, August / September 1979, stated: "How did Ramapithecus, reconstructed only from teeth and jaws - without pelvis, limb bones, or skull - sneaked into this manward marching procession?" Obviously a great deal of wishful thinking must have gone into such an effort to package the few bones to headline stories.

4- Oreopithecus:

Oreopithecus, another so-called ancestor, is in fact an animal that existed 12 million years ago after a gap of about 10 million years in the fossil record. It lived in the forest and its arms were very long - much longer than its lower limbs - as in the case of apes that swing from one tree to another. It is very small in size in comparison with today's man (1.10 to 1.20 Mt.), and its brain capacity is quite small (400 cc.). As in the case of Ramapithecus, the fossils were not accompanied by any traces of human activities. Some scientists even consider Oreopithecus as an independent family

5- Australopithecus:

After about 8 million years gap in the fossil record, Australopithecus - southern ape - was discovered in South Africa in 1924. This creature lived about 3.9 million years ago in the Savannah and not in the forest. It was about four feet tall. Fossils also were found near the great African Lakes. Remains were also found in Java in sediments that are possibly one to four million years old. Australopithecus had a small ape-like skull, heavy jawbone and was pictured as a hairy ape walking on two legs. The teeth are small at the front, and very large at the back. Its brain capacity remains small (about 500 to 550 cc.)

The reason for his peculiar teeth, the same as in the case of Ramapithecus, was probably because of their habitat, and resulting diet. Baboons, living today in Ethiopia, have teeth and jaws very similar to Ramapithecus and Australopithecus. The human like teeth and jaws of these baboons are apparently related to their habitat and diet and are clearly not indicative of any approach to humans.

A cousin of Australopithecus was discovered in 1967 in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. The fossilized remains of a woman in her twenties were discovered in 1974 in the Afar, in sediments that date about 3.5 million years ago. 60 percent of the bones and much of the skull were missing. Its brain size was a third of the size of a human brain, and its skull was very like a chimpanzee's. Scientists could tell that this creature stood 3 ft. 6 in. tall and walked fully upright. This is because the knee joint was built in such a way that the animal could fully straighten its legs. While the discoverer was examining the first fossils in his tent, the Beetles’ song Lucy in the sky with diamond was playing on his tape recorder. So he gave it the name Lucy. The marketing forces of evolution promoted that name instead of these Latin names that the laymen cannot pronounce. Now, probably every one on Earth has heard of "Lucy".

Needless to say that evolution publications and newspapers acclaimed the discovery of Australopithecus and Lucy. "The mystery is finally solved!" "It was Australopithecus that eventually evolved to Homo sapiens, or modern men." "By all the evidence men at last had met their long unknown, early ancestors." "The evidence was breathtaking, the long-sought missing link had finally been found."

More researches are now rejecting the idea that Australopithecus and Lucy resemble the human beings. Anatomist Solly Zuckerman wrote in his book ‘Beyond The Ivory Tower’, 1970: "When compared with human and simian (ape) skulls, the Australopithecine skull is in appearance overwhelmingly simian - not human. The contrary proposition would be equated to an assertion that black is white" He also stated: "Our findings leave no doubt that Australopithecus resembles not Homo sapiens but the living monkeys and apes. If any Australopithecus were found alive today, they would be put in zoos with other apes."

6- Homo Erectus

A number of fossils are now grouped under the generic name Homo Erectus (upright man), including the somewhat notorious Java man, Peking man, Heidelberg man, and Meganthropus. They are believed to have lived about 500,000 years ago, to have walked upright, to have had brains of about 1000 cc., and to have developed a crude culture involving simple implements and weapons.

The evidence of all this is ambiguous, to say the least. Java Man was later discarded by his discoverer, and the bones of Peking man disappeared during World War II and are unavailable for examination. Heidelberg Man consisted solely of a large jaw and Meganthropus consisted of two lower jawbones and four teeth and has been assigned by many to the Australopithecus.

However, other fossils of this general kind have apparently been found at various places around the world. It may well be that Homo Erectus was a true man, but somewhat degenerate in size and culture, possibly due to inbreeding, poor diet and a hostile environment.

In 1984, a 12-year-old boy of the Homo Erectus species, dated at 1.6 million years old was excavated in Kenya. His body skeleton was virtually indistinguishable from our own, and his skull and mandible looked much like Neanderthal man, except the brain capacity was only about 800 cc. This skeleton is believed to be the most complete skeleton of an early human "ancestor" ever found.

Some may question the true humanness of Homo Erectus on the basis of his small brain size (900 - 1100 cc.). However, that is definitely within the range of human brain size, although on the low end of the scale. Furthermore, there is no necessary correlation of brain sizes and intelligence.

The Human-Like Family

Modern type humans, with the capacity to reason, plan, invent, build upon previous knowledge and use complex languages, appear suddenly in the fossil record some fifty thousands years ago.

1- Neanderthal Man

The most famous of all so-called "missing link" is discovered in 1856 in the Neander Valley near Dusseldorf in Germany. Not until 1908, however, was the first more or less complete skeleton uncovered in France. Later identical types turned up in Spain, Italy, Greece, Morocco, Palestine, Iraq, and Java.

Although Neanderthal man was a medium size, perfectly biped, and endowed with well-developed muscles, his face shape was different from that of man today: His forehead was low, and the absence of a chin gave his face a muzzle-like appearance. Compared to the ape family, Neanderthal man’s skull is more developed: its capacity increased to 1,300 -1,600 cc. The development of his intellectual level is manifested by the quality of weapons and implements discovered near the remains of Neanderthal man. He most probably found shelters in caves, in which he made fire and arranged his surroundings to suit his convenience. Near his remains, burial sites were discovered for objects thought to be required in the afterlife (large pieces of animals, antlers and horns, stone implements), which may suggest some spirituality.

One wonders whether Neanderthal man gave birth to Homo sapiens, or whether both coexisted together. Fossils such as the Qafzeh Man discovered in Palestine, possess a skull that is almost the same as that of Homo sapiens. The coexistence of the two types may well have led to interbreeding. While this is simply a hypothesis, there is reason to think that man as we know him today displayed the same principal anatomical characteristics he has displayed some 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, thus constituting the species that we call Homo Sapiens.

2- Cro-Magnon Man

The best preserved and most accurately dated skeleton was found in France, which was discovered in 1868 in the Dordogne region. The height of Cro-Magnon Man is 1.80 Mt., and he still possesses certain archaic features: The occipital region of the skull is not yet entirely developed, the face is very wide but the orbits are situated at a lower position, and the nose is protuberant. These few remaining features were quickly to disappear, and then there were no noticeable changes in human morphology. Fossils of Cro-Magnon Man were discovered in many parts in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Adam's Family

Since I do not believe the human interpretation of the evolution of species, because it just does not make a convincing argument, I am obliged to believe the creation story of The Creator Himself. The authentic words of God states:

Surah 2, Ayah 30."Behold, thy Lord said to the angles; "I will create a vicegerent on Earth." They said: "Wilt thou place therein one who will make mischief and shed blood? - Whilst we do celebrate Thy praises and glorify Thy holy (name)?" He said: "I know what ye know not"

The fascinating part of the above story is the answer of the angels to the Words of God. The angels, though pure and holy, and endued with power from God, yet they do not know the future. Also their question was in no way a form of objection to the Will of God or a question to God's Wisdom. They do not know that the creature, that God will create, will make mischief and shed blood. So how did the angles get this idea about the behavior of that creature? The only explanation is that: "from what they already know about the Earth and its existing creatures at that time." They definitely knew about living creatures on Earth that were killing one another.

Now, who were those creatures at the time of Adam?

• Were these creatures fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, or mammals?

• Were these creatures Australopithecus, Home Erectus, Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon Man?

I do not claim to have an answer to the above question, and God knows best. But I understand from the above verse that there were life forms at the time of Adam, and that Adam was not the first living creature on Earth, and God knows best.

3.6 Discrediting Evolution: Comparative Anatomy

The fossil record establishes the evidence of all life forms that existed on our planet. As we have seen the fossil record clearly does not support the claim of the evolutionists that life evolved from one life form to another in a very long time. The biological Bang at the start of the Cambrian period represents a major crisis in the evolution hypothesis. The lack of consistent and abundant transitional links between different species is an obvious puzzle in the evolutionary ladder.

Darwin used the buzz word "natural selection" that was actually introduced by Malthus and coined it with intuitive marketing and selling power. Now, most people on Earth know about natural selection, just as they know about hamburgers.

Any life form that lives on Earth has to interact with the environment. Living organisms have to move, reproduce, take nutrition, and dispose waste. As such, they have to have systems that allow the performance of the tasks of living. The study of systems of different organisms is called comparative anatomy. For example, dogs, sheep, and horses have similar legs and foot structures in number and position of bones. Each, however, is slightly different. The main structure of human’s arms, lion’s fore limb, and bird’s wing is also similar with slight variation. Does comparative anatomy support evolution, or is it another version of the Law of Repetition? The evolutionists believe that comparative anatomy is another "proof" of the evolution. This is without single evidence in the fossil record that details a transformation of one species to another. The fact that the main structure of the legs or fore limbs in some creatures is similar can well be understood. They are considered the optimal structure for moving in the common environment. This is just like saying that wheels are the optimal structure for moving cars on the common ground. The general appearance of all wheels is the same in spite of differences in size or treads patterns. No evolutionist can conclude that wheels evolved from a common ancestor without being considered insane.

Comparative anatomy indicates a Creative genius is behind all that, and His Law of Repetition is at work. In Galapagos, Darwin observed the famous 13 different kinds of finches. This is always presented as a "proof" of evolution from one ancestor finch to 13 "species" based upon the shape of their beaks. This can simply be explained as a Divine adaptation of the shape of the beaks to the eating habits of the finches. They are all still finches. They didn’t evolve from or to other species. They represent variations within the same family of finches. The family of humans has more variations than the family of finches. Within the family of humans, there are different races, based upon the geographic location of the races. A classification of the human race may be defined as black, red, yellow, and white. There are many variations between these broad classifications. If you assemble a group of humans from Nigeria, China, Pakistan, Sweden, Eskimo, and Brazil with different heights, colors, and shapes of eyes and lips, can any evolutionist claim that they belong to different species? Or, are they the same species with variations to adapt in their environments?

The point is all species share many common features that are required for living in the same Earth’s environment, and differ in the detail and specifics that suit the differences in the common environment. The fossil record and the existing life forms support the existence of varieties within one species and reject the concept of evolution from one species to another.

The following part will focus on the assumed transitional forms from one species to another. As you read on, consider the probability of each change happening by chance and spontaneously. The deception that some neo-evolutionist zoologists play on their students’ mind is to show two creatures from two species that have some similarities, and then make the superficial point that evolution is correct.

From Protozoans to Invertebrates?

One of the most important fossil gaps is that between the protozoans, one celled microorganism, found in Precambrian fossils, and the abundant complex marine invertebrate life of the Cambrian. Invertebrates are life forms that do not have backbones, such as sponges and jellyfish. How did that happen? The fossil record is absolutely silent.

From Invertebrates to Vertebrates?

Vertebrates are life forms that have backbones. Invertebrates have soft inner parts and hard outer shells; vertebrates have soft outer parts and hard inner parts, skeleton. The earliest vertebrates were certain kinds of fish. How did the backbone of vertebrates evolve? Did it evolve in steps, or as one piece? There is no evidence at all.

From Fish to Amphibian?

Fish: There exist about 25,000 species of fish. They have fins, gills, and streamlined body.

Amphibian example: Amphibian is a creature that could live in both water and on land, such as frogs and toads. (Greek, amphi. Both or double, + bios, life).

Backbones: The backbone of fish would have had to undergo major adjustments for the fish to become amphibians. You don’t have to be an anatomist to look at a fish and a frog, and imagine how the backbone of the fish changed by itself to that of the frog.

Pelvis: Amphibian has pelvis, while fish do not. No fossil fish exists that show how the pelvis of amphibians evolved from fish.

Skull: The front part of the skull of frogs is larger than that of fish, whereas the back of the skull is much smaller. Look at the skull bones of fish and frogs. Are they similar or different?

Fins & limbs: Evolution assumes that fish fins evolved to jointed limbs in amphibians. This requires major alterations in muscles and nerves.

Gills & Lungs: For fish to evolve to amphibians, gills must change to lungs. Extensive efforts to attach the amphibian to some fish ancestors have all failed. The lungfish has been a preferred example, since in addition to gills; it has air bladder of single or paired lobes for breathing when it is temporarily out of water. This air bladder is also called swim bladder because it acts as a flotation device. Some evolutionists are tempted to think the air bladder evolved to lung. Why did not all other fish develop air bladder?

Hearts: In fish, hearts consist of two chambers, but in amphibians, hearts consist of three chambers. Fish fossils do not show how the third chamber was developed.

Hearing: Fish have receptor cells through their bodies for detecting wave vibrations and currents in water, but most frogs and toads have eardrums.

Tongues: Fish do not have an extendible tongue, but amphibians do.

Eyes: Fish do not blink, whereas amphibian eyes can blink.

From Amphibian to Reptile?

Reptile examples: Dinosaurs, snakes, lizards, crocodiles, turtles. (Latin, repto, to creep)

Fertilization: External fertilization is the main rule in amphibians where eggs are soft and jelly like. Embryos in amphibian eggs release their waste in the surrounding water as soluble urea. Reptiles reproduce by internal fertilization. They have new sexual organs and new mating procedures that require major changes in anatomy and instinct. After the internal fertilization, the zygote travels into the oviduct, and develops a shell around it. Shelled eggs provide a complete environment for the developing embryo. They supply protection, moisture and food and a means for gas exchange and waste removal. Inside the shell there are various membranes and sacs. A sac holds the fluid in which the embryo grows. Another sac receives and stores embryonic wastes, serving as a bladder. The yolk sac contains blood vessels through which the food passes to the embryo. The entire embryo is surrounded with a sac filled with fluid to keep it moist. The reptile embryo is distinctive in having an egg tooth to help it break out of egg. The reptiles’ complex eggs are supposed to be evolved from the soft eggs of the amphibians. How did the shell evolve? How did the sacs and membranes evolve?

From Reptile to Bird?

Birds’ example: Pigeons, geese, ducks, parrots, hawks, owls.

Flight: Flight of birds is one of the biggest mysteries in the evolution theory. Neo-evolutionists speculate that birds had to fly to escape attacks from wild animals. All species have enemies. Why do not zebras fly to escape attacking tigers? And why do not tigers grow wings to fly after zebras? Actually, Why not all species fly? Simply, birds fly because God wants them to fly. There is no other reasonable explanation.

Bird's flight, especially the familiar flapping of birds, is a very complex process. Despite careful analysis by conventional aerodynamic techniques and high speed photography, bird's flight is not well understood. Nevertheless, we know that the bird wing is an airfoil that is subject to recognized laws of aerodynamics. The aerodynamic shape of the wing causes suction on the upper surface and pressure on the lower surface of the wing. The result is a net upward force, which is called lift that lifts birds in air.

Blood: Birds are warm-blooded endothermic. Their bodies maintain relatively constant internal temperature regardless of the outside temperature. Reptiles, on the other hand, are cold-blooded exothermic. Their internal temperature will either decrease or increase depending upon the outside temperature. Changing the blood from cold to warm is another big mystery for the evolution. Some evolutionists claim that some dinosaurs were warm blooded. However, the general view is still dinosaurs, like all reptiles, were cold blooded.

Heart: In birds, hearts consist of four chambers, but in reptiles, hearts consist of three chambers. Reptiles’ fossils do not show how the fourth chamber was developed.

Bones: The bones of birds are hollow and thin, to reduce their weights during flying, while the reptiles’ are solid. There are braces inside the bird’s bones like the stiffeners inside the airplane wings to add strength. How did the bones of birds become hollow and grow braces inside the bones? No answer.

Eyes: Birds have very sharp eyes so they can see from high altitude, and pick worms between grasses. Birds have more sensory cells in their eyes than any other creature.

Beaks: Beaks are exclusive to birds. Birds have beaks that come in many variations, such as crushing or fishing beaks. The evolutionists claim that beaks, with such specialized design evolved by chance from the noses of reptiles! This is another wild imagination of the evolutionists.

Feet: Birds have only four toes, while reptiles have five.

Sound: Birds do not have vocal chords, but they have vibrating vocal muscles, which produce harmonious songs like those of the mockingbirds and nightingales.

Respiratory system: In reptiles and mammals, lungs inhale and exhale air like bellows that alternately become full and empty. But birds have the most efficient respiratory system of all vertebrates. Many details of that system are not yet fully understood. It differs completely from the lungs of the reptiles. Also unique is the adaptation for meeting the high demands of flight. A Bird has two lungs and an extensive system of nine interconnecting air sacs. These sacs are also extended by tiny tubes into some of the long bones. During flight, a pigeon, for example, generate 27 times more heat than when at rest. However, birds do not have sweat glands to reduce their temperature. Therefore the respiratory system of birds ensures constant flow of fresh air to the lung, and in the same time act like an air-cooled engine. When the birds inhale, the air goes to some air sacs that push the air into the lungs. From the lungs, the air goes into other air sacs to expel it. The blood in the capillaries of the lungs flows against the airflow. The red blood cells in the bird’s blood carry more hemoglobin, and thus, more oxygen supplied to the flight muscles. Because of that, birds can breathe the thin air of high altitudes, flying at over 20,000 feet for days as they travel thousands of miles. The body heat is relieved by internal circulation of the air between the air sacs, and the hollow bones. How did such a miraculous system evolve? The complexity and efficiency of this system is a definite proof for creation and not for evolution.

Eggs: Both reptiles and birds lay eggs. However, the incubation process of birds is totally unique. Some birds have a spot on the breast that does not have feathers and contains many blood vessels to give warmth to the eggs. Birds, without such a spot, pull out the feathers from their breast. This process requires new instincts for building the nest, for hatching the eggs and for feeding the young. This incubation process is a greatly unselfish, considerate behavior involving skills, hard work and exposure to danger.

Feathers: They are unique to birds. Evolutionists claim that scale in reptiles evolved to these marvelous structures. A feather is very lightweight, yet possesses remarkable toughness, and tensile strength. The shaft of a feather is a hollow cylinder with inside stiffeners. Out from the shaft of a feather are rows of barbs that are arranged in a closely parallel fashion and spread diagonally outwards. Each barb may have many barbules on each side. Each barbule has hundreds of barbicels with tiny hooks. After microscopic examination of a pigeon feather, it was revealed that it had several hundred thousands barbules, and millions of barbicels and hooks. These hooks hold all the parts of the feather together to make flat surfaces or vanes. A feather is an excellent airfoil as well as efficient insulator. A bird like a swan has some 25,000 feathers. How did this structural marvel evolve from scale? No Answer.

Archaeopteryx: "meaning ancient wing" This 150 million years old bird was believed by evolutionists to be the ancestor of modern birds that evolved from reptiles. It is interesting to note that archaeopteryx is presented in biology and zoology books and some dictionaries as the missing link between reptiles and birds. Its fossilized remains revealed reptilian features: toothed jaws and a reptile-like jaw articulation. It was a bird with wings and hollow leg bones. Its reptilian features exist in many modern birds. It was not the ancestor of modern birds because other fossils of birds were discovered in the same Bavarian rocks of the same geological period. No one really knows what it was.

From Reptile to Mammal?

Mammals: About 4,000 species. (Latin, mamma, breast). Mammals vary in size from 1.5 gram Hog nosed bat to the 100 ton whale. Mammals include lion, horse, deer, monkeys, rat, whale, and dolphin.

Breast: The name mammal refers to a mammary gland in the breasts. A mammary gland gives milk to the infants, and that milk changes its nutritional composition as the infants grow. Some evolutionists claimed that these milk glands might be modified sweat glands. But reptiles do not have sweat glands. Moreover, sweat glands produce waste, not food. Also, unlike baby reptiles, mammal infants have both the instincts and the muscles to suck the milk from their mother’s breast.

Diaphragm: Mammals have a diaphragm that separates the thorax from the abdomen. Reptiles do not.

Placenta: Mammal mothers have highly complex placentas for the nourishment and development of their unborn babies. Reptiles do not.

Jaws: Reptiles have at least four bones in the lower jaws. Mammals have only one.

Teeth: Mammals have developed elaborate teeth. Instead of the simple peg like teeth of the reptiles, there are a great variety of mammalian teeth adapted to cutting, nipping, piercing, grasping, pounding, or grinding food.

Ears: The organ of Corti in the ears of mammals does not exist in reptiles. This tiny complex organ has 20,000 rods and 30,000 nerve endings. Also mammals have three bones in their ears, while reptiles have only one. Where did the extra two bones in mammal ears come from? Guess what, some evolutionist claim that the two extra bones in the ear came from the three bones that were lost in the mammal’s lower jaws! So, they claim that two bones of the reptile’s lower jaw moved to the mammal’s middle ear. As usual, there is no fossil evidence whatsoever to support this claim. It is just a wishful thinking.

Legs: Reptilian legs are located toward the side of the body so that the abdomen is on or very near to the ground. But in mammals the legs are under the body and raise it off the ground. Some evolutionists think that this is a minor difference that required minor changes in the skeleton.

What is the Origin of Insects?

Where are the insects in this evolution theory? Where did they come from? What did they evolve from? If the evolutionary origin of higher animals is confusing, the origin of close to 1,000,000 species of insects is completely blank. This figure may represent only a fraction on the species of insects that exist. They are extremely diverse and occur in all habitats capable of supporting life, but there is no fossil clue to their development from some kind of evolutionary ancestor. Insects have been found fossilized in a considerable numbers.

The most exceptional feature about such fossil insects is that they are very similar to those living now. In many cases, however, they are much larger than their modern relatives. There are giant dragonflies, giant cockroaches, giant ants, and so on. But their form is no different than that of modern insects. Some of the specific types have persisted throughout 70 million years.

What is the Origin of Plants?

More than 250,000 species of flowering plants are known. The plant kingdom is composed of five branches, three of which are algae. Most of the algae have no true tissues or organs. Both Algae and plants use the process of photosynthesis, by which light energy is absorbed and then converted into the chemical energy of glucose. This is another demonstration of the divine Law of Repetition. The study of paleobotany (origin of plants) has been even more disappointing to evolutionists than that of ancient animal life. One of the outstanding paleobotanists was Professor C. A. Arnold of the University of Michigan. He said: "It has been long hoped that extinct plants will ultimately reveal some of the stages through which existing groups have passed during the course of their development, but it must be freely admitted that this aspiration has been fulfilled to a very slight extent, even though paleobotanical research has been in progress for more than one hundred years. As yet we have not been able to trace the phylogenetic history of a single group of modern plants from its beginning to the present."

It is obvious that the comparative anatomy discredits evolution.

3.7 Discrediting Evolution: Mutation

Just how did evolution happen? What is the basic mechanism that is claimed to cause evolution from one species to another? Evolutionists found an answer in the study of heredity and mutation. The transfer of hereditary characteristics usually produces normal results. This is manifested by, for example, the production of white children from white parents, and the production of black children from black parents. But, sometimes changes happen in the genetic message resulting from alterations in either chromosomes or genes. This change is called mutation. Thus, mutation is considered the basis for evolution.

Evolutionists believe that evolutionary changes take place over a long period of time (thousands or even millions of years) to allow one species to evolve to another. They often suggest that evolution in action provides direct evidence of evolution. Some examples are often cited to present their weak case. Penicillin kills many kinds of bacteria. However, sometimes a few bacteria survive the penicillin attack. They live to form colonies of bacteria that resist this form of penicillin, and they continue to produce more bacteria resistant to penicillin. When another treatment of the same penicillin is administered, all bacteria that are not resistant die, while those that are resistant survive to reproduce. Do the surviving bacteria evolve to a new species? No, they are still bacteria. So, how does this example support the evolution?

Mutations can be caused by radiation and high temperature. The rate at which mutations occur varies widely. Evolutionists concentrate upon the examples where mutations occur fast to support their claims. Another example is often cited is the fruit flies in England in the early 1900’s. Fruit flies are small (about 2 mm in length), easily handled, and they produce many offspring in two weeks. A male was found in 1910 with white eyes from a pure line having only red eyes. Experiments in hereditary were performed to breed white-eyed male with red-eyed females. Studies were also performed on curly-winged fruit flies when bred at high and low temperature. Curly - winged flies bred at 25 0 C will have offspring with curly wings. However, when bred at 16 0 C, offspring will have straight wings. Regardless of the color of eyes or the shape of the wings, the fruit flies remained fruit flies. They did not change to another species.

