Views On Creationism and Intelligent Design
Ahmadis do not take all the Quranic and Biblical creation narratives literally, but understand some of the passages metaphorically. Intelligent design models are also rejected as are certain aspects of Islamic creationism that some modernist religious bodies have postulated. Instead they propound the concept of "Guided Evolution" (analogous, or identical, to the doctrine of theistic evolution or evolutionary creationism held by almost all liberal Christians, and some others) which is demonstrated as being supported both by scriptural and scientific evidence.
Ahmadis favor the perspective that the human race evolved out of the earth over a long period of time. The Qur'an teaches that man was created from the earth through a gradual evolutionary process in the following verses:
“And He has created you in different stages and different forms ... And Allah has caused you to develop as a good growth from the earth.
These verses illustrate that the creation of the human race was the culmination of a gradual evolutionary process and that it would be incorrect to say (as Creationism/Intelligent design suggests) that God formed the human being in an instant. Thus Ahmadis accept the concept of evolution in principle, but do not accept Darwinian evolution in all its details.
Read more about this topic: Ahmadiyya Views On Evolution
Famous quotes containing the words views, intelligent and/or design:
“Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“You can make as good a design out of an American turkey as a Japanese out of his native stork.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)