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:
“Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries, when they wrote these books. Hence, instead of Man Thinking, we have the book-worm.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad!”
—Kenneth Grahame (1859–1932)
“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”
—John Adams (1735–1826)