A third example of the alleged observable evolution was the English moths. In these moths there are two colors, light and dark. H. B. D. Kettlewell found that dark moths constituted less than 2% of the population prior to 1848. The frequency of the dark moths increased in the following years. By 1898, the 95% of the moths in Manchester and other highly industrialized areas were of the dark type. Their frequency was less in rural areas. The moth population changed from mostly light colored moths to mostly dark colored moths. A single gene primarily determined the moth’s color. Again, moths were moths before and after industrialization. Evolutionists consider this change as a case of mutation that supports the evolution. Jastrow, defending Darwin and hailing this discovery, wrote in his book Red Giants and White Dwarfs: "Had he known it (The English moth), an example was at hand which would have provided him with the proof he needed. The case was an exceedingly rare one." The English medical journal On Call referred to using this example as "notorious." It declared: "This is an excellent demonstration of the function of camouflage, but, since it begins and ends with moths and no new species is formed, it is quite irrelevant as evidence for evolution."

The mutation may well be understood within the framework of the Law of Repetition. Mutation represents the irregularity in a uniform non-mutant life process. On a large scale, antibiotics kill many kinds of bacteria, but some bacteria become resistant to one kind of antibiotics. In this case the treatment involves more than one kind of antibiotics. Mutation is the exception and not the rule.

It is obvious that mutations discredit evolution.

3.8 The Creation Model

Two models exist for the origin of humans on Earth: creation and evolution models. The monotheistic religions do not acknowledge any explanation of man’s existence on Earth other than that he was created by God. Evolutionists do not provide any conclusive proof to support their claims, nor do they accept arguments to abandon their assumptions completely. The California-based Institute for Creation Research founded in 1975 by a group of scientists to bring people to the biblical version of creation. They focus on the much evolution’s inconsistency. They have strong arguments regarding the fossil record and the origin of life. However, they maintain that the Earth is only 10,000 years old at most and not 4.6 billion years, so evolution had no time to develop. This 10,000 years subject came from the literal interpretation of the Old Testament. In Islam, there is no reference in the Quran as to when the Earth came to existence.

Man was created with systems that are similar to other species according to the divine Law of Repetition. When evolutionists closely examine the case of a man and other species that have similar systems to him, they develop comparative anatomy that may rest on logical, but not enough, bases. The existence of some similarity between man and apes cannot be denied. But the resemblance between man and apes was imposed upon all animal and human species because they all share the same environment with all its variations. Thus man and other animals needed similar systems such as:

• A Respiratory system to consume oxygen from the common atmosphere.
• 
• A Digestive system to ensure feeding from the common Earth
• 
• Skeletal and muscular systems to move in the common environment.
• 
• A Nervous system to receive information from the common environment.
• 
• Eyes and ears to get information from the common environment.
• 
• A Urinary system to maintain the chemical composition of the blood.
• 
• A Reproductive system to keep their existence on the common Earth.
• 
If one understands the above simple and logical argument, one will clearly be convinced with the creation model. Without these functional similarities, species could not survive in the common environment. Even some of the details of the above systems are similar in different species. For example:

• Birds and humans have four chambered hearts.
• 
• The number of fingers or toes are five in humans, apes, and rats
• 
• The number of neck bones (cervical vertebra) is seven in humans, giraffes, and porcupines.
• 
• Chicken, cows and humans have their hearts on the left side.
• 
• Birds, mammals and Humans have outside symmetric organs.
• 
The conclusions that can be arrived at will undoubtedly depend to a great extent, not only on the strength of the faith that people possess, but also on their degree of knowledge in the fields involved in the study. In modern time, a scientific background may indeed provide enough reasons to cause people to strengthen their faith in God tremendously. However, there are those who reject the idea of God until they discover an equation that establishes the existence of God, in an attempt to project an image of analytical minds. Another approach may try to compromise between creation and evolution without any substantiating evidences.

Persistence of life

It is known that some creatures appeared at certain time, and never changed since. This persistence of life is contrary to what one would expect from the evolution model. The following table shows when life started for certain classes of life, and those animals today are not much different than in the past.
Period Years before Life persisted
Precambrian 600 million Algae, bacteria, fungi
Cambrian 500 million Sponges, snails, jellyfish
Ordovician 425 million Clams, starfish, worms
Silurian 405 million Scorpions, corals
Devonian 345 million Sharks, lungfish
Carboniferous 280 million Ferns, cockroaches
Permian 230 million Beetles, dragonflies
Triassic 180 million Pines, palms
Jurassic 135  million Crocodiles, turtles
Cretaceous 70 million Ducks, pelicans
Paleocene 60 million Rats, hedgehogs
Eocene 40 million Lemurs, rhinoceroses
Oligocene 25 million Beavers, squirrels, ants
Miocene 7 million Camels, wolves
Pliocene .5-3 million Horses, elephants
Pleistocene 11 Thousand Man?
• For 425 million years, clams are still clams.
• 
• For 345 million years, sharks are still sharks.
• 
• For 135 million years, turtles are still turtles.
• 
• For 60 million years rats are still rats.
• 
• For 7 million years camels are still camels with their long necks.
• 
The Human miracles

The human body consists of many organs and systems. Each one of them, when studied with objectivity represents a remarkable proof of a creation by the Almighty. Take, for example, the wrist joint that rotates 360 degrees and can stop at any angle. What would it take from a biomedical engineer to design such a joint in such a space that keeps on working for so many years without external greasing? Each system in the human body represents the most efficient system in the minimum space. Only two organs are presented in the following section that represents the ultimate complexity.

The Brain

Nothing on this Earth is more fantastic than the human brain. Doctors have made tremendous advances in studies of the brain. Even so, what they have learned is nothing compared to what remains unknown. One scientist said that we know only 10% of the brain and 90% remains mysterious. Definitely the human brain is the most mysterious part of the human body. Every second about 100 million bits of information flow into the brain from all senses. If we can think about one thing at a time, how does the brain handle these millions of simultaneous messages easily and all the time? Imagine a busy TV newsroom that receives news from all over the world. The news editors decide which stories are important. Then the news writers rewrite the important stories for broadcasting. These news stories are presented to the public. In some ways, the human brain acts like a newsroom. Here is how the human brain processes the information it receives and then reacts accordingly:

1. The brain stem has a network of nerves the size of which equals your finger. This network acts as a kind of traffic control center, monitoring the millions of messages coming into the brain ignoring the trivial and selecting the important for attention. Each second this little network of nerves selects only a few hundred at most, to enter the conscious mind.

2. A further selection of our attention seems to come about by waves that sweep the brain 8 to 12 times per second. These waves cause periods of high intensity, during which the brain notes the stronger signals and acts accordingly. It is believed that by means of these waves the brain scans itself to select the more important items. Thus an astonishing flurry of activity is going on in our heads every second.

The miracle starts in the womb. Three weeks after conception brain cells start forming. They grow in outbursts, at times up to 250,000 cells a minute. After birth the brain continues to grow and form a network of connections. The gap separating the human brain from that of any animal quickly manifests itself: The brain of the human infant, unlike that of any other animal triples in size during the first year. There are about 10 billion (10,000,000,000) highly specialized nerve cells, called neurons that make up only 2 % of the body’s weight.

The human brain has many specialized activities that are capable of learning. Computer science uses the word "hardwired" to refer to built-in capabilities based on fixed circuitry, in contrast to capabilities put in the computer by a program "software." Hard wiring in a human brain refers to inherent abilities like learning, but not the knowledge itself. Animals, by contrast, have hardwired instinctive wisdom, but limited capabilities to learn. The most intelligent animal never develops a mind like that of a human being. And unlike animals, humans have the free will to program their intellects as they choose, based upon their values, knowledge, opportunities, and goals. Specialists agree that the human brain is genetically programmed for language development, and that speech can be explained only on the basis of an inherent language processing capacity within the brain. Unlike the rigidity that is displayed in the instinctive behavior of animals, however, there is tremendous flexibility in a human's use of this hardwired capability for the language. A specific language is not hardwired into our brains, but we are preprogrammed with the ability to learn languages. If two languages are spoken at home, a child can learn both. If exposed to a third language, the child can learn it also. In view of such inherent abilities, it is no surprise that a linguist said that the chimpanzee experiments with sign language actually prove that the chimps are incapable of even the most rudimentary forms of human language. One neurologist concludes: "The more we attempt to investigate the mechanism of language, the more mysterious the process becomes."

A human originates thinking, sets goals, plans to reach them, initiates work to carry them out, and finds satisfaction in their accomplishment. Created with an eye for beauty, an ear for music, a flair of art, an urge to learn, an extreme curiosity, and an imagination that invents and designs - man finds a great sense of achievement in exercising these gifts. He is challenged by obstacles, and delights in using his mental and physical power to solve problems. Man has a moral sense to determine right and wrong, and a conscious to blame when he goes astray. He finds happiness in giving, and joys in loving and being loved. All such activities enhance his pleasure in living and give a sense of purpose and meaning to his life. A human can observe the plants and animals, the magnificence of the mountains and oceans around him, the vastness of the sky above him and feel his smallness. He is aware of time and space, wonders how he got here and where he is going, and tries to understand what is behind all that.

The Ear

The ear, one of the most complicated organs of the body, consists of three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear.

The outer ear consists of the pinna, or external ear, which captures sound waves and directs them inward, and the ear canal, which leads to the eardrum.

The middle ear contains three tiny bones, or ossicles, commonly called the hammer (malleus), the anvil (incus), and the stirrup (stapes).

The inner ear is formed of two main parts: a spiral structure, the cochlea, responsible for hearing and the semicircular canals, the labyrinth, which serve as the organ of balance and equilibrium. The inner ear is filled with clear fluids with precise chemical composition and accurate pressure. The regulation of chemical composition and fluid pressure is maintained through complex mechanisms not yet understood. The ear serves a dual purpose, not only hearing but also the vital function of equilibrium. Any change in fluid composition or pressure may cause hearing loss as well as sense of dizziness and imbalance, known as vertigo.

An oversimplification of how the extraordinary organ of the ear works is as follows: Atmospheric sound waves are collected by the ear and strike the eardrum, making it vibrate. This in turn activates the tiny chain of the three ossicles, in the middle ear, causing them to vibrate and conduct the sound waves to the inner ear. The eardrum and the ossicles not only conduct sound, but also amplify the sound energy by a factor of about 22 times. The sound waves, in turn, through the medium of the clear liquid in the inner ear transfer the vibrations to sensory cells (outer and inner hair cells), which convert the mechanical waves to electrical impulses. The impulses are conveyed to the brain via the auditory nerve. The mystery is the translation of vibrations into electric impulses, in such a small place, and then into identifiable sounds. It remains incomprehensible and incredibly complex to ear doctors. . Many questions remain to be answered and lots of challenging mysteries stand reflecting our ignorance in front of a simple question:

How do we hear?

3.9 Law of Cause and Effect

For any theory to be correct, it should not violate the basic laws of nature. Those laws are correct and have been tested in many experiments under different circumstances. However, there must be a distinction between the laws of physics and Divine Miracles. The known laws of physics are all acts of God, the Creator of all laws of Physics. Humans strive to understand these laws. Miracles are also acts of God that defy the laws of physics. The cosmic Big Bang challenges the laws of physics because it was a moment of Creation. All miracles performed by prophets, with the permission of God, defy the laws of physics. Humans sometimes confuse the Creator of the laws of physics and the discoverers of these laws. It is certainly within God’s Omnipotence to stop a law that He created to let people contemplate about the Creator of these laws. With the exception of the law of cause and effect, all other laws have their own limitations. I mentioned that Newton’s Laws of motions do not apply near the speed of light. This does not make these laws useless. They just have limitations. The atheistic concepts of the Big Bang and the evolution theory blatantly violate basic laws of physics, such as the law of cause and effect.

This law, which is universally accepted and applied in every branch of science, relates any phenomenon as an effect to a cause. The law states that:

"No effect is ever quantitatively greater nor qualitatively superior than its cause."

Have you ever looked at a beautiful skyscraper, and wondered who was the builder? If someone told that no one had built the skyscraper, but it had simply came to existence by itself, would you believe it? All what we see around us are effects created by The Ultimate Cause of everything.

If someone told you that all the physical laws that exist in the universe had simply happened by themselves, would you believe it? The global educational system attaches a name of a human being to every physical law, such as Newton’s law of gravity or Einstein’s theory of relativity. And somehow in the middle of this educational process, we tend to think that the discoverer of a certain law is actually the creator of that law. Well, he is not. Any discoverer is only a medium of revealing God’s spectacle, and the Almighty is the One and Only Creator of all laws.

From the previous chapter, we know that all the energy and matter in the universe were packed together in a cosmic egg! That cosmic egg exploded during the Big Bang, and formed the present universe. No one knows where the cosmic egg came from, or how it got there. It is simply assumed that it was there (someone even suggested that perhaps the cosmic egg came from a cosmic chicken!). No one knows how long it stayed there at its place, but, as the story goes, the cosmic egg exploded (no atheist knows why!). The universe expanded and cooled sufficiently that the hydrogen gas and the helium gas could form. From these hydrogen and helium, somehow, evolutionists believe that:

• A cosmic egg created itself somewhere and somehow for an unknown period of time.
• 
• The cosmic egg exploded with an unknown reason.
• 
• All laws of physics and chemistry created themselves, or by the scientists who discovered them.
• 
• All galaxies and stars created themselves.
• 
• Our solar system created itself.
• 
• Life created itself.
• 
• Finally from that first primordial form of life all other forms of life evolved according to Darwin’s natural selection.
• 
After studying the atheistic ideas of some of our modern serious scientists, I came to the conclusion that some Homo sapiens evolved to Homo Aroganse!

4

GOD

God in his utmost wisdom and mercy provided man with everything needed to conclude that He is the One Mighty God, the Creator and the Owner of everything in this universe. Contrary to the Christian doctrine that man is born sinner, Islam emphasizes that God forgave Adam, and every born baby on this Earth is pure, clean, and sinless. We do not inherit sins from anyone before us, not even Adam or Eve. This is what you would expect from a Just God. Why should we be punished for a crime that we did not commit, and we have nothing to do with it? In Islam, every newly born baby comes to this world with inherent submission to the One God. So if this baby were left alone without brainwashing him or her with atheistic or polytheistic ideas, he or she would grow up to be a Muslim. As man grows up, Allah provides him with a very special brain capable of discerning what is right and what is wrong. This gifted brain is also skillful of concluding that God is One if man just cares to look at the sky or look at himself. All the evidences are there if one cares to search for his Creator. However, if the search of one’s Creator takes a low priority in life, then one has only himself to blame. This is the accountability of human and the Justice of God.

The last two chapters prove without any doubt that God exists. However, one does not really need to understand the cosmic or biological Big Bang to believe in God. Any simple-minded person can arrive at the same conclusion by asking who, why, what, and how about the simple things that he encounters in his daily life. For example, why the world does not get very hot or very cold for people to perish by burning or by freezing. Who is adjusting the weather on Earth? Why trees come out after planting small seeds? What makes my heart beat? How can I face the frustration of life?

Religion is an integral part of our lives whether we like it or not. If we just understand that we are creatures of the Creator. If we just understand the responsibility of the Creator. If we just understand His unlimited bounty and His unlimited gifts that He bestowed on us. We live in His land. We eat His food. We drink His water. We breathe His air. We feel the warmth of His sun. In fact, we need Him in every step of this life. We need Him to make our life a little bit easier. We need Him to eliminate any hardship that we may face, or at least give us the patience to face the difficulties in this life and the belief in His justice if adversity persists. We need to be humble and thank Him for all His favors. And not just thank Him by words, but to actually feel that every part of our body is truly grateful.

4.1 Homo Arrogans

The Quran, the authentic words of God, is truly a remarkable miracle. The Quran has its own characteristics, which are so unique, and so inspiring. One of these Characteristics of the Quran is that a verse, "Ayah", is repeated in different places. One verse, for example, is repeated 31 times in one chapter, "Surah", (chapter 55.) This Ayah states: "Then which of the favors of your Lord will you deny?"

This Surah lists many favors that God (Allah) bestows upon us, and after citing each favor; the above Ayah is repeated as a continuous reminder to humanity to acknowledge His unlimited favors.

One time I was listening to the Quran, I noticed the repetition of the word "arrogance", either as a noun, verb or a synonym. For example, the Quran tells us the story of Adam and Satan in Heaven. God commanded the Angels and Satan to bow down before Adam. All the angles bowed, but Satan rejected the command of God.

Surah 2, Ayah 34 "He refused and was haughty."

Satan thought that he was better than Adam, and therefore should not bow down to him. Satan, soon thereafter deceived Adam and Eve, and caused them to be expelled from the Heaven. God then condemned and cursed Satan forever because of his arrogance. Therefore, the original sin is clearly that of arrogance, committed by the original sinner, Satan. This point is tremendously significant in that arrogance can potentially lead to much graver sins. It should also inspire humanity to maintain its humility. When God asked Satan why didn’t you bow down before Adam, Satan replied that he is better than Adam, hence he should not bow to him:

Surah 7, Ayah 12: "I am better than He (Adam). Thou didst create me from fire, and him from clay"

Satan's egotism in putting himself above Adam is obvious from the above Ayah. He established his own standard of comparison by assuming that fire is better than clay, so he ignored the order of Allah. Arrogance against God is the worst type of sins, and can be caused by complete ignorance coupled with superiority complex. Ancient history tells us about kings who thought of themselves as gods. For example, the pharaoh, who existed during the time of Moses, claimed to be the highest god. Moreover, there are those who may believe in God but restrict Him and his Laws according to their convenience. They may like His forgiving side, but reject His punishing side. In other words, some people want a man-made God! Religious traditions inform us of arrogant people who wanted prophets to their liking. All the prophets were accused during their time of being insane, liars, magicians, and power hungry.

The Quran and the Bible tell us many stories about the prophets, and those who continued rejecting their message.

• It was the arrogant chiefs during the time of Noah who rejected him.

• It was the arrogant chiefs during the time of Abraham who rejected him.

• It was the arrogant chiefs during the time of Moses who rejected him.

• It was the arrogant chiefs during the time of Jesus who rejected him.

• It was the arrogant chiefs during the time of Muhammad who rejected him.

• It was the arrogant chiefs during the time of any prophet who rejected him.

The Quran makes many references to these chiefs and actually calls them "chiefs." The Quran also talks about their arrogance, because they felt that religion would take their power away from them. The past and present self-appointed chiefs include some of the elite "scientists" as well as some of the religious leaders in all religions. These people believe that their ideas, no matter how wrong they are, should be imposed on the laymen who should not challenge their scientific or religious arguments. In most cases, arrogant people underestimate the degree of their arrogance by using their own standard to "measure" arrogance. They usually justify their approaches as a means of influencing the laymen for a noble cause, such as educating the ignorant masses!

A person can be considered arrogant if one emphasizes his importance and does not think for a moment that he is vulnerable. Every human is vulnerable. No one knows what is going to happen to him in the next hour. One may have a heart attack, a paralyzing car accident, an airplane crash, an earthquake, and the list is endless. But some people are tempted to ignore our factual vulnerability and prefer an illusory mortality. One of the effective means of combating arrogance is to keep remembering our vulnerability. And if it happens that Satan tries to convince us that we know a lot or even enough, keep remembering that the human knowledge is very limited:

• Over 90% of the mass of the universe is UNKNOWN
• 
• The action of aspirin is UNKNOWN
• 
• The mechanism of dreaming is UNKNOWN
• 
• Over 90% of the human brain is UNKNOWN
• 
• How the brain interprets our senses is UNKNOWN
• 
If we are this humble in our knowledge, how can anyone be arrogant?

Now consider the following:

Evolutionists introduced the names "Homo Erectus" (Latin, upright human) and "Homo Sapiens" (Latin, wise human), and I would like to introduce the term "Homo Arrogans" (Latin, arrogant human) for those who think that they have all the answers. This is the title of this section. I put it in Latin, because, at present time, if you want to sound scientific, you have to use Latin or ancient Greek terms as if that the English language is not good enough. Evolutionists should be able to explain how those species evolved from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens to Homo Arrogans!

Homo Arrogans have many holes in the fabric of their logic. They look at some similarities or some differences between species and build an entire theory. This is similar to the following hypothetical story:

Imagine that most of the life on Earth is somehow destroyed. Several thousand years later, civilization starts and people are anxious to know their past. Some of their elite scientists evolved to Homo Arrogans species. They have no idea about our means of transportation. An archaeologist collects many fossils. The specimens that he collected are a horse wagon, a bicycle, a car, a train, and an airplane. He notices definite similarities and definite trends. He discovers that all specimens have wheels and a body. Similar materials exist in all the specimens such as: wood, iron, and leather. However, there is a problem; the lowest species, which is the wagon and the bicycle, do not have engines. And the engine of the car is smaller than that of the train, and that in turn is smaller than that of the airplane. He conclude that the metal in the wagon evolved to the gears in the bicycle, and this evolved to the engine in the car, which then evolved to the diesel engine in the train, and finally this evolved to the jet engine of the airplane.

Where do you think the archaeologist went wrong?

4.2 God and Science

In the West, the news media often represent the interaction of religion and science as a battle to death between religious scholars and scientific atheists. But for many scientists, who belong to the mainstream faith, things look entirely different. Throughout the last millennium, the Church was looked upon as a controlling mother with two defiant sons called physics and biology. Yet, despite strained relations, there is always optimism that religion and science can benefit from each other.

Medieval scientists, assured by their faith that the universe is rational, took their first steps towards uncovering God’s Design. The first great conflict happened between the Church on one side and Galileo on the other side. In 1595 Galileo supported the Copernican theory that the earth revolves around the sun against the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic assumption that planets circle a fixed earth. Galileo was condemned by the Church for his scientific beliefs and was ordered in 1616 not to discuss Copernicanism either orally or in writing. Only in 1984 a papal commission acknowledged that the church was wrong, but it was not until 1992 that the church actually reversed its condemnation of Galileo. It took the Church about 4 centuries to admit that it was wrong.

Therefore, the son physics moved out of the house, and for a while, science enjoyed its freedom. The telescopes of the following centuries saw many stars in a huge void, evoking the dream of infinite universe with no sign of a beginning or a prospect of an end. Some scientists thought that the universe was never changing. To them, there was no need for a God!

This simple view did not last. Edwin Hubble discovered the red shift of the distant stars, and in 1920’s the whole world knew that the universe had a beginning called the Big Bang. The fact that the universe had a beginning asserted the existence of an Omnipotent Designer that started the Big Bang. Cosmology used physics to uncover a magnificently organized universe; fine-tuned to foster life within it. In its adulthood, physics realized that mother is much smarter than she had been credited. The son physics started to have a tremendous appreciation for creating the universe and his mother’s wisdom.

Biology moved out of the house later than physics and is later to return as well. Darwin introduced a concept of evolution of species by natural selection. It was an interesting guesswork, but where in this scheme was the Designer? In the 19th century the foundation of life was in a total mystery. Scientists of the time hoped that the complexity of humans and animals would resolve into simplicity when more was learned about life. Darwinists had no way of knowing about proteins, amino acids, the genetic code and other mysteries of the living cell.

In the last 50 years biology has uncovered some of the mysteries of the living cell, and the results firmly indicate another Grand Design. The marvels of the living cell include precisely tailored microscopic systems that include molecular trucks to haul neatly tagged cargo from one end of the cell to the other along a molecular railroad tracks. It also includes power plants to generate the cell’s energy; disciplined biological armies standing ready to fight the invaders; and a centralized genetic government to maintain order. Darwin’s natural selection lies in smoking ruins. Darwinism may explain simple things like the shape of finch beaks, but for the more complex questions of how life evolved and why, biology is still reluctant to admit God’s Grand Design.

At the present time biology seems to be in a state of complete denial that controlled physics when the concept of the Big Bang was first introduced. Some modern biologists look for anything to reject the prospect of intentional design of life. Their denial won’t last long, though; evidences are too strong. Other biologists suggested an interesting compromise. It is called creative evolution. They believe that God created Adam, but they may exclude the controversial Biblical statement that God created Adam in His own image. Now, they ask the question: Who was really Adam? Could he be the first living cell on Earth? Creative evolution advocates evolution not by natural selection but by the guidance of God. This conclusion is based upon incomplete evidences. And all the conflicts and contradictions of evolution will have to be defended by the creative evolutionists and that was never done successfully.

