Introduction
The Scientific Collapse of Materialism
Materialism
can no longer claim to be a scientific philosophy.
Arthur Koestler, the renowned Social Philosopher
1
How did the endless universe we live in come
into being?
How did the equilibrium, harmony, and order
of this universe develop?
How is it that this Earth is such a fit and
sheltering place for us to live in?
Questions such as these have attracted attention
since the dawn of the human race. The conclusion
reached by scientists and philosophers searching
for answers with their intellects and common
sense is that the design and order of this universe
are evidence of the existence of a supreme Creator
ruling over the whole universe.
This is an indisputable truth that we may reach
by using our intelligence. Allah declares this
reality in His holy book, the Qur'an, which
He inspired as a guide for humanity fourteen
centuries ago. He states that He has created
the universe when it was not, for a particular
purpose, and with all its systems and balances
specifically designed for human life.
Allah invites people to consider this truth
in the following verse:
Are you stronger in structure
or is heaven? He built it. He raised its vault
high and made it level. He darkened its night
and brought forth its morning light. After that
He smoothed out the earth… (Surat an Naziat:
27-30)
Elsewhere it is declared in the Qur'an that
a person should see and consider all the systems
and balances in the universe that have been
created for him by Allah and derive a lesson
from his observations:
He has made night and
day subservient to you, and the sun and moon
and stars, all subject to His command. There
is certainly Signs in that for people who pay
heed. (Surat an-Nahl: 12)
In yet another verse of the Qur'an, it is pointed
out:
He makes night merge
into day and day merge into night, and He has
made the sun and moon subservient, each one
running until a specified time. That is Allah,
your Lord. The Kingdom is His. Those you call
on besides Him have no power over even the smallest
speck.(Surah Fatir: 13)
This plain truth declared by the Qur'an is
also confirmed by a number of the important
founders of the modern science of astronomy.
Galileo, Kepler, and Newton all recognised that
the structure of universe, the design of the
solar system, the laws of physics and their
states of equilibrium were all created by Allah
and they arrived at that conclusion as a result
of their own research and observations.
Materialism: A 19th-Century
Fallacy
The reality of the creation of which we speak
has been ignored or denied since the earliest
times by a particular philosophical point of
view. It is called "materialism". This philosophy,
which was originally formulated among the ancient
Greeks, has also made an appearance from time
to time in other cultures and has been advanced
by individuals as well. It holds that matter
alone exists and that it has done so for an
infinity of time. From these tenets, it claims
that the universe has also "always" existed
and was not created.
In addition to their claim that the universe
exists in an infinity of time, materialists
also assert that there is no purpose or aim
in the universe. They claim that all the equilibrium,
harmony and order that we see around us are
merely the product of coincidence. This "coincidence
assertion" is also put forward when the question
of how human beings came into being comes up.
The theory of evolution, widely referred to
as Darwinism, is another application of materialism
to the natural world.
We just mentioned that some of the founders
of modern science were faithful people who were
in agreement that the universe was created and
organised by Allah. In the 19th century, an
important change took place in the attitudes
of the scientific world with respect to this
matter. Materialism was deliberately introduced
to the agenda of modern science by various groups.
Because the 19th century's political and social
conditions formed a good basis for materialism,
the philosophy gained wide acceptance and spread
throughout the scientific world.
The findings of modern science however undeniably
demonstrate how false the claims of materialism
really are.
The Findings of 20th-Century
Science
Let us recall the two assertions of materialism
about the universe:
The universe exists in infinite time and, because
it has no beginning or end, it was not created.
Everything in this universe is merely the result
of chance and not the product of any intentional
design, plan, or vision.
Those two notions were boldly advanced and
ardently defended by 19th-century materialists,
who of course had no recourse other than to
depend upon the limited and unsophisticated
scientific knowledge of their day. Both have
been utterly refuted by the discoveries of 20th-century
science.
Modern science proves the reality of the
creation of the universe by Allah, contrary
to what outdated materialist philosophy
maintains. Newsweek made "Science Finds
God" the cover story of its July 27th 1998
issue. |
The first to be laid in the grave was the notion
of the universe existing in infinite time. Since
the 1920s, there has been mounting evidence
this cannot be true. Scientists are now certain
that the universe came into being from nothingness
as the result of an unimaginably huge explosion,
known as the "Big Bang".
In other words, the universe came into being-or
rather, it was created by Allah.
The 20th century has also witnessed the demolition
of the second claim of materialism: that everything
in the universe is the result of chance and
not design. Research conducted since the 1960s
consistently demonstrates that all the physical
equilibriums of the universe in general and
of our world in particularly are intricately
designed to make life possible. As this research
deepened, it was discovered each and every one
of the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology,
of the fundamental forces such as gravity and
electromagnetism, and of the details of the
structure of atoms and the elements of the universe
has been precisely tailored so that human beings
may live. Scientists today call this extraordinary
design the "anthropic principle". This is the
principle that every detail in the universe
has been carefully arranged to make human life
possible.
To sum up, the philosophy called materialism
has been utterly refuted by modern science.
From its position as the dominant scientific
view of the 19th century, materialism collapsed
into fiction in the 20th.
How could it have been otherwise? As Allah
indicates "We did not
create heaven and earth and everything between
them to no purpose. That is the opinion of those
who are disbelievers." (Surah Sad: 27)
it is wrong to suppose that the universe was
created in vain. A philosophy so utterly flawed
as materialism and systems based on it were
doomed to failure from the very beginning.
Creation is a fact. In this book we will be
examining the evidence for this fact. We will
see how materialism has collapsed in the face
of modern science and also witness how wonderfully
and perfectly the universe has been designed
and created by Allah. |