The news media often ask scientists how science can be reconciled with religion. A better question would be how could anyone with some knowledge of science avoid watching the overwhelming evidences of One God?

Humans managed to divide science into three main categories:

• Physical: such as physics, chemistry, and engineering.
• 
• Biological: such as medicine, embryology, botany, and zoology.
• 
• Sociological: such as psychology, economics, anthropology, and history.
• 
However, the great scientific pioneers in the human’s history could not really be classified as physicist, biologists, or sociologists. Most of them had knowledge in many branches of science. An inspiring list of those pioneers includes Newton, Galileo, Al-battani (Albatenius), and Ibn Sina. Without exception, true scientists were devout religious people. They simply understood that science would never have answers to all complex questions.

At present, in trying to deal with the enormous scientific and spiritual information that is available to us, it may help to abandon the above categorization of science and put the above three categories under a new name called Evidences of God! Or attach the Name of God to all branches of science such as physics of God, biology of God, etc. If we do that, the simplest physical law, biological and sociological phenomenon can then make sense. Asking questions about: who, why, and how can then have one answer, and one answer only. Some scientists are limiting their creativity by rejecting the concept of God. If scientists make it their business to uncover some of God’s Grand Design, humanity will enjoy a much greater scientific achievements, paralleled only to the great scientific advances that Islam inspired in the Middle Ages.

This would certainly require a major overhaul in the entire educational system. Teachers would be required to be more inspirational. Books would have to be rewritten to include the thoughts of the scientific pioneers, and not merely their works without any human attachments. This would change the life of physicists, biologists, engineers, botanists, and all other professionals. Every simple physical law, biological test or analysis is approached within the framework of the Grand Design. If that happens, the entire human family would be in a state of submission to the Will of God. And that is what Islam is all about.

The attitude of Islam towards continuous knowledge and scientific development is quite remarkable. As a matter of fact, the first word revealed in the Quran was "Read." It was an order from the Creator to the Muslims to seek true knowledge, because this is the only way to achieve an appreciation for the Glory and Greatness of God. With this order, science took on an international character in the Islamic universities of the Middle Ages. During that time, Muslims had a great advantage because the Quran inspired the Muslims to study the sky and the earth to find proof for their faith. Muhammad encouraged the Muslims to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave, no matter if their search took them as far as China. Studying is considered an act of worshipping God. It is an established fact that scientific upsurge by Muslims came as a result of religious influence. Anyone who knows something about Islamic history is aware of the period of the Middle Ages, which saw cultural and scientific peaks in the Islamic world.

Muslims made great contributions in the fields of mathematics, astronomy, physics, botany, medicine etc. There is no numeral of greater significance than the zero, which came from the Arabic word "sifr" or empty. Solutions of algebraic equations were introduced early in the Islamic world, where it was known as the "science of restoration and balancing." (The Arabic word for restoration, al-jabr, is the root of the word algebra, and algebra as a science is an Islamic contribution.) Al-Khwarizmi (780-850) of Baghdad popularized the use of the decimal numbering system and wrote the first clear textbook on algebra. The title of this influential Arabic book was "al-jabr wa al-muqabala", which means "the art of bringing together unknowns to match known quantities." The key word "al-jabr" or "bringing together" gave rise to the word algebra. Al-Battani (850-929) in Damascus is considered the greatest Muslim astronomer and mathematician. He improved trigonometry and calculated the first table of cotangents. The Latinos called al-Battani "Albatenius". Other Muslims such as Abu Kamil, and Omar Khayyam are only few names that contributed in Algebra.

Ibn Al-haitham (965-1039), known as "Alhazen" in the West, was one of the greatest investigators of optics of all times. He was also a physician. His fame came from a book on optics that became known to Kepler during the seventeenth century. This masterpiece, "Ketab Al-Manazeer" (Book of Mirrors) had great influence on the training of later scientists in Europe, in which he described the nature of light as consisting of particles which carry heat and energy. Thabit Ibn Qurra (833-902) in Baghdad was the commentator on higher mathematics, and wrote on the theory of numbers. He, also, wrote about gravity and its relationship with mass, stating that when there are two bodies, the larger body exerts a stronger influence on the lesser mass. Islamic astronomers of the Middle Ages, having learned how to build mathematical instruments, were setting up observatories and charting the movements of stars and planets, while contemporary Europeans were ignorant of nearly all sciences. During the 10th century, Cordoba, the largest city in Europe, was a center for Islamic learning. Its mosque, known as La Mezquita, was one of the largest in the Islamic world. Ibn Rushd (1126-98), born in Cordoba, known in Latin as Averroës, was a Spanish-Arab Islamic philosopher, jurist, and physician. He also studied theology, philosophy, and mathematics under the Arab philosopher Ibn Tufayl (1105? -85) and medicine under the Arab physician Avenzoar (1090-1162). It is interesting to note that prominent Muslim scientists were given Latin names with the effect of obscuring their identity and origin, and their association with the Islamic civilization. The Caliph’s library at Cordoba included 400,000 books. Scholars from all over Europe went to study at Cordoba. As the signs of mathematical awakening in Europe appeared in the thirteenth century, the Christian monks made contact with Islamic universities in Spain, opening the way to the Renaissance, and the translation from Arabic to Latin started.

The first university on earth, Al-Azhar (the resplendent) was established after the founding of Cairo itself in 969 AD. This university has an important effect upon the development of educational institutions in Europe. The wearing of black academic gowns, traditions of public disputations, and division of undergraduate and graduate faculties originated at Al-Azhar University. Non-Arab speaking students from Europe had to take a crash course in Arabic for 6 months, because Arabic was the language of science.

4.3 Polytheism

Polytheism is defined as a multiplicity of individualistic divinities having human and/or animal forms and feelings. According to Islamic traditions, the first idols on Earth were during the time of Noah (Pbuh i.e. Peace be upon him). Noah was the tenth grandson of Adam (Pbuh). The names of these idols were Wadd, Sawaa, Yaguth, Yauq, and Nasr. They were righteous people, and everyone used to love and listen to them. When Wadd died, his followers missed him, and became very sad. Satan encouraged the people to make a picture of Wadd so they can keep it in their places, and remember this spiritual leader. They accepted Satan’s offer and became heavily involved in the pictures. When Satan saw what they did, he extended his offer to give them a statue of Wadd. Once again, they accepted Satan’s offer. Their following generation saw how their parents glorified those statues. Eventually, those statues were treated as gods, and during Noah’s time there were five idols.

This story explains how Satan takes the human being step by step towards every sin, even when the intention, of the people that accepted the pictures, might have been sincere. That is why the Islamic laws prohibit all actions that may lead to major sins.

Moreover, this story indicates that Man did not invent polytheism out of nothing. Adam believed in One God. His children followed satanic steps, and converted monotheism to polytheism. As time passes, religious beliefs and traditions were adulterated and contaminated from one generation to another. That is why most polytheistic beliefs or philosophical notions still have some elements of the monotheistic religion.

Many gods as well as the embodiment of Gods in human form (incarnation) characterize polytheism. Because of their human forms and the multitude of gods, they usually fight with each other, and they marry and get children who are also gods. Since the beginning of time, knowledge and wisdom were always transmitted from parents to children. Thus, the ancient relationships of gods to humans were as close as fathers and sons.

Babylonian Mythology

Babylon, one of the most important cities of the ancient world, whose location today is marked by a broad area of ruins just east of the Euphrates River, 90 km (56 mi.) south of Baghdad, Iraq. Babylon was the capital of Babylonia in the second and first millennia BC. This dynasty reached its high point under the powerful king Hammurabi in 1730 BC. In 1595 BC Hittites captured the city, and shortly thereafter it came under the control of the Kassite dynasty (1590-1155 BC). The Kassites transformed Babylon the city-state into the country of Babylonia by bringing all of southern Mesopotamia into permanent subjection and making Babylon its capital. The city thus became the administrative center of a large kingdom. Later, probably in the 12th century BC, it became the religious center as well. During their peak days, the priests filled the temples to recite Enuma Elish, the most famous of the ancient Near East poem. The purpose of the epic poem was to praise Marduk, the main god of Babylon and to celebrate the victory of Gods over chaos. The story begins with the creation of the gods, and three gods emerged: Apsu (the ocean), his wife Tiamat (the salty sea), and Mummu (the womb of chaos). These gods begot the successive generations of the gods, and then tried to destroy them. The plan failed, and the wise Ea (the Earth god) slew Apsu and locked Mummu away. Ea with his goddess wife Damkina produced their perfect son Marduk (the sun god). According to Enuma Elish, Tiamat created monsters and married their chief Kingu. Marduk conquered Tiamat and Kingu, the dragons of chaos, and thereby gained supreme power. Marduk fashioned the first man from the blood of the slain Kingu, and then, established Babylon as his dwelling place. Acknowledged as the creator of the universe and humanity, the god of light and life, and the ruler of destinies, he rose to such eminence that he claimed 50 titles. Eventually, he was called simply Bel, meaning "Lord."

The people of Canaan (near the Mediterranean Sea) were influenced by the myth of Ea (the god) and Marduk (the son of god). Later, Christianity adopted this concept of god and son of god into its doctrine.

Egyptian Mythology

 The religious beliefs of the ancient Egyptians had a major influence in the development of their culture. However, a true religion, in the sense of a unified theological system, was never recorded. The Egyptian faith was based on an unorganized compilation of ancient myths, nature worship, and innumerable deities. In the most significant and famous of these myths, a divine hierarchy was developed and the creation of the Earth was explained. The supreme deity of ancient Egypt was Ra, (the sun god), which was represented by a man with the head of a hawk, crowned with a solar disk.

According to the Egyptian account of creation, only the ocean existed at first. Then Ra came out of an egg (a flower, in some versions) that appeared on the surface of the water. Ra brought forth four children, the gods Shu and Geb and the goddesses Tefnut and Nut. Shu and Tefnut became the atmosphere. They stood on Geb, who became the Earth, and raised up Nut, who became the sky. Ra ruled over the entire universe and humans. Geb and Nut later had two sons, Set and Osiris, and two daughters, Isis and Nephthys. Osiris succeeded Ra as king of the Earth, helped by Isis, his sister and wife. Set, however, hated his brother Osiris and killed him. The powerful charms of Isis resurrected Osiris, who became king of the underworld, the land of the dead. Horus was believed to be the son of god Osiris and goddess Isis. Horus later defeated Set in a great battle and became king of the Earth.

In the fourth dynasty, the Egyptian king Snefru declared himself as the incarnation of the living sun god Ra. Cheops, his son and successor and the builder of the great pyramid of Giza, followed his father’s royal footsteps, and took the title son of the god Ra. Later, all Egyptian Pharaohs assumed the title god as well as the son of god Ra.

Ancient Egyptians believed in many articles of monotheistic faith such as: the hereafter, Day of Judgment, hell and paradise. Pyramids were their resurrection machines, with The Book of Dead, written on the walls of the deceased’s chamber, described the safe passage to paradise. It has been suggested that their original monotheistic belief came from Osiris, who was actually Enoch of the Old Testament, and Prophet Idris in Islam. Notice the similarity of the names Osiris and Idris.

Greek Mythology

The legends of ancient Greece are more familiar because they have become so permanently embedded in literary traditions of Western civilization. Herodotus believed that the ancient Greek religion had been derived from the Egyptians. However, there was no worship of animals or of gods in animal form, as there was in Egypt. Greek gods and goddesses were pictured as being much like men and women. The term for this is anthropomorphism, meaning "in the form of a human." Greek conceived the gods to be more heroic in stature, more outstanding in beauty and proportion, and more powerful and enduring than humans. They were nevertheless endowed with many human weaknesses. They could be jealous, envious, hateful, and trivial.

During the Hellenistic period (about 323-146 BC), ancient Greeks became exposed to the Egyptian and Asian myths. A great poet called Homer brought many of the ancient stories together in a long poem of heroic adventure, called Iliad and Odyssey. These epics revealed much about the religion of the Greeks of that time. They believed in gods and goddesses who had many human traits and often took part in the lives of the people. These gods and goddesses, who often laughed, ate, drank, loved and hated, were said to live above the clouds of Mount Olympus in northern Greece. Each god or Goddess had some power over the forces of nature and the humans. For example, Aphrodite was the goddess of love, Athena was the virgin goddess of wisdom and war, Sofia goddess of wisdom, and Apollo was the god of the sun, poetry, and music. At the head of the divine hierarchy was Zeus, the spiritual father of gods and men. His wife was Hera, queen of heaven and guardian of the sanctity of marriage.

Hindu Mythology

Hinduism is a collection of religions, which has evolved over 4000 years on the Indian subcontinent. Hinduism is a major world religion, not only by virtue of its many followers (estimated at more than 900 million) but also because of its deep influence on other religions during its long history. The word Hindu is derived from the Sanskrit word sindhu, "river." The Persians in the fifth century BC called the Hindus by that name, identifying them as the people of the land of the Indus. Hindu beliefs are so diverse; it has been suggested that "Hindu religion" does not exist. There are, however, some basic beliefs that are shared among the Hindus:

• Belief in the unity of all things in the world. The Hindus believe that there is one spirit that runs through all humans, animals, and plants. The Hindus call this unifying spirit Brahman.
• 
• Belief in reincarnation of souls. They believe that when a person dies, he or she will be reborn in another life form. For example, the soul of dead animal might move to a newborn child.
• 
• Belief in the Karma, which is the spiritual law of the universe that has great power, even though we cannot see it or touch it. It records the good and the bad deeds that a person does while alive and determines where the person should go in the next life. Being reborn as a Hindu of the high caste might be the reward a good person. An evil person may be reborn as an animal.
• 
• Belief in the non-injury of any living creature. Since the Hindus believe that the same spirit unites all humans, animals, and plants, many of them do not kill animals or eat meat.
• 
• Belief in many gods and goddesses who are different forms of Brahman. The trinity in Hinduism involves Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer. Vishnu is also worshipped in the form of a number of "Avatars" - avatar is the descent of a god to Earth in human form, more generally used of a person who is believed to embody or incarnate the divine. Shiva is said to have appeared on Earth in various human, animal, and vegetable forms. The great river goddess Ganga (the Ganges) is said to be a wife of Shiva. The goddess of music and literature, Saraswati, associated with the Saraswati River, is the wife of Brahma. Some scholars suggested that this Hindu form of trinity was the model adopted later as a Christian doctrine.
• 
• Belief in working without worrying about results.
• 
Many minor gods are associated with the great gods or with their children and friends. Hanuman, the monkey god, appears in the Ramayana as the cunning assistant of Rama in the siege of Lanka. Skanda, the General of the Army of the gods, is the son of Shiva and Parvati. Ganesha is the elephant-headed god of scribes and merchants, the remover of obstacles, and the object of worship at the beginning of any important enterprise.

It is interesting to note the close resemblance between the names Brahman, the Hindu unifying spirit, and Rahman, one of the Names of God in Islam. This may suggest that Hinduism had monotheistic origin.

Buddhism

Buddhism is closer to philosophy than religion. It was founded in northeastern India by Siddhartha Gautama (560 - 480 BC), who is known as the Buddha, or Enlightened One. He was born near the present Indian-Nepal border. He was the son of the ruler of a small kingdom. He had everything that he wanted, but was disturbed by the sorrow and suffering of some of the people in the kingdom. Therefore, at the age of twenty-nine, he left the palace, his wife and his son, to search for the cause and the solution of suffering. He meditated underneath a bodhi tree, near what is now Nepal, until he attained the enlightenment for which he had been searching. Once having known this ultimate truth, the Buddha underwent a period of intense inner struggles. He began to preach, wandering from place to place, gathering a body of disciples, and organizing them into a monastic community known as the sangha. In this way he spent the rest of his life.

Buddha means the enlightened one. This title applies to any person who has attained the ultimate realty "nirvana." but it is often used for the founder of Buddhism. The original teachings had little ritual and downplayed the importance of deities. Legends surrounded the Buddha's life quickly turned into miracle stories, and after the Buddha died (from eating a poisoned meal) his bones and teeth were spread far and wide as holy relics. The Buddha was an oral teacher; he left no written body of thought. Later followers arranged his beliefs. The original Buddhism seems to present a moral and philosophical way of life rather than a religion.

Although never actually denying the existence of the gods, Buddhism denies them any special role. Their lives in heaven are long and pleasurable, but they are in the same condition as other creatures, being subject eventually to death and further rebirth in lower states of existence. They are not creators of the universe or in control of human destiny, and Buddhism denies the value of prayer and sacrifice to them. The deities are so preoccupied by their own pleasures that they lose sight of the need for salvation. Enlightenment is possible only for humans, and not for gods.

The Four Noble Truths: At the core of the Buddha's enlightenment was the realization of the Four Noble Truths:

1. Everything in life is suffering. It is a statement that, in its very nature, human existence is essentially painful from the moment of birth to the moment of death. Even death brings no relief, for the Buddha accepted the Hindu idea of life as cyclical, with death leading to further rebirth.

2. All suffering is caused by ignorance of the nature of reality and the craving, attachment, and grasping that result from such ignorance.

3. Overcoming ignorance and attachment can end suffering.

The means to achieve nirvana lies in the Noble Eightfold Path of right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindedness, and right contemplation. These eight are usually divided into three categories that form the cornerstone of Buddhist faith: morality, wisdom, and concentration.

Nirvana: is the ultimate goal of the Buddhist path in life. To achieve this goal is to reach nirvana, an enlightened state in which the fires of greed, hatred, and ignorance have been extinguished. Not to be confused with total annihilation, nirvana is a state of consciousness beyond definition. After achieving nirvana, the enlightened individual may continue to live, burning off any remaining karma until a state of final nirvana is attained at the moment of death.

The ethic that leads to nirvana involves cultivating virtuous attitudes, known as the Palaces of Brahma: loving, kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and patience. The ethic that leads to better rebirth, however, is centered on fulfilling one's duties to society. It involves acts of charity, as well as observance of the five ethics that constitute the basic moral code of Buddhism. The ethics prohibit killing, stealing, harmful language, sexual misbehavior, and the use of intoxicants. By observing these ethics, the three roots of evil—lust, hatred, and delusion—may be overcome.

4.4 Monotheism

Throughout history, humans have experienced spiritual experiences that cannot be explained. However we choose to interpret this encounter, these spiritual experiences are a fact of life. Buddhists deny that their visions are derived from a supernatural source. On the other hand, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam maintain that those experiences are divine. These monotheistic religions agree that it is impossible to describe those experiences in normal conceptual languages. Monotheism is a belief in the Unity of the God, or in One God. Jews are forbidden to pronounce the sacred Name of God. Muslims are prohibited to depict God, or any of his prophets, in human form. This discipline is a constant reminder that God is beyond all human comprehension.

There is striking similarity in Jewish and Islamic concepts of God. The Jews and Muslims find the Christian doctrines of the trinity and incarnation almost impious. One form of Christianity, Unitarianism, denies the doctrines of the Trinity, maintaining that God exists in One Being only. From the middle of the second century to the end of the third century a succession of distinguished Christian teachers maintained the undivided unity of God. Unitarianism is based upon Arianism, which was a Christian sect in the fourth century that denied that Jesus Christ had the same divine substance as that of God and hold instead that he was only the highest of created beings. It was named after its author, Arius (256-336). A native of Libya, Arius studied at the theological school of Lucian of Antioch, where other supporters of the Arian’s belief were also trained. Unitarians are generally close to the Jews and Muslims. They deny the doctrines of the Trinity, the delegated atonement, the deity of Jesus Christ, and the original sin.

According to the Islamic religion, the perception of God’s Uniqueness is the basis of the morality of the Quran. To give allegiance to earthly things or associate God with anyone or anything is considered blasphemy, the greatest sin in Islam that will not be forgiven on the Day of Judgment. Any other sin may be forgiven by God’s mercy if He wills. The Quran detests the pagan deities in almost exactly the same way as the Old Testament. These pagan gods are totally useless: they are powerless, and they cannot guide or protect humans. Instead, Muslims believe that Allah is the ultimate and unequaled reality:

Surah 112 "Say: He is Allah, The One; Allah, the Eternal, the Absolute; He begetteth not, Nor is He begotten; And there is none Like unto Him"

The nature of Allah here is indicated to us in few words that anyone can understand. Here we are specially taught to avoid the pitfalls into which humans have fallen at various times in trying to conceptualize Allah. We can understand Him as follows:

We have to note that his nature is so elevated, so far beyond our limited conceptions; that the best way in which we can realize Him is to feel that He is a Personality, "He", and not a mere abstract conception of philosophy. He is near us; He cares about us; we owe our existence to Him.

He is the One and Only God, the Only One to Whom worship is due; all other things or beings that we can think of are His creatures and in no way should be compared or associated with Him.

He is Eternal without beginning or end, Absolute, not limited by time, space or circumstance. He is the Ultimate the Reality.

We must not think of Him as a human having a son or a father, for that would be to import human qualities into our conception of Him.

He is not like any other person or thing that we know or can imagine. His qualities and nature are unique.

The unity, consistency of creative designs and the fundamental facts in our existence, proclaim the unity of the Designer, Maker, and Creator. This Surah sums up the whole argument and warns us especially against anthropomorphism, the tendency to conceive Allah after our own pattern, an evil tendency that creeps in all times and among all peoples. Islam returns to the Semitic concept of the divine unity and refuses to imagine that God can "beget" a son. There is no deity but Allah, the creator of heaven and Earth, who alone can save man and send him the spiritual and physical sustenance that he needs. Only by acknowledging Him the Uncaused Cause of all being, Muslims address a dimension of reality beyond time and space.

The call for Muslims to prayer starts by "Allah Akbar", which is translated, and may be understood by some Muslims, as God is great. This is not a correct translation or meaning. It actually means, "Allah is greater." Full stop. Period. According to rules of any language, this is not a complete sentence. But this phrase actually means that Allah is greater than anything that anyone may conceptualize. "Allah Akbar" distinguishes between God and the rest of all realities. I heard this phrase thousands of time in my life, but the first time I realized its true meaning, two pictures came to my mind: the intricate design of the universe and the living cell, and I was shaken and overwhelmed by the Greatness, Power, and Glory of Allah. Only by contemplating the verses of the Quran and the signs of nature, Muslims can grasp that aspect of divinity, because we can see God only through His words or His creations. The Quran emphasizes Allah as the Absolute, who alone has true and eternal existence:

Surah 55, Ayah 26 "All that is on Earth Will perish. But will abide (for ever) the face of Thy Lord - Full of Majesty, Bounty, and Honor"

The first pillar of Islam is "Shahadah", which is the Muslim profession of faith:

"I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is His messenger." This is not simply an affirmation of God’s existence, but an acknowledgment that Allah is the only true reality or perfection, the only true form of eternal existence, and all beings that exist owe their existence to His Will. To make this assertion demands that Muslims integrate their lives by making God their focus and sole priority. To say that God is One is not a mere numerical definition, but it is a call to make this unity the driving factor of one’s life. The divine unity requires Muslims to recognize that everything they do is for God’s sake. A Muslim works because God asks him to work and in this case working becomes an act of worship. A Muslim marries because God asks him to marry, and in this case, marriage becomes an act of worship, and so one. Therefore, a Muslim is always reminded with the divine unity of Allah. Because there is only one God, all rightly guided religions must derive from Him alone, and the basic beliefs of those religions should not change. The unity of God is also manifested in the Quran by the command of Allah to the Muslims to believe in the authentic revelations and books revealed to all prophets, even if they do not exist in our present time.

The Search for One God

The search for a single deity, by thinkers and scientists, happened throughout the history of mankind. Many used logic, science and philosophy to resolve this crucial question.

The Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaton concluded that the Sun god is the ultimate and only supreme power in the life of humanity. He abandoned polytheism in favor of monotheism by worshipping the sun god and ignored all the other traditional deities of Egypt, but his policies were immediately reversed by his successor King Tut.

Ibn Sina (980-1037), who is known by his Latin name Avicenna, was a great Muslim physician, and at the age of 18 he had mastered mathematics, logic, and physics. At that age, he was rewarded for his medical abilities with the post of court physician to the Samanid ruler of Bukhara. But his chief concern was religion. Ibn Sina extended the logical approach, based upon philosophical concepts, of Al-Kindi (870), another Muslim thinker. Ibn Sina formulated his approach to prove the existence of God, in his book Kitab Ash-Shifa (Book of Healing). His logic starts with a reflection of the way our minds work. We have the tendency of looking at anything in a global manner, and then examining the details later. A sentence consists of verbs and nouns, and these consist of letters. We learn first how to pronounce words and sentences, and then know the letters. A human body consists of a head, belly, arms, and legs, and these consist of cells. This process of breaking things into their components is our way of search for simplicity. We use bricks as simple building blocks to construct a complex skyscraper. The Earth consists of land and water. The Earth is one part of a more complex solar system, which is in turn a part of more complex star system, and so on. Also, simple things are inferior to complex things, such as an arm is inferior to the whole human body. Ibn Sina took it for granted that the whole universe follows a repetitive logic or laws. He also believed in the law of cause and effect. Thus, he considered that everything in this physical universe is a part of Unlimited Reality, a Supreme Creator that started it all. Since we cannot comprehend the physical universe, which should be inferior to the Unlimited Reality, then we will not be able to grasp the true power of the Supreme Creator. God, the Unlimited Reality, is the Creator of all realities. Because He is at the top of all realities, He must be absolutely Perfect and worthy of human submission, praise, and worship.

Abu Hamid Alghazaly (1058- 1111) was a great Muslim thinker. He was born in Khurasan. He started his search for God by considering Sufism, a mystical interpretation of religion. Later, Alghazaly abandoned Sufism and formulated an approach that would be accepted by the majority of Muslims. He had several major publications that address the basic faith in Allah. One of his books, Revival of Religious Knowledge, a five-volume text, is considered a great Islamic reference. Alghazaly set himself to defend Islam against philosophy and mysticism. He tried to discern between right and wrong, between the reliable tradition of Islam and heretical innovation. He searched for a reliable unshakable faith in God. He believed that philosophy should restrict itself to obvious phenomena such as medicine, physics and astronomy. Philosophy should not be utilized as a way of proving God’s Existence. How can anyone state facts about God that He himself did not reveal? Ibn Sina became the target of attack on philosophy by Alghazaly. After an agonizing search he found what he was looking for. Without abandoning reason, Alghazaly discovered that spiritual experiences, which cannot be explained by physical laws, yielded a direct and intuitive way to God. However, he resented taking that spiritual experience beyond its reasonable limits such as someone may claim that he is God’s incarnate when he encounters such an experience. Like Ibn Sina he concluded that humans are inferior of the Unseen God Who supplies the physically unexplained spiritual experience.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) used the avenues of science and logic to achieve total conviction in God. Newton began with an attempt to explain the universe, with God as the Creator of all the physical laws that govern the universe. Newton believed that all natural laws are the effects with God as the only Cause of all actions. In fact, he believed that gravity is a divine action; in effect, a stone fell because God’s finger was pushing it down. As Newton was investigating the universe, he became convinced that he had a solid proof of God’s existence. He wrote "Gravity may put the planets into motion, but without the divine power it could never put them into such a circulating motion as they have about the sun, and therefore, for this as well as other reasons, I am compelled to ascribe the frame of this system to an intelligent Agent." God who had designed all this so perfectly, had to be a supremely intelligent "Mechanick" and extremely powerful to manage this huge universe. In Newton’s Principia, he concluded that humans know God only by examining the evidences of His creations:

"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. He is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is his duration reaches from eternity to eternity; his presence from infinity to infinity; he governs all things, and knows all things that are or can be done. We know him only by his most wise and excellent contrivances of things, and final causes; we admire him for his perfection; but we reverence and adore him on account of his dominion; for we adore him as his servants.

According to "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, 1993 and "Anti-Trinitarian Biographies," Vol. III, 1850 by A. Wallace, Newton rejected the divinity of Jesus and the doctrine of the trinity. He attributed these doctrines to the corruption of the New Testament. Newton came to the conclusion that the Fathers of the Church had imposed their doctrines on the Church in a misleading bid for pagan converts. He believed that the concept of the "three in heaven" was never once thought of. The verses of the New Testament that were used to "prove" these doctrines were erroneous. In 1690, He wrote a manuscript on the corruption of the New Testament concerning I John 5:7 and Timothy 3:16. It was entitled, "A Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture."

Newton became obsessed with clearing the Christian faith. He believed that Noah had founded the original religion - a Gentile faith - that had been simple and free from mysticism. Noah advocated the unity of God. Later generations had corrupted this pure religion with weird mixtures of idolatry and superstition. Thus God had sent a succession of prophets to put humanity back on course. Newton’s approach to monotheism was as close as it can be to the Islamic teachings.

During the eighteenth century, Christian scholars began to apply the new scientific methods to the Christian faith and came to the same conclusion of the existence of God as Newton. However, during Newton’s time, there were those who claimed that Newton unfolded all the mysteries of God and discovered all His physical laws that govern the universe, and consequently God has nothing else to do!

4.5 God in the Bible

Humans are always looking to the sky for one supreme deity, who has created the world and governs human affairs. Belief in such a High God or Sky God is still a feature in many tribes in Africa, Australia, and South America. They look at the sky to ask God for help. The primitive tribes in south Australia climb a tree to be closer to God and then seek his help. Those tribes are higher in their concept of God Almighty than millions of the many humans who impose human characteristics on God. Though all theology originated with God, mankind played games with these pure and holy concepts.

The Old Testament had many imperfect descriptions of God portraying God after man’s own image:

God regrets making man: (Genesis 6:6)

"And it repented the Lord that he had made man on Earth, and it grieved him at his heart."

This is in reference to the time of Noah, when people became evil and started associating idols with God Almighty.

God smells sweet savor: (Genesis 8:21)

"And the Lord smelled a sweet savor;"

God smelled the burned birds and animals that Noah sacrificed on the altar (a stoned table used for burning)!

God came DOWN: (Genesis 11:5)

"The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded"

This is a reference to the tower of Babel, where God caused people to spread all over the Earth. Babel is the place where God confused the language of the whole world, and Babel may mean "confuse" or the "gate of God."

God Wrestles with Jacob: (Genesis 32:24- 26)

"And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh"

God changed the name of Jacob to Israel which might mean, "he fights with God", or "he whom God broke his leg"!

It is logical that a prophet fights for God or with the devil, but how can we understand that a prophet fights with his Creator all night long, and that God is afraid of the light because He wanted to leave before the daylight!

Jacob saw God face to face: (Genesis 32:30)

"And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved"

God rested and was refreshed: (Exodus 31:17)

"For in six days the Lord made heaven and Earth, and on the seventh day he RESTED AND WAS REFRESHED."

Moses asked God to repent from evil things! : (Exodus 32:12)

"..Turn from thy fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people..."

Do you believe that Moses said that to God? The Easy-to-read Version of the Bible made this unacceptable statement as follows: "Please change your mind! Don’t destroy your people"!

What is worst: God obeyed Moses and repented! : (Exodus 32:14)

"And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people"

Ask yourself now who is the god and who is the prophet?

Moses threatened God! : (Exodus 32:32)

"Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin-; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written"

Moses asked God to erase his name from his book, if he did not forgive the people of Israel! Again, do you believe that? Who is the god and who is the prophet?

Moses sees God’s back parts: (Exodus 33:23)

"And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen"

This is when God talked to Moses and was about to leave him.

God rejected Israel completely: (Psalm 78:59)

"And God heard this and became very angry, And God rejected Israel Completely!"

God like a drunken man: (Psalm 78:65)

"And the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, and like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine."

This is when God reminded Israel of all the favors that He bestowed upon them when He took them from Egypt, and then they turned like their fathers.

Reading the Bible makes one wonder about the concept of God in the Jewish and Christian scripture. Here is a God that rested and refreshed to commemorate the Sabbath because God Almighty became tired and needed to be rejuvenated after His six days of hard labor.

Out of the 73 books of the Roman Catholics, and the 66 books of the Protestants of the Holy Bible, endless number of quotations can be found to illustrate man’s various imperfect descriptions of God. No nation has had as much opportunities as the people of Israel had. And despite repeated warnings to the effect that:

Exodus 20:4-5 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the Earth beneath, or that is in the water under the Earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy Lord am a jealous God"

And in our present time, you can see God in the movies: walking, talking, and even smoking cigar, in the Hollywood movie "Oh God." Also, you can see books or chapters in books with titles such as "When God does not make sense", "The future of God", and even "The death of God". One can only wonder about the effect of "The Holy Bible" in creating a human image of God.

Although the Bible said: "So God created man in his own image," Genesis 1:27.

It looks also that Homo Arrogans created God in their own images!

This is a standing insult to God, the most powerful, as the Quran says:

Surah 2 Ayah 255 "Allah! There is no God but He, - the Living, The Self-subsisting, Supporter of all, No slumber can seize Him Nor sleep. His are all things in the heavens and on Earth"

Surah 50, Ayah 38 "We created the heavens and the Earth and all between them in six days, nor did any sense or weariness touch us"

The above verses state clearly that God has no need for rest or sleep. His activity, like His Life, is perfect and self-subsisting. This is in contrast with expressions, used by the Bible, such as awakened, repented, rested, and refreshed. This Islamic perception of God confirms that of the prophet Isaiah that people can’t imagine what God is like:

"Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting god, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding" Isaiah 40:28.

4.6 His Name is Allah

Christianity and Islam originated in the Middle East. Any Christian in this area when asked about the Name of God, he will say Allah!

The English Bible starts with:

"In the beginning God created the heaven and Earth."

And the Arabic Bible starts with:

"In the beginning Allah created the heaven and Earth."

The western Christians are unaware of the Name of God of their eastern brothers. Some Christians think that Allah is the idol that the Islamic cult worships! The Office for the Non-Christian Affairs at the Vatican published a document under the title "Orientations for a Dialogue between Christians and Muslims. It is a very important document in that it shows the new position adopted towards Islam. In the third edition of this study (1970), the document stresses this fundamental point in the following terms:

"It would seem pointless to maintain that Allah is not real God, as do certain people in the west!" The Conciliatory document has put the above assertion in its proper place. There is no better way of illustrating Islamic faith in God than by quoting the following extracts from Lumen Gentium, produced by the second Vatican Council (1962-1965):

"The Muslims profess the faith of Abraham and worship with us the sole merciful God, who is the future judge of men on the Day of Reckoning."

El, Yahweh, or Jehovah

According to Biblical scholars, Abraham’s God was El, the High God of Canaan. This name of God was preserved in such Hebrew names as Isra-El, Ishma-El, or Beth-El. Bethel means house of Allah (In Arabic Bait Allah). The last words of Jesus, in his own native Aramaic language, on the cross:

Matthew 27:46 "Eli, Eli la’ma sa-bach’tha-ni? That is to say My God, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?"

It is interesting to note that the Aramaic "la’ma sa" is the same as the Arabic "why", and pronounced "lemasa." This is just one of the many words that shows the common origin of the Arabic and Aramaic languages.

In 1780, the German professor, J. H. Eichhorn discovered that there are two versions of many of the Biblical stories that are different in the details. He also discovered that one version refers to God as Yahweh. He called the writer of this version "J", which in German is pronounced like the English Y. The writer of the second version E referred to God as El (Elohim in Hebrew). J was from the southern Kingdom of Judah, while E was from the Northern Kingdom of Israel.

Whenever the name of God appeared in its true Hebrew form "YHWH," these four letters were preceded by a substitute word "Adonai," to warn the reader that the following word should not be pronounced. The Jews took meticulous care in repeating this exercise six thousand, eight hundred and twenty three times - interpolating the words "Adonai" or "Elohim." They sincerely believed that this awesome name of God should never be pronounced. This prohibition was no ordinary affair: it called for a death penalty on one who dares to utter it, and this restriction has been more powerful than all the "Do’s" and "Don’ts" of the Ten Commandments put together.

The English Bible refers to YHWH as "Lord God", and to Elohim as "God"

Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our own image"

Genesis 2.7 "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground"

The word "Jehovah" did not exist prior to the sixteenth century. If Jehovah is the name of God, and if the twenty seven Books of the New Testament were inspired by Him, then it is extremely strange that He (Jehovah) did not have His own name recorded in "His Own Words." The Geek version of the New Testament does not have the name "Jehovah" written in it. Curiously this name of God has been replaced by the Greek words Kyrios and Theos, which mean Lord and God.

Hallelujah means Praise God in both secular and religious sense. The Jewish interpretation means Praise Jah (abbreviation of "Yahweh"). It is also used in Revelation 19:1 as Alleluia. It is possible that Hallelujah consists of both Hall (praise) and elujah (El or Eloh or Allah). If Hallelujah means praise Allah, then in this case, no one has been able to eliminate the name "ALLAH" from the originals of the Bible. Consider this divine intervention!

The exact sound of the four letters YHWH is known to neither the Jews nor the Gentiles, (Gentile is anyone who is not Jewish!). The European Christians replaced the letter Y with J as follows:

Yehuda changed to Judah

Yusuf changed to Joseph

Yunus changed to Jonah

Yeheshua changed to Joshua

Yehowa changed to Jehovah

Yehudi changed to Jewish

YHWH changed to JHVH

YHWH became Yahweh and JHVH became Jehovah! Jehovah Witnesses say that the Letters YHWH occur in the Hebrew Scriptures 6823 times, and it occurs with combination with the word "Elohim" 156 times in Genesis alone. This combination YHWH / ELOHIM has been consistently translated in the English Bible as "Lord God." Since the Jews did not articulate the word YHWH for centuries, and since the Chief Rabbis would not allow the unspeakable to be heard, they have forfeited the right to claim dogmatically how the word should sound. We have to seek the aid of the Arabic language to revive Hebrew, a language that had once died out. In every linguistic difficulty, recourse has to be made to the Arabic, a sister language, which has remained alive and viable.

Note the startling resemblance between the two languages; very often the same sounding words carry identical meaning in both:

HEBREW ARABIC     ENGLISH

Shalom     Salaam         Peace

Yaum         Yaum         Day

Ikhud         Ahad         One

Elah            Ilah         God

Yahuwa       Ya Huwa Oh he

YHWH, YaHuWa, Ya HuWa all means the very same thing; "Ya" is a vocative and an exclamatory particle in both Hebrew and Arabic, meaning Oh. Also notice the similarity of huwa, Huwa, and he in Hebrew, Arabic, and English. Together, they mean Oh He! So instead of YHWH ELOHIM, we now have:

Oh HE! ELOHIM. This is very close to Surah 112 in the Quran: "Say: He is Allah,"

The suffix "IM" of the word "ELOHIM" is a plural of respect in Hebrew. In Arabic and Hebrew, there are two types of plurals: one for numbers and the other for honor as in royal proclamations. Since the plural of honors is uncommon in the language of the European, he has confused these plurals to connote a plurality of God, hence his justification of the Doctrine of the Trinity.

El in Hebrew means God and this was His name in the northern kingdom of Israel when it separated into two kingdoms. EL also was known to be the God of Abraham. El is also the name of God that Jesus called upon on the cross "Eli", (Eli means my God). This means that El, Elah, Eloh, and ELOHIM are not distinctly different words. They all represent the single Arabic name Allah.

In the English Bible, "New and improved Edition," edited by Rev. C.I. Scofield, D.D., with his Bible Commentary in comment No. 1, the eight authors concur that:

"Elohim, (sometimes El or Elah), English form God, the first of the three primary names of Deity, is a uni-plural noun formed from EL = strength, or the strong one, and Allah,"

All the authors agreed that Allah is a name of God. However, in a later version with new authors, "The New Scofield Reference Bible." the name Allah was taken out. Western Christian scholars simply do not want any association with Allah, the God of Eastern Christians and Muslims.

There is no difficulty in understanding that in the languages of the world, every nation has given a distinctive name to God. Most of these names are attributive names, describing some aspect of God. But the proper name for God Almighty in the Semitic languages’ i.e. in the mother tongues of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad (Peace be upon them all) is Allah. The name Allah exists in the Arabic Bible. The name Allah came from the lips of Jesus. The name Allah exists in the western world in "Hallelujah." In Revelation 19:1, John saw a vision, in which he heard the angles in the heaven singing alleluia. This vision is the same as the Islamic tradition that the angles are praising Allah all the time.

If you look in the Second College Edition, The American Heritage Dictionary, you will find the following:

Babel: Akkadian bab- ilu (also in Arabic) Bab, door or gate, El, God.

Ishmael: Hebrew (Ismael in Arabic) yisma, He will hear, El, God.

Until now in the Middle East most names have meanings. In Babylonian mythology, Marduk was called Bel (B + El), meaning "Lord." Also Israel means, "He fights with God." Also notice the vowel u at the end of bab- ilu, which means a vowel exists after El or IL. Therefore in ancient languages El meant God, and a vowel can be added to EL or IL. If you add to that Hallelujah, Eli, Eli la’ma sa-bach’tha-ni, Allah in Scofield's Bible, and the Arabic Bible, you will come to the conclusion that the name Allah, the Almighty, has been in existence for thousands of years. One may argue that El does not pronounce Allah. But El has been translated from Akkadian and Hebrew to Greek, to Latin, and then to English. And if you want to know what time can do to the pronunciation and writing in the same language, consider the following:

"Yes" is written and pronounced "Yeah"

"Want to" is written and pronounced "wanna"

"Got to" is written and pronounced "gotta"

And this only happened in few decades in the same language, without translation to four languages in at least 5000 years.

What is His Name? ALLAH.

4.7 The Religion Criteria

Now that we know that God Almighty exists, and that he creates humans, He communicates with His people to give them his message. God has done that by sending messengers to show them the right way that leads to paradise in the hereafter, and to warn them against the devil’s way that leads to hellfire. Some of the messengers were local for a certain time and to certain people. Some had larger responsibility and left their people with Holy Books that would guide them after the Prophets died. These Holy Books are like an owner’s manual of cars or a user’s manual of computer’s software. If you follow the instructions, you will get the maximum benefit, but if you ignore the instruction and the proper way of usage, then you will have a lot of troubles. This is a valid principle that applies to cars, computers, or humans.

Religion and Faith

We mentioned in the introduction of this book, that you could realize the existence of God by examining His signs or by having intuitive faith. However, this faith should not be blind, but based upon reasonable judgment. The reason is that in this world we have seen hundreds of people making all sorts of claims. Many claimed that they were prophets, receiving revelation from God. Others claimed to be the expected Messiah that will come before the end of the world. Even pagan religions asked its followers to have faith. Scriptures are said to be inspired or revealed by God, and they are so many. And each preacher emphasizes the usual sentence: "you either have faith or not." If humans accept this argument blindly, there will be much confusion. Faith should be based upon a rational and sensible conclusion. Furthermore, it not enough for a religion to call for such terms as brotherhood, global peace, equality, mercy, etc, to be accepted. Religion is a serious business, and choosing the right religion requires some reasoning. Religion should be treated at least as any other decision that humans make every day. You should not rush to a conclusion, and at the same time you should not treat it as a long-term decision.

In the next section, an attempt will be made to present a set of criteria for accepting a religion based upon the following necessary and sufficient conditions:

Universality

Since we know that God is One, and we are all His people that came from a single father and mother, it follows that there must be one religion. This is because God is not going to change His rules to suit different nations. He measures all humanity with only One Standard. Therefore, the religion should be universal regardless of race, color, time, place, wealth, or gender.

This condition right away excludes Judaism unless we accept the notion that God has chosen the Jews and only the Jews to the rest of humanity for His religion. In this case, this contradicts one of God’s attributes, Justice. Jews do not have missionaries, and do not invite any one to join them. If someone wants to convert to Judaism, which is supposed to be a religion of God, he will have hard times. Often times, the media reports that the Jews in Israel reject the conversion of a teenager from a Jewish father. According to the Jewish law in Israel, the mother determines religion. Therefore, if someone manages to be converted by a Jewish organization outside Israel, the Jewish establishment in Israel will not recognize that conversion. Therefore, to follow a monotheistic religion, we are left with Christianity and Islam.

Simplicity

Throughout history, there existed a class of theologians and philosophers that claimed that they had knowledge about religion and God that the public could not understand. An example to such theology is the Gnostic Christian movement that flourished during the second and third centuries AD. Gnosticism presented a major challenge to orthodox Christianity. The term Gnosticism is derived from the Greek word gnosis ("revealed knowledge"). To its adherents, Gnosticism promised a secret knowledge of the divine dominion that the laymen would not comprehend. Therefore denying the public from comprehending the religion that they were supposed to believe in.

A religion by definition should be understood and practiced by all people regardless of their intellectual and educational capability. A religion should be for the illiterate as well as those with the highest degrees. There should not be any confusion or ambiguity in explaining the religion.

Uniqueness

The Holy Scriptures should be unique and only the original version should be used. There should not be multiple versions that are revised and revised again by humans. If a translation of the original version exists, it should be accompanied by the original text in its original language. Human translation of Holy Books is never perfect. Translation of Holy Books is a serious business, because it involves the imperfect human perception of the translators.

Openness

Following the above condition of simplicity, a religion should be opened with all its aspects. The exact history should be presented. The evolution of doctrine, if any, should be known and accessible to the public. The honest preachers should not attempt to keep their congregation in the dark about any subject relating to the religion. It is nice for a religion to emphasize the good morals, but should this be the only criterion of accepting a religion? Preachers should state the whole truth, and not half the truth, about religions.

Authenticity

The scriptures of a religion should be authentic and traceable to its origin. All the records should not be adulterated or tainted with any Human ideas or perception. The original writer or writers of the scriptures should be known, and there should be sufficient evidences for the trustworthiness of the writers. The subject of authenticity should be very clear and definite without any confusion about who actually wrote the scriptures.

Consistency

God revealed the Holy Books. One should not expect inconsistency or contradictions in the scriptures. There should not be any error or even a claim of error associated with Holy Books.

The Prophet

The character of the Prophet who received the revelation should be impeccable before the revelation. His life should be documented before and during the revelation to make sure that he was honest and truthful. He should not have bowed to anyone else but God.

The Holy Book

The Holy Book should have the following characteristics:

• It should identify God in names and attributes.
• 
• It should show Humans the proper way of communicating with God.
• 
• It should convey a message that does not contradict human intuition and accepted morals.
• 
• It should guide humans to the right path for salvation that leads to paradise.
• 
• It should warn Humans against evil acts that lead to hellfire.
• 
• It should project a sense of purity and holiness.
• 
• It should outline the divine standard that humans should follow.
• 
• It should include overwhelming prophecies and scientific miracle as a continuous challenge to the unbelievers.
• 
All the above conditions will be examined in the next chapters in an attempt to arrive at the religion of Allah.

5

Setting the Stage for Christianity

Reading the Old Testament can be a very confusing experience for an average careful reader. Some verses strike the reader as the "Word of God." Others register as the "words of the Prophets." And most of the verses were written by historians who injected their environment and tribal feud in the stories of the Old Testament. And the serious question is how the average layman can separate the above three categories? Should the seeker of the authentic Word of God in Bible depend on himself or his preacher? Will the preacher state the facts or keep quiet? It is extremely hard to get information from the Bible if the above three categories are merged together. That is why the Islamic sources of knowledge are divided into five main separate categories:

1. The Word of God, as revealed to Prophet Muhammad, is found in The Holy Quran, which is the same Arabic text that exists everywhere in all Islamic countries, for more than fourteen centuries.
2. 
3. The words of Muhammad (Pbuh), the Prophet of God, are recorded in books called the Hadith. There are two kinds of Hadith: Hadith Qudsi (or Sacred Hadith) and Prophetic Hadith. Hadith Qudsi are the sayings of Prophet Muhammad as revealed to him by Allah. Hadith Qudsi are so named because their authority is traced back to Allah but Muhammad put them in his own words. The Prophetic Hadith are the majority of Hadith and are traced back to the Prophet. There are two major accepted collections of the Hadith collected by the Islamic scholars Albukhari and Muslim. Every Hadith is recorded with the chain of people who heard it. This chain may include one person, or many persons. Based upon the trustworthiness of each reference included in the narration, the Hadith is classified as accepted, good, or weak. It is interesting to note that the Bible does not even enjoy this complex referencing system of the Hadith.
4. 
5. Interpretation of the Quran where each verse of the Quran is discussed as to why, when, and where it was revealed. The interpretation of the Quran is always accompanied with the original verses of the Quran as a precaution against misinterpretation. It should be noted that few verses in few interpretations were not correctly interpreted, and were rejected by the majority of the Islamic scholars. There must be certain qualifications to interpret the Quran. Among these qualifications are memorizing of the whole Quran by heart, knowledge of the Arabic language and its grammar, and good Islamic character.
6. 
7. Interpretation of the Hadith where each saying of the Prophet is explained as to why, when, and where it was said. The interpretation of the Hadith is always accompanied with the original saying of the Prophet as a precaution against misinterpretation.
8. 
9. Islamic history, written by historians of high integrity and knowledge, and others of lesser trustworthiness. This history extends from the life of Muhammad to the present time. The life of the Prophet is detailed from his birth to his death in many references.
10. 
As a hypothetical situation, if someone attempts to mix the Quran, sayings of the Prophet, the different interpretations, and Islamic history, in one composite text, then anyone who reads that confusing text will surely find contradictions. And if the composite text is thought to be totally inspired from God, then surely researchers will eventually find the contradictions, and question the authenticity of the whole text. This situation is what I will attempt to prove happening in the case of the Old and New Testament. This is not a personal point of view from a Muslim. It is the Biblical scholars’ works that the average Christian does not know, and the information that the Sunday classes’ preachers are not volunteering. Thank God, Muslims kept the above five kinds of books separate, hence there was no way to add any word, or even a comma for that matter, to the Quran, the authentic Word of God. This was a promise from God Himself that He will protect the Quran. And that is what happened:

Surah 15, Ayah 9 "We have without doubt, sent down the message. And We will assuredly guard it (from corruption)"

The purity of the text of the Quran through fourteen centuries is an indication of eternal care with Allah’s Truth protected through all ages. As promised by God, this Holy Truth will never suffer corruption, or any human adulteration.

The Quran as a text is undoubtedly preserved by the promise of Allah Himself. Furthermore, the recitation of the Quran, anywhere on Earth, is the same recitation as that of the Prophet. In the written Quran there are some symbols that indicate that the Prophet joined verses or break long verses in his recitation. These symbols are listed at the end of the Quran. Therefore, in reciting the Quran, Muslims use those symbols to stop where the Prophet stop, and continue where he continued. It is quite exceptional to imagine the Power of God’s promise to secure the Quran in writings as well as in readings.

Reciting the Quran is an established science in Islamic schools. The Quran is 604 pages long. During the time of the Prophet thousand of his companions memorized the whole 604 pages. In the present time millions of Muslims everywhere know the Quran by heart.

5.1 The Old Testament

It important to start with that the Bible admits its own corruption by the scribes who wrote down and copied the different chapters of the Old Testament. First Moses warns the people of Israel that the Covenant, heaven and earth would be against them because they are very stubborn, Deuteronomy 31:24-29. He predicted that the Jews, who refused to obey him while he was with them, would become evil and corrupt. Then in the Revised Standard Version, Jeremiah 8:8, God asked Jeremiah to tell the people of Judah:

"How can you say, 'We are wise, and the law of the LORD is with us'? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made it into a lie.”

The Holy Bible, Easy to Read Version makes it even clearer:

“You keep saying, ‘We have the Lord’s teachings! So we are wise. But that is not true. Why? Because the scribes have lied with their pens.”

This is an obvious statement from Prophet Jeremiah that the scribes corrupted the Bible. They claim that the Bible says that they are wise, but they are liars.

The term Bible is derived through Latin from the Greek biblia, or “books,” the diminutive form of byblos, the word for “papyrus” or “paper,” which was exported from the ancient Phoenician port city of Biblos. The Bible consists of the Old Testament of the Jewish scripture, and the New Testament of the Christian books. The remainder of this chapter will focus on the Old Testament.

 The order and the number of books differ between the Jewish Bible and the Protestant and Roman Catholic versions of the Bible. The Jewish Bible is the Hebrew Scriptures. It consists of 39 books originally written in Hebrew, except for a few sections in Aramaic.  The Bible of Judaism consists of three distinct parts:

1.      The Torah, or Law, also called the books of Moses.

2.      The Nebiim, (plural for Nebi, “Prophet”) or Prophets, divided into the earlier and latter Prophets.

3.      The Ketubim, (plural for Ketub, “book”) or Writings, including Psalms, wisdom books, and other diverse literature.

The Christian Old Testament organizes the books according to their type of literature:

1.      The Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, corresponding to the Torah.

2.      The historical books.

3.      The poetical or wisdom books.

4.      The books of the Prophets.

 The Protestant and Roman Catholic versions of the Old Testament place the books in the same sequence, but the Protestant version includes only those books found in the Bible of Judaism. Christians and Jews have been reading the Bible for over two thousand years. In the present time Christians go to Sunday classes after a full week of work to attain spiritual doses. They hear good lessons about the importance of moral values and the message of Jesus or Isaiah to be righteous and to love thy neighbor and all the uplifting speeches according to the Bible. After all, the Bible is the heart of Christianity and Judaism. Biblical scholars are preaching and studying it in churches, synagogues, and seminaries. People read it, study it, appreciate it, write about it, scrutinize it, and argue about it. And no one knows who actually wrote it. No one knows when or where it was written.

 However, the layman accepts the hypothesis that the first five books of the Bible were written by Moses, half of the Psalms by David, the Gospel of Mark by Mark, and the Revelation by John and so on. After all in Exodus, 17:14, God told Moses “Write this for a memorial in a book.” John in his Gospel, 5: 46-47, makes Jesus say the following ”For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote for me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words.”  Paul, in his letter to the Romans, 10:5, referring to Leviticus, affirms “Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law.” John wrote in the Revelation, 1:9, “. For the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”   So, everything was fine, and everyone believes that the whole Bible is the authentic Word of God.

 In the third century AD the Christian scholar Origen responded to objections to the authenticity of the Torah by suggesting that contradictions are only apparent contradictions. They can be explained after very complex interpretation that the Bible did not include. For example Moses described his own death and where he was buried because God had told Moses this would happen. He also knew that Israel cried for him for thirty days, Deuteronomy 34:8. Investigators accepted, for eleven centuries, this argument that Moses wrote the first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. These books are known as the Pentateuch (from Greek, meaning “five scrolls”). Then Isaac ibn Yashush, a Jewish physician of a Muslim ruler in Spain in the eleventh century, discovered that the list of the Edomite kings that appeared in Genesis 36 mentioned kings who lived long after Moses. Ibn Yashush proposed that another one wrote this part after Moses. The response to his theory was that he was called “Isaac the blunderer” by Abraham ibn Ezra, who was a twelfth century Spanish rabbi. He recommended that the book of Ibn Yashush to be burned. Ironically, it was Ibn Ezra that discovered that it was impossible for Moses to write the first five books of the Bible. These books referred to Moses in the third person, described places that he had never seen, and used language that reflected another time and place than those of Moses. He concluded that “And if you understand, then you will recognize the truth.” Then he wrote “And he who understands will keep silent.” 

 In the fifteenth century other scholars came to the same conclusions as those of Ibn Yashush. In the sixteenth century, van Maes, a Flemish Catholic scholar, suggested that later writers expanded the original text of Moses.  They achieved that by making the text more current and more understandable. Later the Catholic Church classified this book as a Prohibited Book. In the seventeenth century, Isaac de la Peyrere, a French Calvinist, published a book that categorically said that Moses was not the author of the Pentateuch. He referred to the first verse of Deuteronomy, when “Moses spake to all Israel on this side of Jordan.” But Moses himself never recorded that he had been in Israel in his life. The book was also banned and burned. He was arrested and was ordered to recant his views to the Pope himself, which he did. Later, other Christian scholars investigated the Bible, and found more contradictions such as “There arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses,” Deuteronomy 34:10. This statement does not sound like the words of the humblest man on earth as Moses described himself. The Catholic Church took the same stand as with other scholars. Books were burned and scholars were arrested.

The Tribes of Israel

Joseph, the son of Jacob, brought his parents and brothers to Egypt. The sons of Jacob formed twelve tribes in Egypt. According to biblical tradition these tribes varied considerably in size and population. Moses counted all the people of Israel in Numbers 1:1-15. These tribes are divided into two groups:

1. The first group, included the tribes of Reuben, Simon, Levi, and Judah, settled in the south. Later, they formed the Kingdom of Judah.

2.      The second group, included Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, Dan, Asher, Gad, Nephtali, and the descendants of Joseph: Ephraim and Manasseh, settled in the north. Later, they formed the Kingdom of Israel.

 After the first generation of the Israelites died, many of the people of Israel worshipped the idol Gods of the Canaanite Baal and Asherah. For the following few centuries, judges governed the people.  When the judges became corrupted, Israel asked for a king to lead them. The first king was Saul who committed mistakes and sins. God was sorry that he made Saul king. Then God chose David, from the tribe of Judah, to be the new king. He ruled over all of Israel and wrote many of the songs (or Psalms). He committed adultery with Bathsheba, and later he married her. When David was old, he appointed Solomon, his son from Bathsheba as the king of Israel. When Solomon was old, his wives pushed him to worship their idol gods. In the Quran, David and Solomon are recognized as two righteous kings and Prophets. Their sins in Bible do not exist in the Quran.

 After Solomon’s death, his son king Rehoboam did not have the skills to keep the country united. The tribal feud expanded, and the unified Israel did not last long. Israel was divided into two kingdoms: the northern tribes called themselves Israel, and the southern tribes called themselves Judah. The people of Israel chose a man named Jeroboam as their king (reigned 786-746 BC).  In the northern kingdom of Israel, several dynasties came and went. The kings of Israel had several capital cities at various times, the last of which was Samara. There were many wars between Israel and Judah.

 The choice of priests by Jeroboam for his new kingdom was crucial to the authorship of the Old Testament. In order to strengthen his hold on the people, he changed the way they worship God. He built two temples for worshipping golden calves, one at Dan and the other at Bethel. Jeroboam appointed new priests, including individuals who were not Levites, to the function of the altar of the golden calf. The priests from the Levi family had no place in Jeroboam’s new religious structure. They condemned the golden calves, which were the symbol of a pagan religion. Since the tribe of Levi had no territory of its own, as the other tribes had, the Levites had only two choices: they could move to Judah and try to find a place in the priestly hierarchy there, or they could stay in Israel and perform various religious services outside Dan and Bethel. The pious priests of Levi turned into poor and homeless people.

 The existence of the kingdom of Israel in the north lasted for about two hundred years. During the time of Isaiah, the Assyrian empire, presently north of Iraq, destroyed Israel in 722 BC and deported the ten tribes of Israel into many places in the empire. Many Israelites fled from Israel south to Judah to escape the approaching Assyrian army. The Assyrians replaced the people of Israel with the Samaritans who came with their pagan religion.  The Assyrians invaded Judah in 701 BC, and many cities were conquered.  But they could not defeat Judah and they returned back. In 586 BC the Babylonians finally conquered Judah and its people led away into exile.

 The two Jewish kingdoms existed side by side for two hundred years. They had common language and history, but they had many tribal hostilities and feuds. The priests of the Levi tribe became extremely bitter and frustrated from the tribes of the north who revived pagan religions.  With this picture of the early years of the biblical world, the writers of the Old Testament can be identified.

J, E, P, and D

During the eighteenth century three independent investigators discovered that the Old Testament has two or three versions of the same story. They are: the German minister H. B. Witter in 1711, the French Physician Jean Astruc in 1753, and the German professor J. H. Eichhorn in 1780. Some of these versions have different details to the extent that careful studying of the Bible should raise serious challenges to the issue of the divine inspiration. It was Eichhorn who discovered that the two versions of many of the Biblical stories were written by J and E who referred to the deity as Yahweh and Elohim respectively. This step paved the way to further criticism of the Pentateuch. Even in the English translation of the Bible, it is easy to observe that biblical stories often appear with variations of details in two different places in the Bible. In one version, the deity was referred to as “God”. In the second version God was referred to as “Lord God.”

1.      There are two stories of the creation of the world.

2.      There are two stories of the flood.

3.      There are two stories of the covenant between God and Abraham.

4.      There are two stories of the naming of Abraham’s son Isaac.

5.      There are two stories of Abraham’s claiming to a foreign king that his wife Sarah was his sister.

6.      There are two stories of Jacob making a journey to Mesopotamia.

7.      There are two stories of a revelation to Jacob at Bethel.

8.      There are two stories of God’s changing Jacob’s name to Israel.

9.      There are two stories of Jacob’s giving birthright.

 The assumption that the two earliest biblical writers, J and E, developed the whole Pentateuch lasted only eighteen years. Biblical researchers used the same technique of separating the Pentateuch into J and E to perform further separation of E. They discovered that there was a third source that appeared interested in the priests.  This source was called P for the priestly interest. P had a dignified and distinguished belief of God. For example P did not believe that anyone could actually see God. When Moses beseeched God to see Him, God responded: “You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live” (Exodus 33:20). However, P believed that humans could have spiritual experiences as a sign to His existence, which is not to be confused with God Himself. While J and E consider any Levite could be a priest, P recognized only the descendants of Aaron as priests over those of Moses. J and E were hostile to P.

 The criterion of having three writers of the whole Pentateuch did not apply to the fifth book, Deuteronomy. Again there were major differences in the interest and style of the three writers and that of the Deuteronomy. The differences were obvious even in the translation. There are different expressions and favorite sentences. Biblical stories were different from those of the first four books. Deuteronomy appeared to be an independent fourth source, called D. There are blatant contradictions of details between D and the others. For example, D has different Ten Commandments! D was hostile to P since both fought for the priestly advantages.

 At the end of the nineteenth century, Julius Wellhausen established the new critical model of discerning the four sources (JEPD) of the Pentateuch. Up to the present time, this theory goes by his name. It constitutes a solid foundation that any further work should be developed upon it. This study draws the ultimate conclusion of suggesting a new position instead of the prevailing one of divine revelation to Moses. This criticism downgraded the historical authenticity of the Biblical traditions. This critical analysis has extended beyond the five books of Moses and has touched every book in the Old and New Testament. There is hardly a biblical scholar in the world actively working on the problem that would claim that the Pentateuch was written only by Moses - or by one single person.  No serious biblical researcher can ignore it, and no other explanation of the evidences has opposed it.

5.2 Contradictions in The Old Testament

It is not our intention to present all the contradictions in the Old Testament. This would require more than one book devoted to this subject. As such, only samples of the contradiction are presented in this chapter. The Old Testament is full of stories about tribal feud of the people of Israel, and because of that the Old Testament is full of contradictions.  Many biblical scholars approach this issue with the conclusion that the whole Old Testament could not be inspired by God.  In this case, how can anyone discern the Word of God from the human words? How can then anyone separate the authentic Word of God from those stories? The analysis and criticism of the Old Testament began since the eleventh century. Yet Sunday classes, TV Evangelists, and Jewish rabbis decided that this information could be confusing to the layperson. So they all approach religious preaching from a position of comfort that emphasizes the moral lessons of the Bible rather than introducing confusing issues that may be very hard to explain. Most likely, biblical preachers use the advice of Abraham ibn Ezra when he said “And he who understands will keep silent.” 

The Story of The Creation

The creation event is a fascinating case of two versions of the same story. At the beginning of the Bible, one version of how the world was created is presented. The second chapter of the Bible starts with a different version of creation. And both versions are scientifically inaccurate.  In several points they contradict each other. For example, they describe the major events in different order.

1.      In Genesis 1:1-26, God created plants on the third day and fish and birds on the fifth day. On the sixth day, He created animals and man.

2.      In Genesis 2:7-25, God created man first. Then He created plants. Then, for man to have company, God created animals and birds. And finally, God created woman.

 The two stories have different sequences of steps of creation.  Biblical scholars noticed that the first version referred to the deity as “God” thirty five times. The second version always refereed to Him by name “Yahweh God” eleven times. The first version never calls Him Yahweh, and the second version never calls Him only God. Therefore, it can be concluded that the first version was written by P, and the second version was written by J. P described the creation in great details to give a sense and a feel of the supremacy of God. It is interesting to note that Genesis 2:1-3 referred to the deity as “God”, after that He was referred to as “Lord God”, which might mean that the first three verses of Genesis 2 should be the end of genesis 1, and thus was part of P. However, in describing the details of the creation in seven days, P had created a theological crisis:

1.      If the sequence of the creation is not the same in the two versions, then which one is correct?

2.      If P, who holds an omnipotent view of God, wrote the whole first version, then how did P make God rest in the seventh day? Did someone other than P write the seventh day resting story? Was there a fifth source, for example “F”?

3.      Why the details of P have major scientific inaccuracies?  Maurice Bucaille in his book The Bible, the Quran and Science listed many scientific inaccuracies that show that the P version of creation is inconsistent with what we know now about the Big Bang theory.

 Keeping in mind that God cannot contradict Himself, the following points can be concluded:

1. God did not exactly inspire these two different versions.

2. The authentic story from God was edited, interpreted and expanded by at least two writers.

3.      The authentic sequence of creation, if any, was changed to conform to the different audience and the readers at the time of compilation.

 Now, we can understand why the Islamic religious books are divided into five categories, and the authentic Word of God is kept separate.

The Flood of Noah

The story of the flood exists in Genesis 6:5 to 8:22. Biblical scholars investigated this part of Genesis and separated the entire story from its two sources J and P. The P part refers to the deity as God, while the J part refers to God by the name Yahweh. The two versions differ in important details of the story:

1.      J sated that God regretted that he had made humans, and He was grieved to His Heart, Genesis 6:6. P did not say that.

2.      P says that the flood lasted for almost one year (7:11, 7:24, 8:3, and 8:13). J says that it lasted for forty days and forty nights (7:17).

3.      P says that Noah sent a raven, while J says it was a dove, Genesis 8:7-8.

4.      J has seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals. (“Clean” means proper for sacrifice like sheep, “unclean” means not proper for sacrifice like lions.)  This is because Noah offers a sacrifice at the end of the story in J. P has one pair of each kind of animal and the sacrifice event was not mentioned.

5.      J stated that God smelled the sacrifices of Noah and it pleased Him, Genesis 8:21.

 Now, we can understand why the Islamic religious books are divided into five categories, and the authentic Word of God is kept separate.

The Ten Commandments

The fact that the Ten Commandments are repeated in Exodus 20 and in Deuteronomy 5 almost word for word, with the exception of the fourth commandment raises very intriguing questions. Why? How did it happen? If these are words inspired by God, then why did God repeat Himself in 17 verses or in about half a chapter? Someone may say that God uses repetition for emphasis, why then is the fourth commandment the only difference?

 Biblical investigators agree that P wrote the Exodus version and D wrote the Deuteronomy version. The fourth commandment deals with the reason given by God for keeping the Sabbath. The Exodus version, 20:10, by P states that the reason is because God rested on the seventh day. The Deuteronomy version by D gives a very general reason like “And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and Yahweh thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by stretched out arm.” Deuteronomy 5:15. If P wrote this verse of Exodus, why then did he abandon his perspective of the deity as an Almighty and All-powerful God and made God rest on the seventh day. This part actually conforms to J, because it certainly does not fit the Priestly P. It is fascinating to note that the Exodus version, with God’s resting, is more publicized than the second one. This is probably to present a more potent reason to rest on Saturday. However, in doing that, they give the Almighty human characteristic.

 Now, we can understand why the Islamic religious books are divided into five categories, and the authentic Word of God is kept separate.

The Golden Calf

One of the most intriguing stories of the bible is that of the golden calf. Moses liberated the Israelis from slavery in Egypt. They had seen many miracles, the last of which was the splitting the Red Sea. While Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments on the mountain, Aaron made a golden calf for the people, Exodus 32:4-5. The people said: “these be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” And Aaron said: “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” The people sacrificed and celebrated wildly. At the same time, God told Moses about the terrible sin that the Israelis were committing, and God said that he would destroy the Israelis and make a great nation from Moses. Moses then asked God to repent of this evil act against the Israelis! The Lord repented and did not destroy the people. Moses came down from the mountain with Joshua, and saw the calf and the condition of the people. He, then, smashed the tablets in anger. The tribe of Levi gathered around Moses and carried out a bloody purge among the people. The story has many questions:

1.      Why did the writer of the story portray his people as rebellious at the very time of their freedom and their receiving the covenant?

2.      Why did he describe Aaron as the leader of this paganism?

3.      Why did Aaron not suffer any punishment?

4.      Why did the writer depict a golden calf?

5.      Why did the Jews refer to the golden calf (which is singular) as “these are your gods” (plural)? This sentence is exactly the same as that of Jeroboam when he built two temples for the golden calves, 1 king 12:28. Jeroboam was justified in using plural for the calves, but in Exodus they worshiped a singular calf.

6.      Why did they say, “which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” when the calf was made after they left Egypt?

7.      Why did Aaron say, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” when he allowed worshipping an idol?

8.      Why did he picture the Levites as acting in bloody rage?

9.      Why was Joshua not included in association with this particular sin?

10.   Is it conceivable that Moses asked God to repent of the evil of His wrath?

 The story was written by E from the Northern Kingdom of Israel who used to criticize both the northern and southern religious organizations. Aaron was regarded as a high priest. E could not change the history and the tradition by punishing the high priest. But E chose Aaron because the priests of the family of Aaron had been firmly established in Judah. So he accused Aaron, Moses’ brother, of paganism. In Exodus 4:10-15, when Moses first spoke to God, he said: “I am not a skilled speaker. I have never been able to speak well.”  According to the story in the Bible, Moses was reluctant to accept God’s Command, and therefore God said: “I will give you someone to help you. I will use your brother Aaron, from the family of Levi.” If this Word of God did not mean that Aaron was a Prophet, then what does? He was not just a high priest. Aaron was a Prophet in Judaism and Islam. However according to the Old Testament, due to tribal hostilities and wars between the north and the south, Prophet Aaron was accused of paganism, and was demoted from a Prophet to a high priest.

 Now, we can understand why the Islamic religious books are divided into five categories, and the authentic Word of God is kept separate.

Judah or Ephraim

This is a story of birthrights and inheritance issues with Jacob distributing his wealth among his family. E story is in Genesis 48 and J story is in genesis 49. In the E version, Jacob granted Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Manasseh equal share in everything he owned. Jacob was old and his eyes were weak. When Jacob was blessing Joseph and his sons, Joseph put Ephraim on his left side and Manasseh on his right side. But Jacob crossed his arms, so his right hand was on Ephraim’s head even though Manasseh was firstborn. This did not make Joseph happy. He took his father’s hand and wanted to put it on Manasseh’s head, but Jacob refused and argued that Ephraim would be greater than Manasseh. Why Ephraim? The writer of the E version was from Israel, and king Jeroboam was from the tribe of Ephraim.

Jacob’s first son was Reuben, Simon was the second, Levi was the third, and Judah was the fourth. The J story justifies the superiority of Judah and the formation of the kingdom of Judah. The first son Reuben was excluded from his birthright because he slept with one of his father’s wives and his father found that out. Simon and Levi were also excluded because they planned evil things, killed men, and hurt animals for fun. Therefore the birthright, in the J version, went to Judah who was praised by his father, described as a lion, and was told that his family would be kings.

 Now, we can understand why the Islamic religious books are divided into five categories, and the authentic Word of God is kept separate.

Isaac or Ismael.

Christian scholars apply their investigative techniques to biblical stories, and usually defend any evil action of some biblical figures. But when it comes to Ismael, then this is another story. There is no sense here to investigate who wrote the story of Hagar and Ismael. If J wrote that Judah got the birthright, and E claimed that the birthright went to Ephraim, and J and E were from the twelve tribes of Jacob, the son of Isaac, can anyone expect good words about Ismael, the brother of Isaac, from any writer? Ismael was the firstborn, and of course he was denied his birthright as in the above stories. Any reference to Hagar is accompanied with such description as the maid and the Egyptian servant. The entire blessing and the praise went to Isaac. The Angel of the Lord told Hagar that “Ismael would be wild man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand would be against him, and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren,” Genesis 16: 12. Recall that Aaron got much more disrespect when he was accused with paganism in the golden calf story. The honor of ultimate test of obedience, Abraham sacrificing his “only son”, was given to Isaac instead of Ismael, Genesis 22. In fact, it was Ismael who was about to be sacrificed for the sake of God. Ismael knew what would happen to him and he surrendered to the will of God. So the writers of the Bible took the honor and praise from Ismael.

In Genesis 17:20 God said to Hager: “As for Ismael, I have heard thee: Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly; twelve princes shall he beget, and I will make him a great nation.” This verse states clearly that Ismael is blessed. God also said that his children would form a great nation.  This great nation is obviously the Arab nation that started in the Saudi peninsula.

Also, God the Almighty left us with a formidable miracle that no one could take away from Ismael and his children. In Genesis 21:17-20 God’s angel came to help Hagar and the baby Ismael when they were thirsty, and God allowed Hagar to see a well of water. So Hagar went to the well and filled her bag with water. Then she gave water to Ismael to drink. Now, what is this formidable miracle? This referenced well still exists in the Paran desert in Mecca. Since the time of Abraham, that well never dried. Every year millions and millions of Muslims still drink from the well. It is called Zamzam. The Saudis added compressors to the well Zamzam to lift up more and more water. This living miracle has existed for thousands of years. All miracles of the Bible disappeared, but the will of God for praising Ismael still defies time.

 Now, we can understand why the Islamic religious books are divided into five categories, and the authentic Word of God is kept separate.

To See or Not To See

After Jacob wrestled with God, “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”  Genesis 32:30.

When Moses beseeched God to see Him, God responded: “You cannot see my face, for no man can see me and live” Exodus 33:20.

E wrote the first verse claiming that Jacob wrestled with God, saw his face and nothing happened to him. P wrote the second verse that denied the action of seeing God by anyone.

1.      Which story do you believe?

2.      Was E trying to elevate the status of Jacob above Moses?

To Rest or Not to Rest

 The Jews’ reason to rest on Saturday “For in six days, the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed.” Exodus 31:17.

  The Prophet Isaiah says that people can’t imagine what God is like “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting god, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding” Isaiah 40:28.

Which verse of the Old Testament fits your perception of God the Almighty?

The Lord or Satan

David was asked by the Lord to number Israel and Judah:

“And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah” 2 Samuel 24:1.

Then in 1 Chronicles 21:1, David was provoked by Satan to number Israel:

“And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.”

Again, these two verses raise very interesting questions:

1.      Are these explanations of the reason for numbering the Jews refer to the same story?

2.      Or did God ask David to number Israel and Judah, while Satan provoked David to number Israel alone? And if so, why?

3.      Did the two writers have different political interests about the reason for numbering? And if so, could both stories be inspired by God?

The revisers of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible had this to say about the authors of Samuel and Chronicles:

1.      Samuel: Author “Unknown”

2.      Chronicles: Author “Unknown”, probably collected and edited by Ezra.

5.3 The Prophets in the Old Testament

Islam is based on reason and on pure teachings of all the Prophets of Allah not contaminated with paganism or corruption. Allah sent all the Prophets for the guidance of mankind. All Prophets were humans, and every one of them is a righteous example for the entire humanity. Because they were humans, they could do mistakes, not sins. However, the Bible is full of degrading stories about many Prophets as if God had sent the wrong people for our guidance. No Muslim would dare to write a book and stamp the Prophets of Allah (Allah’ blessings and peace be upon all) with paganism, rape, adultery, prostitution or incest. They all have the respect that they deserve. The subject of the Prophets should not be approached as such: if you are Jewish, Moses is the only Good example, and if you are a Christian, Jesus is your only example and savior. Each Prophet is a good example for the entire human race to follow.

Here are some of the stories from the Bible about the corruption and sins of the Prophets. These stories show that the Jewish people did not have any respect for most of their Prophets. None of the following stories are mentioned in the Quran or the Islamic tradition.

Drunken Noah

The Bible states that after the flood, Noah became a farmer, (Gen. 9:20-23). He planted a field of grapes. Noah made wine and drank it. He became drunk and lay naked in his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his naked father. He told his brothers outside the tent. Then Shem and Japheth got a coat. They walked backwards into the tent, so they did not see their father naked. The wine made Noah sleep. But when he woke, he learned what Ham had done. He cursed Ham, and prayed that he be the slave of his brothers.

We are familiar with the tribal feuds of the Israelis. Who wrote this story? Of course, it should have not come from the tribes of Ham, but most likely from the tribes of Shem or Japheth.

• Does this story identify a man that God chose to save the righteous people and destroy the unbelievers?
• 
• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
Moses Kills Women and Boys

The book of Numbers narrates an incredible story about Moses. He asked his army to get even with the Midianites. The Israeli army killed all the Midianite men and burned all their towns and villages. They took the women, children, and animals and brought them to Moses. Moses was very angry with the leaders of the army. Moses said to them "Why did you let the women live." "Now kill all the Midianite boys and women and spare the women who had not sexual relations with any man" Numbers 31:15-17. The women who were spared were 32,000! Now imagine how many men, women and boys were killed by the command of Moses.

• Is this the same Moses who preached the commandment "Thou shall not kill"?
• 
• If those people were killed because they had sexually transmitted disease, why kill the boys and spare the girls? And how many people did they slaughter?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story to Christian boys?
• 
 

Lot and incest

Lot was the nephew of Abraham, and he is a Prophet in Islam. However, the Bible (Genesis 19:30-36) tells an unbelievable story. Lot took his two daughters to live in a cave in the mountain. The daughters conspired to use their father to grow a family by getting him drunk and then having sex with their father each in one night. They did that, and they became pregnant. The older daughter gave birth to a son called Moab (Hebrew: from my father!), and the younger daughter gave birth to a son called Ben-Ammi (Hebrew: Son of my father!)

So the Bible tells us that it was not enough for Lot’s daughters to commit this scandal, but to give their illegitimate children names to publicize their act!

• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
Jacob and the Red Lentil Soup

This is another story of the effect of tribal politics on compiling the Old Testament. Abraham’s son, Isaac, married Rebekah. While she was pregnant, God told her that she would have twin sons in her body, and that the older son would serve the younger, Genesis (25: 22-34). The first baby was red and hairy, so he was called Esau, (means hairy). When the second baby was born, he was holding tightly to Esau’ heel, so he was called Jacob, (means heel or tricky). In the ancient Near East, birth order was extremely important, because the firstborn son was entitled to the birthright, which meant the largest portion of the father’s inheritance. Esau and Jacob grew up. One time Esau came back from the field hungry. He asked his brother to let him have some of the red lentil soup that Jacob was eating. And for some of the red lentil soup, Jacob asked for Esau’s rights as firstborn in return. Esau did not have a choice. If he died from hunger, Jacob would have all of his father’s wealth anyway.

When the time came for Isaac to give the birthright to Esau, Rebekah encouraged Jacob to pose as his older brother. To deceive his weak-eyed father, Jacob put on his brother’s clothing and goatskin on his arms to simulate hairy arms. Isaac gave Jacob the blessing and the birthright that included the control over Esau. When Esau came in from hunting, he knew what happened and he asked Isaac for another blessing for him. Isaac said: Jacob tricked him, and you will be a slave to your brother, but you will break away from his control.

Again this story has many questions:

• Why all these details, that even included red lentil soup, in the Word of God?
• 
• Why did the story emphasize that Esau and Isaac were twin brothers?
• 
• Why did the writer say that God told Rebekah that her older son would serve her younger son?
• 
• Why did Isaac give the birthright to Jacob?
• 
• Why was Esau given the promise that he would be free from Isaac?
• 
The answers lie in the history of the tribes of Israel, and the knowledge about their tribal feud and wars between Israel and Judah. First, the writer of this story conforms to J, because he refers to God Yahweh, and J is from Judah. The southern kingdom of Judah had borders with the land of Edom, the tribe of Esau. J was actually fabricating a part of history, not the Word of God. J composed the story of his people’s ancestors with an eye on explaining and justifying the present and past history. Esau, after eating the red lentil soup, became known as "red". The word for red in Hebrew is "Edom". Esau and Jacob were twins, like Judah and Edom were related neighbors, in language and origin. The United Kingdom of Israel-Judah under David defeated Edom and controlled it for two hundred years. Then Edom achieved its independence in 848 BC.

Sunday preachers do not mention this deceiving action or even justify the cunning behavior of Jacob, the father of Israel. The greedy negotiating tactic of Jacob for getting his father’s wealth in exchange of some red lentil soup is just beyond comprehension. Even if it is mentioned, it is usually minimized or justified as God’s will.

Jacob’s Family

The Prophet Jacob was married to two sisters, Leah and Rachel, at the same time, (Gen. 29 22-30). Leah was the mother of all his children except Joseph and Benjamin whose mother was Rachel. Jacob’s daughter Dinah was kidnapped and raped by the son of the king, Gen. 34:2. Dinah’s brothers, Simon and Levi, killed the king and his son for revenge, Gen. 34:26. Jacob’s sons from Leah conspired to throw Joseph into a well, Gen. 37:20. Jacob’s first son Reuben was accused by Jacob of sleeping with one of his father’s wives, Gen. 49:4.

This Biblical story does not seem like a family of a Prophet of God, but a soap opera on the TV. But we all know how those stories were written. May the blessings and peace of Allah be upon Jacob and Joseph.

• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
Judah and Tamar

To continue the saga of Jacob’s family, Judah was one of his sons. Genesis 38 tells the story of the father of the Jewish race, from whom we derive the name Judea and Judaism. This patriarch of the Judaism got married and God granted him three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. When the first-born was old enough, Judah had him married to a lady called Tamar. "But Er, Judah’s first born was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him." Gen. 38:7. Following the Jewish tradition, if a brother died and left no offspring, it was the duty of the other brother to give "seed" to his sister in law, so that the deceased’s name might be perpetuated. Judah, in honor with this custom, ordered his second son Onan to do this duty. But jealousy entered his heart. It would be his seed, but the name would be his brother’s. "He spilled it (sperms) on the ground...and the thing he did displeased the Lord: wherefore He slew him also." Gen. 38:9-10. The sexual therapists call the act of Onan "Onanism!"

Now Judah told his daughter in law, Tamar, to return to her father’s house until his third son Shelah grew up, and then she would be back to marry the third son. Shelah grew up and perhaps married another woman. Judah was terrified to fulfill his promise to Tamar, because he already lost two sons. The distressed young lady resolved to take revenge on her father in law for depriving her of her "seed" right. Tamar learned that Judah was going on a trip. She planned to get even with him on the road. Judah saw her but he thought that she was a prostitute because she had covered her face. So Judah went to her and said: Let me have sexual relations with you. He promised her in return that he would send her a young goat. She asked for his seal as a guarantee for the goat. He accepted and he "came in unto her, and she conceived by him." Gen. 38:18 Judah knew that Tamar sinned like a prostitute, and she was pregnant and Judah wanted to burn her. Of course after he learned what happened, he did not burn her or burn himself!

• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
David and Adultery

King David was a Prophet of Allah. The Bible tells a story about David when he was in Jerusalem, (II Samuel 11:1-5). In an evening, David got up from his bed. He walked around the roof of the king’s house. While he was on the roof, he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful. So David sent for his soldiers and asked them who the woman was. An officer answered that the woman’s name is Bathsheba and she was married to one of David’s soldier called Uriah. David sent messengers to bring Bathsheba to him. When she came to David, he had sexual relation with her. She washed herself, and then went back to her house. But Bathsheba became pregnant, and she sent word to David about her pregnancy. David did not stop at that, but he sent Uriah to the front line where the fighting was the hardest to be killed in the battle.

• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
• How could David then be accepted in the genealogy of Jesus when it started with a person who committed adultery? Allah forbids it!
• 
David Kills Tens of Thousands

Saul put David in charge of the Israeli army who went to fight the Philistines. On the way home after the battles, Israeli women in every city in Israel came out to meet David. They enjoyed very much the slaughter of people; they danced and played music. They sang: "Saul killed thousands of the enemies, but David killed tens of thousands." It was a competition of slaughtering people between Saul and David. 1 Samuel 18:5-7.

• Did David believe in the Ten Commandments? He killed people and committed adultery.
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church?
• 
Solomon and Paganism

Solomon the son of David was a Prophet of Allah who gave him wisdom and wealth. According to the Bible, (I Kings 11:3-10), Solomon had 700 wives. He also had 300 slave women that were like wives to him. When Solomon was old, his wives forced him to follow theirs gods. Solomon worshipped Ashtoreth, the Cananite goddess of love and war. And Solomon also worshipped Milcom, the god of the Ammonite people. Solomon built a place on a hill next to Jerusalem for worshipping Chemosh, the idol of the Moabite people. Solomon also built a temple for Molech, the idol of the Ammonite people. Solomon did the same thing for all of his wives from other countries. The Lord came to Solomon and told him that he must not follow other gods. But Solomon did not follow the Lord’s command.

• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
David’s Son and Incest

According to the holy Bible, (II Samuel 13:1-20) Prophet David had a son named Amnon. Amnon had a half-sister called Tamar who was very beautiful. Amnon was in love with Tamar who was a virgin. He pretended to be sick and asked his sister to bring him food into the bedroom and feed him with her hand. When she began feeding her brother, he grabbed her and asked her to sleep with him. Tamar refused, but he forced her to have sex with him. After that he hated her, and locked her in a room. In this story, there is a private event in the Holy Bible between Amnon and his sister. How was this story revealed to the writers of the Bible?

• Did Amnon damage his sister’s name by bragging about sexually assaulting her?
• 
• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
Another one of David’s Son and Multiple Rape

Yet another multiple rape episode by Absalom, the brother of Tamar, on David’s wives, as told in II Samuel 16:20-23. David left some of his wives to take care of the house. Absalom was given advice to go and have sexual relations with them, so all the Israelis would hear that David hated his son, and the people would be encouraged to give Absalom more support. Absalom put up a tent on the roof of the house, and he had sexual relations with his father’s wives. All the Israelis saw it!

• What is the moral lesson in this story of the Holy Bible?
• 
• Can Christian preachers tell this story in the church to young people?
• 
• Do you believe that anyone, even a barbarian, in the world could do this?
• 
Societies today are raged by violence and sex. However, the present violence and sex do not reach that level that were committed by Prophets and there families. Are these the Prophets of God that we should look up to them as examples for righteousness and obedience of Allah?

5.4 The Axial Age

Historians call the period from 800 to 200 BC the axial age. This period witnessed the introduction of major world religions. It was a period of great empires in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, and then Greece. International politics had an impact on religion and the belief of the people in the Middle East and its surroundings. The Greek philosophy had reached its peak during this time. This period had a crucial effect on the development of Christianity after Jesus. During this time, polytheistic religions, history, and philosophy were setting the stage for shaping a religion that was founded by Jesus, and later compromised and reinterpreted by other people.

When the Assyrian Empire destroyed the kingdom of Israel in 722 BC, Judah was a weak kingdom. The great empires of the East were interested in destroying the rest of the Jews in Judah. The kings of Judah honored a pagan god in the Temple, and the priests denounced them for promoting paganism. King Hezekiah ruled Judah around 715 to 687 BC, and carried out religious and political reforms. But then his son and grandson did not follow his footsteps. Assyrian forces returned to Judah and reintroduced pagan worship. Then an important change took place in the international scene. The Assyrian empire was getting weaker, and Babylon was threatening to replace it as the major power in the Near East. In 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem and took Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and many of his people prisoners to Babylon. In 587 BC, Nebuchadnezzar burned Jerusalem. Its population was exiled as prisoners in Babylon or as refugees in Egypt. Their temple was destroyed, and the Ark was lost, which remains a mystery to this day.

The exile of the Judeans to Babylon was a major turning point in Jewish theology. The prior history of Israel now was reinterpreted in light of the burning of Jerusalem in 587, laying the foundation for the traditional biblical Pentateuch, Prophetic canon, and historical books. The Prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah believed that Yahweh had used the Babylonian Empire to punish the Israelites for their sins, and he therefore had the power to redeem them from captivity if they repented. The Jews hoped for a restored Judean kingdom under the leadership of an heir of the royal house of David. In 539 BC the kingdom of Babylon fell to the Persian Cyrus the great (600 - 529 BC). After the defeat of Babylon, he permitted a restoration of subject populations and local temples. The Persians did not allow the re-establishment of a Judean monarchy, but only a temple-state with the high priest as its chief administrator. The Persian Empire was the most powerful state in the world until its conquest two centuries later by Alexander the Great.

Zoroaster (628 - 551 BC) founded the Zoroastrian religion in Persia. The basic concept of this religion consists of an interesting mixture of monotheistic worship of Ahura Mazda (Lord Wisdom) and an ethical dualism of opposing Truth and Lie, which encompass the entire universe. All that is good derives from, and is supported by, Ahura Mazda's emanations: Spenta Mainyu (Holy Spirit) and his six assisting entities, Good Mind, Truth, Power, Devotion, Health, and Life. All evil is caused by Angra Mainyu and by his assistants. Angra Mainyu is evil by choice, having allied himself with Lie, whereas Spenta Mainyu has chosen Truth. So too, human beings must choose between Truth and Lie. Upon death each person's soul will be judged at the Bridge of Discrimination; the follower of Truth will live in paradise, and the adherents of Lie will fall into hell. All evil will eventually be eliminated on earth in an ordeal of fire and molten metal. The religious practice was centered about worship of fire. For example, a sacred flame was always kept burning in their temples. After Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, the Zoroastrian religion underwent a constant decline. Eventually, the Persians regained their independence. During the Sassanid dynasty (226 - 651 AD), Zoroastrianism was again adopted as the state religion of Persia. A dualistic form of the Zoroastrian religion affected the fourth century Christianity in Manichaeism.

Confucius (551 - 479 BC) established a religion in China that is a mixture of sacred philosophy and ethical doctrine. Confucianism provides rules for the proper conduct of family, community, and political affairs. Although Confucianism became the ethic of the mandarin class, the elite group, Confucius himself came from a poor family. The principle upon which he built his doctrine is reciprocity, meaning to treat people as you want to be treated. This is considered central to producing an ideal relationship, and is recorded in the Analects, a collection of Confucius’s most famous sayings. Confucius also taught the importance of many other virtues, including loyalty, wisdom, self-control, piety, and self-development. Confucius used the family as a model for society. Those who are in power should rule for the well being of the people, while the rest of society should obey and respect the authority, as children do to their parents. Unlike the major religions, Confucianism is not oriented to the metaphysical. Confucius did not speculate about afterlife. In this religion there are no sins, only errors and mistakes.

5.5 The Hellenistic Age

The Hellenistic Age (4th-1st century BC) is the period between the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great and the establishment of Roman supremacy. In this era, Greek culture, art and philosophy were introduced to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. One of the greatest achievements occurred in sciences, where Greek and non-Greek mingled to produce remarkable results. It is called Hellenistic (Greek Hellas, “Greece”) to distinguish it from the Hellenic culture of classical Greece.

 Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), king of Macedonia, was one of the greatest military geniuses of all times. Aristotle was Alexander's tutor; he gave Alexander a thorough training in rhetoric and literature and stimulated his interest in science, medicine, and philosophy. Before the end of the summer of 336 BC he had reestablished his position in Greece and was elected by a congress of states at Corinth.

 Alexander began his war against Persia in the spring of 334 BC with an army of 35,000 Macedonian and Greek troops. Alexander encountered the main Persian army, commanded by King Darius III, at Issus, in northeastern Syria. The Battle of Issus, in 333, ended in a great victory for Alexander. He captured Gaza next and then passed on into Egypt, where he was greeted as a deliverer. By these successes he secured control of the entire eastern Mediterranean coastline. Later in 332 he founded, at the mouth of the Nile River, the city of Alexandria, which later became the literary, scientific, and commercial center of the Greek world.

 In the spring of 331 Alexander made a pilgrimage to the great temple of Amon-Ra, Egyptian god of the sun, whom the Greeks identified with Zeus. The earlier Egyptian pharaohs were believed to be sons of Amon-Ra; and Alexander, the new ruler of Egypt, wanted the god to acknowledge him as his son. The pilgrimage apparently was successful, and it may have confirmed in him a belief in his own divine origin. Turning northward again, he crossed the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers and continued to expand his empire. His domain then extended along and beyond the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, including modern Afghanistan and Balochistan, and northward into Bactria and Sogdiana, the modern Turkestan, also known as Central Asia.

 Shortly before he died, Alexander ordered the Greek cities to worship him as a god. Although he probably gave the order for political reasons, he was, in his own view and that of his contemporaries, of divine birth. The order was largely nullified by his death. To bind his conquests together, Alexander founded a number of cities, most of them named Alexandria, along his line of march; these cities were well located, well paved, and provided with good water supplies. Greek veterans from his army settled in them; young men, traders, merchants, and scholars were attracted to them; Greek culture was introduced; and the Greek language became widely known. Thus, Alexander vastly extended the influence of Greek civilization.

 The Hellenistic world was dominated by three great monarchies founded by the successors of Alexander: Egypt under the Ptolemies; Syria, ruled by the Seleucids; and Macedonia under the Antigonid dynasty. The urban elite in these kingdoms spoke koine (common) Greek, which became the new international language, and their religion, art, and literature were a mixture of Greek and native elements. Under the Ptolemies, who used their wealth to attract poets, scholars, artists, and scientists, Alexandria became a great economic, cultural, and religious center. Systematic scholarship was encouraged at new institutes of learning, such as the famous Alexandrian Library, where studies in historical linguistics, grammar, lexicography, and literary criticism were pursued. Many advances were made in such sciences as empirical medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. The basic views of Hellenistic thinkers were not seriously challenged until the 16th century. Two of the main philosophical schools of the age were Stoicism and Epicureanism:

1. The Stoics taught that one should live according to nature, which is the divine reason, Logos that permeates all things. Logos, a word signifying reason, is the governing principle in the universe. The prudent should be free from passion and calmly accept everything, as the unavoidable result of the divine will, thus achieve freedom from suffering.  The stoics also taught that it is possible for a moral human being to become divine. This had also been essential to the Platonic view.

2.      The Epicureans were devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. They were fond of good food, comfort, and ease of life. Their philosophy sought freedom from pain and suffering, rejected the afterlife and the influence of gods, and held that all things are composed of atoms.

 The religion of the Hellenistic Age combined the Greek gods with Eastern deities. The Hebrew bible was translated into Greek at Alexandria, and the language of the later New Testament was koine. As the Hellenistic monarchies declined in the second and first centuries BC, the Romans gradually extended their control over Greece and the Middle East. The Roman civilization that subsequently became dominant was in many ways a continuation of Hellenistic culture.

5.6 Greek Philosophy

Greek Philosophy is a compilation of philosophical concepts developed by the Greeks, particularly during the peak of Greek civilization between 600 and 200 BC. Greek philosophy formed the basis of all later philosophical concepts in the Western world. The intuitive hypotheses of the ancient Greeks suggested many theories of modern science. Also many of the moral ideas of pagan Greek philosophers have been incorporated into Christian moral doctrine. Educated Greeks turned to philosophy, not religion, for enlightenment. Their saints and priests were such philosophers as Plato, Pythagoras and Epictetus. They even saw them as sons of god. Plato, for example, was considered to be the son of Apollo. The average Greeks trusted philosophers to provide answer for the eternal questions of why do humans suffer and how to enjoy life. The people needed a simple answer that they could understand. Greek philosophy may be divided between those philosophers who sought an explanation of the world in physical terms and those who emphasized the importance of human thoughts or ideals.

The Search for Wisdom

The word philosophy means, "love of wisdom." Greek schools sought the wisdom that would help people to live happy and worthwhile lives. The Ionian school was the first important school of Greek philosophy. It was based upon materialistic concepts that attempted to discover the building block of all matter. This school was founded by Thales of Miletus (640? -546? BC), who suggested that water is the basic substance from which all matter is created. A more complex view was offered by Anaximander (611-547 BC), who held that the raw material of all matter is an eternal substance that changes into the known forms of matter. These forms in turn change and merge into one another according to the rule of justice, that is, balance and proportion. Heraclitus advocated that fire is the original source of matter, but he believed that the entire world is in a constant state of change and that a mixture of different matters produces most objects and substances. He considered the soul, for example, as a mixture of fire and water. Anaxagoras (500-428? BC) introduced dualistic explanation of the universe, that is to say that the universe consists of living and non-living matters. He developed the concept of nous (reason), which he considered as an infinite and unchanging substance that entered into and controlled every living object. This concept of eternal substance was later adopted in formulating the doctrines of Christianity during the Ecumenical Councils of Churches.

A more materialistic interpretation was made by Empedocles, who accepted the belief that reality is eternal, but considered that it consists of the four basic substances: fire, air, earth, and water. Materialism applied to daily life inspired the philosophy of a group known as the Sophists, who were active in the fifth century BC. With their emphasis on the importance of human wisdom they doubted that humanity would ever be able to reach truth through logic and taught that material success rather than truth should be the purpose of life.

The division between idealism and materialism became more distinct. Pythagoras stressed the importance of form rather than matter in explaining material structure. The Pythagorean School also emphasized the importance of the soul, regarding the body only as the soul's "tomb." The beliefs of Pythagoras formed the basis of the idealism that was to characterize later Greek philosophy.

Socrates

The ideas of Socrates, (470-399 BC), represented Greek philosophy at its highest level. He spent much of his time teaching and asking questions of the people he met. He asked: What is the purpose of your life? What is good? What is justice? Such questions stimulated people to examine the conduct of their lives? Socrates believed that a life without questions is not worth living. Socrates wrote nothing himself, but from the writings of his student Plato, we know the important ideas he taught. He advocated that each person should learn to understand himself. "Know thyself" was the slogan of Socrates. Socrates described the soul as a combination of an individual's intelligence and character.

Socrates' contribution to philosophy was essentially ethical in character. Belief of such concepts as justice, love, and virtue, and the self-knowledge that he emphasized, was the basis of his teachings. He believed that all corruption is the result of ignorance, and that no person is willingly bad; thus morality is knowledge, and those who know the right will act rightly. His logic placed special emphasis on rational argument.

Although a patriot and a man of deep moral values, some leaders of Athens were afraid of his ideas. They accused Socrates of teaching young people dangerous concepts leading them away from the principles of democracy, and they brought him to trial. He was charged in 399 BC with neglecting the gods of the state and introducing new divinities. Since he refused to change his way, Socrates was sentenced to die by only a small majority. When, according to Athenian legal practice, Socrates made an ironic counter proposition to the court's death sentence, proposing only to pay a small fine because of his value to the state as a man with a philosophic mission, this offer angered the jury that it voted by an increased majority for the death penalty. Socrates' friends planned his escape from prison, but he preferred to obey the law and die for his cause. At the age of seventy, he was executed according to the Greek custom by being given a cup of the poison hemlock.

Plato and Aristotle

The death of Socrates did not stop other Greeks from continuing the search for wisdom. His idealism was arranged by his student Plato, (428-347 BC). Plato wrote many dialogues: books describing real and imaginary philosophical conversations among his friends. In such dialogues as the republic, Plato presented his ideas: People should be guided in their lives by eternal principles such as justice, love, and honor. Only the wisest men and women should rule the people. There should be no rule by vote of the majority. In his theory of ideas, Plato considered the objects of the real world as being merely shadows of divine Forms or ideas. Only these divine Forms can be the objects of true knowledge; the perception of their shadows, that is, the real world as heard, seen, and felt, is merely opinion. Plato believed that the eternal Forms, "Gods", communicate to people through their powers and not by themselves. They are the highest reality that the human mind can grasp. The goal of the philosopher, he said, is to know the eternal Forms and to educate others in that knowledge.

Aristotle, (384-322 BC), was the son of a physician to the royal court. From his father, Aristotle gained an interest in biology, zoology, physics, anatomy, astronomy, geology, and almost every other field known to the ancient Greek. He was one of the students who studied under Plato. He believed that people should examine, describe, and classify as many forms of life as possible, because it is important to have scientific knowledge. Aristotle stated that the universe consists of four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, plus a fifth element that exists everywhere and is the sole constituent of the heavenly bodies "above" the moon.

Aristotle advocated the existence of a divine being, described as the Prime Mover, who is responsible for the unity and direction of nature. God is perfect and therefore the aspiration of all things in the world, because all things desire to share perfection. The Prime Mover, or God, described by Aristotle was not very suitable for religious purposes, as many later philosophers and theologians have observed. Aristotle limited his "theology," however, to what he believed science requires and can establish. Aristotle seemed to have been strongly opposed to Plato’s view of the Forms, rejecting the concept that they had a prior and independent existence.

Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria (20 BC - 50 AD) was a Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher. Philo was considered the greatest Jewish philosopher of his time. However, he used exclusively the doctrines of Greek philosophy that he must be considered also a Greek philosopher. He combined the Greek philosophical concepts into an original form.

Philo was born in Alexandria, Egypt, to a wealthy, aristocratic Jewish family and received a thorough education in the Old Testament and in Greek literature and philosophy. He had an intimate knowledge of the works of Homer and of the Greek tragedians, but his chief studies were in Greek philosophy, especially the teachings of the Pythagoreans, Plato, and the Stoics.

Philo was a devout Jew. He considered the divinity of the Jewish law as the basis and test of all true philosophy. He maintained that the greater part of the Pentateuch, in both its historical and legal portions, could be explained symbolically, and that its deepest and truest significance is to be found through such interpretation. He conceived God as a being with neither attributes nor human qualities: to say that God is "angry", for example, is wrong. God is better than virtue and knowledge, and better than the beautiful and the good. He is a Being so exalted above the world. God communicates with the world through his "powers", which seem close to Plato’s Forms. These powers are real, active powers, surrounding God as a group of attendant beings. An individual's duties consist of adoration of God and love and righteousness toward others. Humans are immortal by reason of their heavenly nature. Mere living after death, common to all humanity, differs from the future existence of the perfect souls, for whom paradise is oneness with God.

Many of the numerous existing works of Philo are concerned with the adoration and the symbolic interpretation of Genesis and with the display of the Law of Moses to Gentiles. He interpreted the story of God’s visit to Abraham with two angles, for example, as God’s essence with two senior powers. His other writings include biographies of biblical characters and a series of works on the Ten Commandments. Jews have always found that Philo’s concept of God somewhat inauthentic. Christians, however, would find him extremely supportive. The concept of the oneness with God in paradise was later used in the New Testament.

5.7 Jewish Religious Groups

By the first century BC, the Law of Moses had become extremely important to the Jews. The people had studied and argued over the law. They understood the Law in different ways, but many Jews were ready to fight and die for that Law. There were three major religious groups among the Jews and there were scribes (lawyers or scholars) in each group.

The Sadducees

One of the groups was called the Sadducees, who descended from mainly aristocratic families. This sect was formed about 200 BC. They accepted only the Law (the five books of Moses), and not the oral tradition accepted by the Pharisees. Many of the priests and the people in authority were Sadducees. The Pentateuch taught many things about the priests and sacrifices, but it did not teach them about life after death. So the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead because it is only found in the book of Daniel, composed long after Moses’ time, which in their view lacked authority. Their sect was centered on the cult of the Temple, and they ceased to exist after its destruction in 70 AD.

The Pharisees

This second group established their name from a Hebrew word meaning "separatists" or "deviants." Their opponents were the Sadducees, who probably gave them their name. The Pharisees began their activities about 166 B.C. with an attempt to teach and interpret the Law of Moses to the common people. The Pharisees accepted an interpretation of Judaism that was in opposition to the priestly Temple cult. They stressed faith in the One God; the divine revelation of the law both written and oral handed down by Moses through Joshua, the elders, and the Prophets to the Pharisees. So they were very careful about what to eat, what to touch, about washing their hands and bathing. They also believed in eternal life and resurrection for those who keep the law, because they understood that many later Prophets said that it would happen. By separating Judaism from the Temple cult, and by stressing the direct relation between the individual and God, the Pharisees laid the groundwork for standard rabbinic Judaism. Their influence on Christianity was substantial as well, despite the passages in the New Testament that label the Pharisees "hypocrites" or "offspring of the vipers." St. Paul was originally a Pharisee. After the fall of the Temple 70 A.D., the Pharisees became the dominant party until 135 A.D.

The Essenes

This was the third group of a small Jewish religious sect, starting in the second century B.C. They lived as a highly structured community that held possessions in common. They believed that many of the priests in Jerusalem did not live according to the way of God. Also, the Romans had appointed many of the high priests, and some of these men were not qualified according the Law of Moses. Because of this, the Essenes did not think that worship and sacrifices were being done properly in Jerusalem. So the Essenes moved out in the Judean desert to live. They formed their own community, where only other Essenes could come and live. The Essenes fasted and prayed and waited for God to send several Messiahs and purify the Temple and the priesthood. Their practice of purification through ritual submergence in water might have been a significant influence on the development of the ritual of baptism in the early Christian church. Although they did not condemn marriage as impious, they expected full members of the community to be celibate. The sect ceased to exist sometime in the second century. A.D.

6

Evolution of Christianity

Four Phases Theory

I tried to understand how did the teachings of Jesus (Pbuh) evolve into a religion, with a name that was neither declared by Jesus, the original founder, nor mentioned in the Bible. How did the theology of Christianity evolve? Who started the name "Christianity"? What is the origin of the Trinity? Jesus never mentioned the Trinity. As I was studying the Christian history, it became obvious that Christianity evolved in four phases. Each phase took it further away from Jesus’ message. Historians report stories of the past with a certain package that depends on their intention and the message that they attempt to emphasize. Sometimes, historical facts are being "tampered and altered" to convince the people with certain points of view. Christian history is abundant with such views. Christianity as it exists today is an altered version of the teachings of Jesus Christ.

The Four Phases Theory

The Theory of the Four Phases started right after Jesus, and lasted for about 800 years. Each phase took the religion further away from the original message of Jesus. This Four Phases Theory can be identified in chronological order as follows:

1. The first phase: The establishment of Pauline Christianity as a major drive to attract the Gentiles to the new religion. This was accomplished by the victory of the liberal Paul, who cancelled the Mosaic Law, over the conservative original apostles.
2. 
3. The second phase: Writing of the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and their influence on the pagan converts.
4. 
5. The third phase: The fierce theological struggle of the fathers of the church to accommodate their perceptions of God of the Old and New Testaments with the Greek culture.
6. 
7. The fourth phase: The establishment of the doctrines by the Ecumenical Councils and the role of the emperors and empresses in shaping the Christianity.
8. 
Because of these four phases, we have a religion that was compromised to attract more pagan coverts at the expense of the purity and the holiness of the original message of Jesus.

Due to the crucial importance of the Gospels, this chapter starts by examining the Gospels. The average Christians believe that all the writers of the Gospels were contemporaries of Jesus, recording the message of Jesus with honesty, integrity and virtue. They assume that Matthew wrote the Gospel according to Matthew, and Mark wrote the Gospel according to Mark, etc. They also believe that the Evangelists wrote the New Testament by inspiration of God or the Holy Ghost. It can be proven that the Gospels according to the Evangelists are full of major contradictions. Thus negating the notion that any of these Gospels was inspired by God or the Holy Ghost. It is important to note that if there were even a single contradiction in the Gospels, the idea of divine inspiration would collapse. The Almighty does not contradict Himself.

For a quick head start, consider the following questions:

• Who are the real Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?
• 
• What were Jesus’ last words on the cross in the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John?
• 
• How did Judas die in the Gospels according to Matthew, and Acts?
• 
• How did the people who arrested Jesus identify him in the Gospels according to Matthew, and John?
• 
To prove that God did not inspire the entire New Testament, let us apply the same method that was adopted in the previous chapter. The origin and the contradictions in the New Testament will be exposed. First, the name "New Testament" should be questioned, because nowhere does it refer to itself with such name. Christian scholars followed the same steps of analysis that the critics of the Old Testament had pursued. As mentioned before, the contradictions in the Old Testament started by scholars noticing that there are parts in the Books of Moses, that should have been written after Moses, especially the part that addresses Moses’ death. Then scholars found more and more contradictions. Next, when contradictions are found in a Holy Book, supposedly inspired totally by God, then the question of authenticity of the entire book is raised.

As for the New Testament, it appears that the discrepancy of the genealogy of Jesus according to Matthew and Luke was the first contradiction that was discovered. This was followed by critical examination of the entire New Testament to establish the degree of inconsistency. Apart from the general accounts of Jesus' arrest, trial, death, and resurrection, which are generally similar in all four Gospels, they differ in important details. Neither Matthew nor John accounts for Jesus’ Ascension. Luke in his Gospel places the Ascension on the day of the Resurrection and forty days later in the Acts of the Apostles, which is assumed to be by the same Luke. Mark mentions it, without giving a date, which suggests that it is not thought to be authentic. The Ascension, which is a major Christian event, therefore, has no solid scriptural basis. Commentators nevertheless approach this subject casually.

The first three Gospels are called synoptic Gospels because despite their differences, they can be viewed together. General comparison of Matthew, Mark, and Luke impresses the reader with such agreements that they have generated many theories about their relationships. One of the most widely held scholarly opinion is that Mark was the earliest Gospel and became a source for Matthew and Luke. Most likely, Matthew and Luke each had other common sources as well. This assumption is based upon the source of much shared texts not found in Mark. The interrelation of the Gospels also has continued to attract much study. In 1863, Holtzmann introduced the Two Source Theory, with Q and Mark being the common sources of Matthew and Luke. Q is short for the German word "Quelle" which means "source." In 1972 the Four Source Theory was introduced, with Q, A, B, and C as the sources of all Gospels. Does this sound familiar to J, E, P, and D of the Old Testament? In a preface the author of Luke 1:1-4 stated that he learned from some other people that saw those things from the beginning before writing his Gospel. The fourth Gospel of John stands most noticeably apart from the synoptic Gospels.

The Gospels translated into Modern English by J. B. Phillips in London, with editors Geoffrey Bles, had the following to say about the Gospel of Matthew:

"Early tradition ascribed this Gospel to the apostle Matthew, but scholars nowadays almost all reject this view. The Author, whom we still can conveniently call Matthew, has plainly drawn on the mysterious "Q", which may have been a collection of oral tradition. He has used Mark’s Gospel freely, though he has arranged the order of events and has in several instances used different words for what is plainly the same story. The style is lucid, calm, and tidy. Matthew writes with certain judiciousness as though he himself has carefully digested his material and is convinced not only with its truth but of the divine pattern that lies behind the historic facts. If Matthew wrote, as is now generally supposed, somewhere between 85 and 90, this Gospel’s value as a Christian document is enormous. It is, so to speak, a second-generation view of Jesus Christ the Son of God and the son of man. It is being written at that distance in time from the great event where a sober reflection and sturdy conviction can perhaps give a better balanced portrait of God’s unique revelation of Himself than could be given by those who were so close to the light that they were partly dazzled by it."

The above quotation stated frankly the facts about "Q", and then tried to reason as why Christians should still accept second generation accounts of Jesus: the first generation could not handle both the light of Jesus and writing of the Gospels!

Many ancient translations of the Bible have received critical attention and are available in scholarly form. The language in the New Testament has received much attention not only for theological reasons but also from students of history of the Greek language. The study of the Aramaic language, the native language of Jesus and the contemporary Palestinian Christians, has also advanced. Scholars advocate that the traditions used by the Gospel writers and the author of Acts existed in Aramaic, perhaps in manuscripts but certainly in an oral form. It remains a matter of debate to translate the New Testament from Greek to Aramaic in an attempt to recreate the original manuscripts or the oral tradition.

Early Christianity, just like Judaism, took the idea of authenticity and inspiration of the scriptures for granted. No formal doctrine of the divine inspiration of New Testament was initially proposed. Christians generally believed, however, that the Bible is the word of God as transmitted by the Holy Spirit, first through the patriarchs and prophets and then through the apostles. The writers of the New Testament, in fact, relied upon the authority of the Hebrew Scriptures to support their claims concerning Jesus Christ.

To set a New Testament canon beside the Old implied divine inspiration of the entire Bible. The New Testament writings were considered as "prophecy" given by the Holy Spirit to the disciples. However, Paul did not think of his letters to his churches as constituting inspired revelation to the entire humanity at all time. It was suggested that the divine inspiration was a case of verbal inspiration that took over the voice of the prophet. This view implied that the words are divinely given; so any text can be interpreted in the light of other texts. This theory of verbal inspiration was considered as acceptable for the first Greek translation of the Old Testament. Christian scholars Origen and Augustine adhered firmly to this theory. At times, this took a sophisticated form of explaining discrepancies between the Biblical texts, such as a divine will to teach the point of a deeper meaning that lies beyond human comprehension! During the 19th century, the doctrine of the inspiration of the Bible by the Holy Spirit was promoted in response to the development of new biblical criticism. Scholarly studies seemed to challenge the divine origin of the New Testament. Those who advocate the authenticity of the Bible, word for word, cannot prove their claim easily.

The subjects of authenticity and history of the early Bible are not readily available in common Christian bookstores. It appears that the history of Christianity began in 325 AD, when the council of Nicaea condemned the theology of Arius and declared that Christ is "one in essence with the Father". There are no written details of events of what actually happened after Jesus until the council of Nicaea. Biblical apologists attributed the lack of information to the oppression that the Christians faced over three centuries. It is also quite difficult to find detailed information from Christian scholars. This is because most of them are writing to average Christians and the information has to be packaged in an acceptable way that should not cause public confusion. For example, I tried unsuccessfully to find out what happened to the Virgin Mary after Jesus, and what was her role in the early Christian history. To the Christian, Mary is a model to all believers. To the Muslims she is the holiest woman ever among all the Jewish, Christian and Muslim women. When Mary holds such a unique stature, one would be tempted to know everything available about her role. Jesus was obedient to his parents, (Luke 2:51). When Jesus began his public ministry, he called his mother "woman", (John 2:4, 19:26). Sometimes I wonder if this is the same Jesus that said in Matthew 19:19 "Honor your father and your mother." This would indicate that Mary’s maternal role on his behalf is finished. It is hard to believe that Jesus called his mother "woman". Is this a permit for anyone to call his mother woman? Or was this the writing of someone that did not appreciate the mother of Jesus for one reason or another? Looking at the Holy Bible, Easy to Read Version, I found that in John 2:4, the word "woman" is replaced by "Dear woman." This was a little bit of a relief; at least someone else feels that it is inappropriate to call the holiest woman ever simply a "woman". A Christian apologist suggested that Jesus called his mother "woman" in a soft tone! There is no knowledge about "tape recording" the tone of Jesus! The question still remains. Did Jesus call his mother woman, dear woman, mother, or dear mother? Did he or did he not honor his mother? And, what was Mary’s role after Jesus?

6.1 Versions of the New Testament

The New Testament consists of 27 documents written between 60? - 150? AD. Although some have argued that Aramaic originals lie behind some of the Gospels, especially the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistle to the Hebrews all have been circulated in Greek. For a period of time, some Christian scholars treated the Greek of the New Testament as a special kind of religious language. It is now known that the language of the New Testament was koine, i.e. common Greek that was used everywhere. The 27 books of the New Testament are only a fraction of the Christian scriptures in their first three centuries. The New Testament was widely copied and recopied. As many as 50 Gospels were circulating during this time. Many of these non-canonical Christian writings have been collected and published as New Testament Apocrypha, i.e. doubtful authority.

Existing Greek manuscripts of the New Testament - complete, partial, or fragmentary - now number about 5000. It is important to know that none of these manuscripts have the signature of its author. Probably the oldest is a fragment of the Gospel of John dated about 120 to 140 AD. There are broad similarities among these manuscripts. Discrepancies, however, involve omissions and additions. The more significant of these variants usually appear in English translations as footnotes citing what other ancient authorities say. For example, John 7:53 - 8:11 has a footnote saying that the oldest and the best Greek copies do not have these verses according to the Bible, Easy to Read Version. So, who added them, and why?

Tracing the history of the development of the New Testament by noting which of the books were quoted or cited by the early Fathers of the Church is an uncertain process. It seems that the earliest attempt to establish a canon was made about 150 AD by a heretical Christian named Marcion, whose acceptable list included the Gospel of Luke and Ten Pauline Epistles, edited in a strong anti-Jewish language. Perhaps opposition to Marcion accelerated efforts toward a canon of wide acceptance.

By 200 AD, 20 of the 27 books of the New Testament seem to have been generally regarded as acceptable. However differences still existed between the Eastern and Western Churches. Generally speaking, the books that were disputed for some time but were finally included were James, Hebrews, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, 2 Peter, and Revelation. Other books widely favored but finally rejected, were Barnabas, 1 Clement, Hermas, and the Didache

As was mentioned before, the Jewish Bible was written in Hebrew, except for a few sections in Aramaic. When Aramaic replaced Hebrew as the language of everyday life, translations to Hebrew became necessary. This fact that the Old Testament was written in Hebrew helped the Jews to reserve their Scriptures. On the other hand, the New Testament was written in Greek and Aramaic. The present English translation of the Bible came from a long history of translation, collection, and interpretations, as outlined in the following:

Original Manuscripts

One would assume that the word of God that was delivered to Jesus would be recorded somehow. Moses got the Ten Commandments written on tablets and Muhammad got his revelations immediately recorded and memorized. So what happened to the original New Testament? This is one of the biggest mysteries in Christianity. It is agreed upon that the original manuscripts of the Christian Bible have perished!

Ancient Versions

The rapid spread of Christianity beyond the regions where Greek prevailed necessitated translations into Syrian, Old Latin, Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian, and Arabic. Syrian and Latin versions existed as early as the second century, and Coptic translations began to appear in the third century. These early versions were in no sense official translations but happened to meet regional needs in worship and preaching. The translations were, therefore, conducted in local languages by unknown translators and often included only selected portions of the New Testament.

The Septuagint and Other Greek Versions

The first major Greek version is called the Septuagint (from "seventy") because of the legend that seventy scholars in Alexandria translated the Torah in the third century BC. The legend narrated how seventy translators had worked in independent cells and had all come up with the identical versions of the sacred text. Thus the Septuagint often ranked as an inspired version. Some of the Fathers of the Church thought the legend had been ridiculous, while others adhered firmly to it. Eventually other scholars, whose skills and backgrounds differed, translated the remaining Hebrew Scriptures.

The most valuable versions of the Hebrew Bible are the translations into Greek. In some instances the Greek versions actually offer readings superior to the Hebrew, being based on older Hebrew texts. Many of the existing Greek manuscripts are much older than the manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible; they were included in copies of the Christian Bible that date from the fourth and fifth centuries. The oldest and the most complete text of the Old and New Testaments are in the form of fragments as different from scrolls, are:

Codex Vaticanus is located in the Vatican Library and whose place of discovery is unknown. It contains nearly all the Greek Bible, but lacks Mark 16:9-20.

Codex Sinaiticus is located in the British Museum. It contains almost all the New Testament (Lacks Mark 16:9-20, and John 7:53- 8:11), and over half of the Old Testament. Tischendorf in the Mount Sinai Monastery discovered it in a wastebasket in 1844. It was presented by the Monastery to the Russian Tsar, and bought by the British Government for 100,000 pounds on Christmas Day 1933.

Codex Alexandrinus is located in the British Museum. It is believed that it was written in Greek in Alexandria, Egypt.

Numerous other Greek translations were discovered; most of them existing only in fragments or quotations by the early Fathers of the Church and others.

Vulgate

During the fourth and fifth centuries, efforts were made to replace the old Latin versions with more standardized and widely accepted translations. Missionaries perhaps translated pieces of the Bible into Latin. Pope Damasus I in 382 commissioned St. Jerome to generate a Latin Bible using many individual efforts. This Bible, known as the Vulgate, (Latin vulgata, "popular edition") aroused deep opposition. As is usually the case, the new version slowly and painfully replaced the old versions.

English Translations

Christianity reached England with a Latin Bible. There was a need to offer an English Bible for both the clergy and the laymen. Between the seventh and fourteenth centuries, parts of the Bible were roughly translated into English as an aid to the clergy. Interest in translation from Latin to English grew rapidly in the fourteenth century, and in 1382 the first complete English Bible appeared in manuscript. It was the work of the English scholar John Wycliffe, whose goal was to give the Bible to the people.

In 1525 the English scholar William Tyndale translated the New Testament from the Greek text. It was printed in Germany and smuggled into England. Tyndale's translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew text was only partly completed. His simple writing and popular expression established a style in English translation that dominated future versions.

In 1535 the English scholar Miles Coverdale published an English translation based on German and Latin versions in addition to Tyndale's. This was not only the first complete English Bible to appear in printed form, but unlike its predecessors, it was an approved version by the Canterbury Convocation. Later, Oliver Cromwell nominated Coverdale to produce a new Bible, which appeared in six editions between 1539 and 1568. This Bible was called the Great Bible, which was primarily a scholarly Bible. The next important version was produced in Geneva in 1560 by English Protestants in exile, and was called the Geneva Bible. This Bible contained several innovations including the division of chapters into numbered verses. The final revision of the Great Bible, in 1568, by scholars and bishops of the Anglican Church was known as the Bishops' Bible. This Bible was designed to replace the Great Bible with a translation for the laymen.

The King James Version and Its Revisions

In 1604 King James I commissioned a new revision of the English Bible; it was completed in 1611. Following Tyndale primarily, this Authorized Version, also known as the King James Version, was widely acclaimed for its beauty and simplicity of style. In the years that followed, the Authorized Version underwent several revisions, the most notable being the English Revised Version (1881-85), the American Standard Version (1901), and the revision of the American Standard Version undertaken by the International Council of Religious Education, representing 40 Protestant denominations in the US and Canada. This Revised Standard Version (RSV) appeared between 1946 and 1952. Widely accepted by Orthodox, Protestant, and Roman Catholic Christians, it provided the basis for the first accepted English Bible. In the Preface of the RSV, 1971, the following is written:

"The King James Version has grave defects. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the development of Biblical studies and the discovery of many manuscripts more ancient than those upon which the King James Version was based, made it manifest, that these defects are so many and so serious as to call for the revision of the English translation." The preface continued to refer to the unhappy experience with unauthorized publications, "which tampered with the text of the English Revised Version, in the supposed interest of the American public."

The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV, 1989) eliminated much obsolete and ambiguous usage. The New King James Bible, with contemporary American vocabulary, was published in 1982. The Holy Bible, Easy-to-Read version, in 1987 and 1989, was adapted from the existing text by the World Bible Translation Center to represent present day English.

The Roman Catholic Versions

Roman Catholics in English-speaking countries commonly used the Douay or Douay-Rheims Bible, completed between 1582 and 1609, until the eighteenth century, when the English bishop Richard Challoner considerably revised it. The Douay Bible was a translation from the Latin Vulgate, primarily the work of two English exiles in France, William Allen (1532-1594) and Gregory Martin (1540? -1582). During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Roman Catholics replaced the Douay and Challoner Bibles with other translations. In the United States, one of the most widely used is the New American Bible of 1970. It is the first complete Bible to be translated from Hebrew and Greek by American Roman Catholics.

The Roman Catholic Version, RCV, is the oldest version that one can buy today. Despite its antiquity, the whole Protestant world condemns the RCV, because it contains seven extra books, which they refer to as the Apocrypha. Notwithstanding the terrible warning contained in the Apocalypse, which is the last book in the RCV (renamed as "Revelation" by the Protestant), it is "revealed":

Revelation 22:18-19 "If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

In spite of the above warning, the Protestants have eliminated or the Catholics have added seven whole books from their "Word of God". These books are: Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch, 1 Machabees, and 2 Machabees.

6.2 The Gospels

The four Gospels are the heart of the New Testament. The first three Gospels are called synoptic because they generally correspond to each other. Yet, the origin of these Gospels is the greatest mystery of Christianity. There are so many mysteries relating to the Gospels. Who did actually write them? When and where were they written? These Gospels are full of contradictions. Apologists through complex and elusive interpretation might handle some contradictions. Others are shy of explanation or outright unacceptable.

The careful reader that is interested in reading the titles of each chapter in the Bible may ask why the titles of all four Gospels have the word "according to", like the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Why "according to"? Why did the authors not identify themselves first? In the Gospel according to Matthew 9:9:

"And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew"

Why did Matthew not say, "he saw me" instead of "he saw a man, named Matthew"?

In John 21:24 "This is the disciple which testify of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true."

Who are "we"? And why did John talk about himself as third person "his"? And why in the following verse, he referred to himself as "I"? Was verse 21:24 written by someone else and verse 21:25 written by John?

Gospel According to Matthew

Matthew was one of the apostles of Jesus, although not a distinguished one. According to tradition, he was the author of the first Gospel and therefore one of the four evangelists. However, little is known about Matthew. The first three Gospels state that he was a tax collector who would have been a man of some education, skilled in arithmetic and able to speak both Aramaic and Greek. Some scholars suggest that he left to Ethiopia for preaching Christianity where he died there at 63 or 70 AD.

There are evidences to indicate that this Gospel was written for the Jews, because the Gospel includes many references to Jewish scripture. The Gospel was written in Hebrew, then an unknown person translated it to Greek, and the original Hebrew manuscript has perished. This raises a serious question about the knowledge and intention of the translator. Was he knowledgeable enough in the two languages? What was his background? Was he a Jew or a Gentile? Did he try to push certain concepts in the Gospel? Early Christian writers suggested that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Palestine; others favored the city of Antioch in Syria. The date of writing, as frequently suggested, was around the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, perhaps from 65 to 80 AD. The date of writing the original manuscripts is unknown. Why did Matthew wait 40 years after Jesus to write his Gospel? Was it really written by Matthew or someone from the second generation, perhaps one of his students? The author of Matthew used Mark and "Q" as his two major sources.

Matthew emphasizes that Jesus is the promised Messiah of the Jews. Jesus states that he did not come to destroy the Law of Moses, but to fulfill (5:17). Also, Jesus commands his disciples to preach "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (10:6). The influence of this Gospel on Christianity has been authoritarian ever since its writing. This is because the Gospel was used in the formulation of doctrine and the divine nature of Jesus, an importance shared only by the Gospel of John.

Matthew includes some exclusive stories: the visit of the wise men from the East (2:1); the travel of Jesus’ family to Egypt to escape the slaughter of male children by Herod the Great; and their return from Egypt after Herod's death. The death of Jesus' betrayer, Judas Iscariot (27:3-10), the dream of Pontius Pilate's wife (27:19), Pilate's washing his hands of liability for Jesus' death (27:24-25), the earthquake following Jesus' death (27:51-53), the guard at the tomb (27:62-66), the earthquake at the time of Jesus' resurrection (28:2-4), and the appearances of the risen Christ to Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:9-10) and to his disciples in Galilee (28:16-20). Matthew (1:18-2:23) shows similarities between Moses and Jesus to appeal to the Jews. Both were hidden from an evil king that massacred children, and both lived in Egypt in their childhood.

Many scholars regard Matthew as a writer with wild imagination. He includes stories in his Gospel that are unbelievable. An example, of his outrageous imagination, is the description of the events relating to the crucifixion of Jesus. The whole country became dark for three hours, the temple was torn into two pieces, the tears started at the top and tore all the way to the bottom, an earthquake happened, and many dead people were resurrected and went to Jerusalem, and were seen by many (27:51-53). This is a big story. It should have been reported in the other Gospels. Did these stories convert a large number of people to Christianity? These stories have no correspondence in the other three Gospels.

The most debatable story in the Gospel of Matthew concerns Jonas’ sign (12:38:40). When the Pharisees ask Jesus for a proof, Jesus replies that the son of man will give the miracle that happened to Jonas. Luke has the same story, but Mark is in contradiction with Matthew and Luke with regards to the sign of Jonas.

Matthew reports the saying of Jesus on the Cross: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani?" This means My God, my God, why did you abandon me? (Matthew 27:46), which is identical to Mark 15:34.

The conclusion is that the author of this Gospel is unknown, the place of writing this Gospel is unknown, the time of writing this Gospel is unknown, and the Gospel contains stories that contradict other Gospels. Yet the Church wants us to believe that the Almighty inspired the whole Bible, word for word.

Gospel According to Mark

The Gospel begins with "The Good News about Jesus Christ, the Son of God..." The Easy to Read Bible has a footnote stating that some Greek copies omit the "Son of God" from this verse. Taking into consideration that "the son of god" is the most important statement in Christianity, how can it be added or omitted from the Gospel of Mark? Did Mark or did he not write this statement? Is it possible that the statement "the son of god", in this verse is a Hebrew expression that meant intimacy with God? There are many references in the Old Testament about prophets being called Son of God.

The Gospel of Mark is the shortest of the four Gospels. In the third century the Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea, relates this Gospel to Mark, using a statement from an earlier writer named Papias (60? -125?). Papias suggested that Mark was John Mark, cousin of Barnabas, mentioned in Acts 15:37-39, in several letters of Paul, (Colossians 4:10; 2 Timothy 4:11; Philemon 24), and in 1 Peter 5:13. It is extremely difficult to confirm that Mark was actually John Mark. Some Christian scholars think that an unknown Christian named Mark wrote this Gospel.

In chapter 13, Mark refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, which makes the writing of this Gospel to be around 70 AD. Clement of Alexandria stated that Rome was the place of writing, while other scholars suggested that it might have been written in Galilee or Syria.

This Gospel does not include any information about Jesus’ childhood. It starts with his baptism by John the Baptist. The story goes on until his arrest, crucifixion, and burial. Mark (8:11-13) is in contradiction with Matthew and Luke with regards to the sign of Jonas. In Mark, Jesus says that there will be no sign without any exception. Mark states that during crucifixion at noon the whole land became dark (15:33). Mark reports the saying of Jesus on the Cross as follows:

"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani?" (Mark 15:34), which is identical to Matthew 27:46.

There are two versions for ending of this Gospel. Most of the Greek manuscripts have the "long ending," closing at 16:20. The second version with the "short ending" extends only through 16:8. Most scholars believe that the short version is the correct one. Verses 16:9-20 are not included in the two oldest manuscripts of the Gospels, Codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus. There was a sudden and improper ending of the Gospel of Mark. Verses 16:9-20 are added from the Gospel of Luke to have a reasonable ending! What a blunt admission is provided for us here? Human manipulation of the texts of the holy inspired Scriptures is just outrageous!

The conclusion is that the author of this Gospel is unknown, the place of writing this Gospel is unknown, the time of writing this Gospel is unknown, and the Gospel contains stories that contradict other Gospels. Yet the Church wants us to believe that the Almighty inspired the whole Bible, word for word.

Gospel According to Luke

Christian tradition suggests that this Gospel is attributed to "Luke, the beloved physician" (Colossians 4:14), who is one of the "fellow laborer" (Philemon 1:24) mentioned by Paul. Also, the Acts of the Apostles is credited to Luke. Most Christian scholars accept Luke's authorship of both works. Some scholars suggest that Luke was one of Paul’s disciples. Others doubt that Luke and Paul were closely associated during Paul's missionary work, because of contradiction between Paul's letters and the stories of Paul in Acts.

Many scholars suggest that this Gospel was written for the Gentiles, while others imply that it was written for the Greeks or the Egyptians. Most scholars agree that the writing of this Gospel is from 70 to 80 AD. Other possible dates might be 53, or 63, or 65, or the end of the first century. It is also unknown whether the Gospel was written in Rome, Asia Minor, or Greece.

This Gospel is an expanded version of the Gospel of Mark. Most scholars agree that Luke used the source "Q" as well as an oral tradition, sometimes known as "L" collected by or known only to Luke. Luke has some exclusive stories that include the annunciation (1:26-38); the visit of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist (1:39-56); the birth of John the Baptist (1:57-80); Jesus' circumcision and presentation in the Temple (2:21-40); Jesus' appearance in the Temple at 12 years of age (2:41-52); Jesus' last words to his disciples (22:21-38), his words on the way to the cross (23:28-31), the words of the two crucified criminals (23:39-43), the appearances of the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus and in Jerusalem (24:13-49), and Jesus' ascension (24:50-53).

Luke introduces a genealogy of Jesus that is different from that of Matthew. Luke locates the place of Jesus' Great Sermon on a flat place (6:17), while Mark states a hilltop (6:20-49). Luke attributed different last words of Jesus on the cross from those of Matthew or Mark (23:46).

The conclusion is that the author of this Gospel is unknown, the place of writing this Gospel is unknown, the time of writing this Gospel is unknown, and the Gospel contains stories that contradict other Gospels. Yet the Church wants us to believe that the Almighty inspired the whole Bible, word for word.

Gospel According to John

The Gospel according to John is another story. The author explains his reason of writing this Gospel, 20:30-31: he states many miracles of Jesus for the reader to believe that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God. John did not introduce the trinity, but confirms the "duality of God." Both father and son are gods. This Gospel was not included in the acceptable documents of the Fathers of the Church in the second and third century.

Scholars suggest that this Gospel is written in the latter part of the second century, possibly in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus. There are many serious questions about this Gospel. Why did the author of this Gospel choose completely different direction from the synoptic Gospels? Why did he emphasize the divinity of Jesus? It is a fact that this Gospel was written after the synoptic Gospels. This indicates that many Christians did not believe in the divinity of Jesus, before writing this Gospel. Some scholars suggest that bishops that believed in the divinity of Jesus asked the author of John to write a Gospel that states clearly that Jesus is divine. Other suggests that the author was a philosophy student in Alexandria, who had been asked to write a Gospel that brings Greek philosophy and Christianity closer together. We may never know the truth about this Gospel, but the fact is this is very different from the rest of the New Testament.

The author establishes from the start that he follows the Greek philosophy and the concept of the Logos (1:1-18). Jesus Christ is the incarnation of "the Word" who has a pre-existent life before his mother and anyone else for that matter. Jesus’ death is the return of the incarnate Son to the Father. The Gospel tells a story of a woman caught in adultery (7:53-8:11). The Easy to Read Bible has a footnote stating that this incident is not included in the best Greek copies. Again, the question is: why then were these words added?

To establish that Jesus is the Logos, the author states many miracles: the changing of water into wine for the wedding at Cana (2:1-11); the healing of an official's son (4:46-54); the healing of a man who had been sick for 38 years (5:1-9); the feeding of about 5000 men (6:1-15), the only miracle recorded in each of the four Gospels; the healing of a man who had been blind from birth (9:1-7); and the raising of Jesus' friend Lazarus from the dead (11:1-46); Jesus walking on the sea (6:16-21); his death (19:30) and appearances as the risen Christ (20:1-29).

The conclusion is that the author of this Gospel is unknown, the place of writing this Gospel is unknown, the time of writing this Gospel is unknown. The Gospel focuses on the duality rather than the oneness of God, and the Gospel follows the Greek polytheistic philosophy to introduce a monotheistic religion. Yet the Church wants us to believe that the Almighty inspires the whole Bible, word for word.

6.3 Other Gospels

The Gospel of Jesus

Prophets of great missions, like Jesus, always have a revelation from God. And their followers usually keep this revelation. That happened with the Books of Moses. If Jesus did not have a Gospel, can we extend the argument of J. B. Phillips, mentioned above, that Jesus, God forbid, could not handle both his Light and writing or dictating a Gospel! This is what some scholars may conclude regarding the nonexistence of the Gospel of Jesus. However, there are evidences from the Bible that Jesus had a Gospel:

• Matthew 4:23 "Jesus went everywhere in the country of Galilee. Jesus taught in the synagogues and preached the Good News about the kingdom of heaven."
• 
• Mark 1:14-15 "After this, John was put into prison. Jesus went into Galilee and preached the Good News from God, Jesus said, "The right time is now here. The kingdom of God is near. Change your hearts and lives and believe the Good News"
• 
• Romans 1:9 "For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the Gospel of his son". It is interesting to note that "of his son" was changed to the easy phrase "about his son" in the Easy-to-Read version. And what a difference between of and about! This is a clear evidence of what changing the original texts is all about. This is a translation from English to English in a few decades. Imagine what could happen to the translation of Aramaic narratives to Greek text to classical English to Modern English to Easy-To- Read English in two thousand years!
• 
The Good News is the Gospel. There is no doubt that the Good News that Jesus was preaching is not one of the known four Gospels. It is also illogical to assume that Jesus was preaching the Bible according to Luke or John. And the above statements of Jesus clearly mean that Jesus was preaching "his own Gospel," and not a Gospel "according to Jesus." What is interesting is that Paul mentioned the Gospel of Jesus, and he did not refer to any of the four other Gospels, because these Gospels were written after Paul. It is obvious that Jesus had a Gospel, and now that Gospel is not known to anyone. This, of course, raises some serious questions:

• Is the Gospel of Jesus the original text that he preached, and everyone else used according to his perception and motive?
• 
• Is "Q" the Gospel of Jesus?
• 
• Where is this Gospel?
• 
• Who destroyed that Gospel and why?
• 
Mental Hospitals and clinics frequently encounter someone claiming to be Jesus Christ. Also, in the West, people claim that they are the promised Messiah, and they get believers, and in most cases the story ends in a tragedy of killing of believers and their alleged Messiah. Sometimes I wonder when the real Jesus comes, looking for his Gospel, how is the world going to receive him? Will he recognize any book in the New Testament? Is he going to be a subject for the psychoanalysts and the TV talk shows? How will the Churches receive him? Will Jesus agree with TV Evangelists that he has the same substance as that of God? What would he say about their wealth, their singing and screaming, and their collecting money from old people to build their own mansions? Will the Churches reject the message of the real Jesus and go back to the Gospels according to the Evangelists? Will the Christians reject him as the Jews rejected him before? Most likely he would be captured and accused of being a terrorist. This is an idea for a successful Hollywood movie.

The Gospel of Barnabas

Barnabas was one of the members of the early Christian church in Jerusalem, and introduced in the New Testament as the "son of consolation" (Acts 4:36). A Levite and a native of Cyprus, Barnabas is credited for having founded the Cypriot church. He was a successful preacher with a charismatic personality. Anyone tormented by the clash of creeds found comfort and peace in his company. His eminence as a man, who had been close to Jesus, had made him a prominent member of the small group of disciples in Jerusalem who had gathered together after Jesus. They observed the Law of the Prophets: Jesus has come, "not to destroy but to fulfill", (Matthew 5:17). They continued to live as Jews, and practiced what Jesus had taught them. The disciples never regarded Christianity as a new religion. They were devout and practicing Jews, and they were distinguished from their neighbors only by accepting the message of Jesus. In the beginning they did not organize themselves as a separate sect and did not have a synagogue of their own. There was nothing in the message of Jesus, as understood by them, to require a break with Judaism. However, they incurred the hostility of the vested interests among the Jewish Rabbis. The conflict started by the Rabbis because they felt that the Christians would undermine their authority and power.

Barnabas introduced Saul of Tarsus, later St. Paul, to the other apostles in Jerusalem. But the disciples "were all afraid of Paul and believed not that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the Apostles," (Act 9:26-27). Barnabas accompanied Paul to Antioch, Cyprus, and Asia Minor. At the council held in Jerusalem, Barnabas agreed with Paul's views that the church had a mission for the Gentiles. In Lystra, Paul was said to have performed spiritual healing, so the people coined the terms "Jupiter" for Barnabas, and "Mercurius" for Paul, (Acts 14:12). In the Roman State religion, Jupiter was the supreme god and Mercury was a god that served as a messenger to other gods and was himself the god of commerce, travel, and thievery. He and Paul later separated, however, when Barnabas insisted that his cousin Mark, who had deserted them on a previous journey, should accompany them again. Barnabas and Mark together continued missionary work in Cyprus (Acts 15:39).

The writings attributed to Barnabas have been the source of dispute among biblical scholars. The early Christian writer Tertullian assigned to him the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in accordance with second century church tradition. The apocryphal Acts of Barnabas, a work of late date, recounted his missionary tours and his death by martyrdom in Cyprus. The existing Epistle of Barnabas, found in a New Testament manuscript (part of the Codex Sinaiticus), is morally instructive work.

Some biblical scholars believe that the Gospel of Barnabas was accepted as a canonical Gospel in the churches of Alexandria until 325 AD. Irenaeus (130-200) wrote a work against paganism known as "Against the Heresies." He had quoted extensively from the Gospel of Barnabas in support of his views. This proves that the Gospel of Barnabas was in circulation in the first and second centuries of Christianity. In 325 AD, the Nicene Council was held, where it was ordered that all original Gospels in Hebrew script should be destroyed. A decree was issued that anyone in possession of these Gospels would be executed. In 383, the Pope secured a copy of the Gospel of Barnabas and kept it in his private library. In the fourth year of the emperor Zeno (478 AD), the remains of Barnabas were discovered and there was found, on his chest, a copy of the Gospel written with his own hand, (Acia Sanctorum Boland Junii Tom II, pages 422 and 450, Antwerp 1698.) The Vulgate Bible appears to include some sayings from this Gospel. Pope Sixtus (1585-1590) had a friend called Fra Marino. He found the Gospel of Barnabas in the private library of the Pope. Fra Marino was interested in the Gospel because he had read the writings of Irenaeus where Barnabas had been respectfully quoted many times. This Italian manuscript passed through many hands until it came to the possession of Cramer, a Councilor of the King of Prussia. In 1713 Cramer gave it to Prince Eugene in Savoy. In 1738 along with the library of the prince, the Gospel found its way to Vienna, where it now exists. An English translation of this Gospel exists in USA and Europe.

Some Christian Scholars claim that this Gospel has Arabic comments, and was written originally in Arabic. Some even claim that it has an Islamic origin, or was used by Muhammad in writing the Quran. All historical accounts establish that Muhammad was unlettered; that is to say that he could read or write. After Islam, there were debates between Muslims and Christians, and no Muslim ever referred to that Gospel. Therefore, this Gospel was not known in Islamic history. Unless that some scholars claim that Islamic history was corrupted and the usage of this Gospel was concealed! Anyone who studies Islamic history will immediately know that this is one of the many stereotype claims against Islam.

The Gospel of Barnabas differs from the Biblical Gospels in the following basics of the Christian religion:

• Jesus is not the Son of God. He was a great prophet.
• 
• The sacrifice that Abraham offered to God was Ismael and not Isaac.
• 
• The Gospel made clear prophecy about the coming of Muhammad.
• 
• Jesus was not crucified. The one that was crucified in Jesus’ place was Judas by another miracle of God.
• 
Gospel of Thomas

Thomas was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Although much has been written about his life, biblical accounts refer to him three times only in the Gospel of John. The first reference (John 11:15-16) implies Thomas' devotion to Jesus; when Jesus set out for Judea, where Jews have threatened to stone him, Thomas suggests, "Let us also go, that we may die with him." The second reference (John 14:1-7) occurs at the Last Supper, during which Jesus says, "And you know the way where I am going." Thomas asks, "… how can we know the way?" Jesus responds, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." In John (20:19-29), Thomas, absent when Jesus first appears to the apostles after the Resurrection, doubts the others' account of the event. When Jesus appears again and invites Thomas to touch his wounds, the apostle exclaims, "My Lord and my God!" Thus Thomas was the first to explicitly recognize Christ's divinity. The phrase "doubting Thomas" stems from this account.

The Gospel of Thomas was recovered from Naj Hammadi, Egypt. This compilation, written in Coptic, has been translated and published. Major scholarly attention has been focused on the Gospel of Thomas, which suggests that 114 of Jesus’ sayings were delivered privately to Thomas. This Gospel was accepted until late in the second century and rejected at the first ecumenical council of Church.

6.4 Sources of the Gospels

According to the commentators of the Ecumenical translation of the Bible, the Gospels appeared to be "disjointed", with a plan that lacks continuity "with seemingly insuperable contradictions". It is important to refer to their authority because the consequences of their evaluation of this subject are extremely serious. It is also important to examine the religious history of the time when the Gospels were written. This should cast some light on the development of Christianity to a state that Jesus himself would condemn.

The Fathers of the Church approached the problem of sources in a very simplistic way. In the early centuries of Christianity, the only source available was the Gospel of Matthew, the first complete manuscript. The problem of sources only concerned Mark and Luke, because John constituted a completely separate case. St. Augustine claimed that Matthew had inspired Mark, who appeared second in the order of the Bible. He further considered that Luke, who came third, had used data from both.

The experts in critical examinations at this period were able to estimate the degree of corroboration between the Gospels, and find a large number of verses that are common to two or three synoptic. Today, the commentators of the Ecumenical translation of the Bible provide the following figures:

Verses common to all three synoptic 330

Verses common to Mark and Matthew 178

Verses common to Mark and Luke 100

Verses common to Matthew and Luke 230

The verses unique to each of the first three Gospels are as follows: Matthew 330, Mark 53, and Luke 500. The fact that each Evangelist has his own exclusive stories raises serious Questions. Why did each of the Evangelists not know about important events that were supposed to be public knowledge? Or did the Evangelists know those events and decided not to include them in their Gospels? It is hard to believe that the Evangelists di