So it has been a few months since I apostatized and I was always told you can't believe in Evolution. I have now read more about this theory and also read more about Islam.
My question is can you not be a muslim and still believe in Evolution? And it's a question I hope to ask at various muslim forums.
First, and please note I have very little experience with this Science, but as far as I understand it deals only with the evolution of organisms. That's it. Nothing more nothing less. It says nothing about God, or religion. It says nothing about morals or ideologies. It's just a science, and a very specific one. Nothing about the origins of life or the formation of this universe.
Of course, if you are a muslim you have to take the Quran as literal. According to what I have been taught and according to the orthodox view and the intellectually honest one. Also the only sensical one, what's the point of a metaphorical truth? We can make it up as we go? Then why even reveal it? Or in the manner that the Quran was revealed, along with a prophet and a sunnah, rituals and symbols etc.
1. God created the world. That means everything, all organism, all species. Bacteria, viruses, dinosaurs, cro-magnons. You name it, he made it.
2. The Quran is the literal word of God. And God in the Quran shows us how he made humans. From clay, and he breathed his soul into us. He created all the animals before Adam. And Eve came from Adam*.
The problem here is that of course evolution shows humans did not spring up magically as one species. We have evolved just like everything else on this planet.
I can only see these choices
1. Evolution is completely false.
2. Adaptation and micro-evolution between species is true. Speciation is not true. We have not evolved from apes. We are not apes. We are humans. Created on our own.3. Evolution is true and literal Creation story is True. This is the most difficult to understand, honestly the only way I can see it working is having a dual mind. My brain hurts just be trying to figure out how these two radically different points of views can work. When in the light of Proof and Evidence. There is no proof and evidence of Adam and Eve. So how can they both be true? Also; where they were created in Heaven or on Earth? All of this is inference when you try to prove it that Adam and Eve is true.
There is also a problem of why would God say look to the Heavens and Earth for proof of my creation? When we look at Evolution we can see it work without a supernatural deity. There is nothing supernatural about it. Maybe the origins of life (but we are still trying to learn how to explain that, it's an infant science) or maybe the law of natural selection is from a God (this leaves with how do you know its your God, and that is an assumption that it was created by a Divine rule, also leaves other problems such as harmful mutations, it would make into a evil Nazi Scientist).
4. Evolution is true. There is nothing that contradicts it in the Quran. Since Evolution is a science that has nothing to do with theology stating whether or not there is a God has nothing to do with it. It's like trying to prove God with Mechanical Engineering. The Adam and Eve story is NOT literal. It has nothing to do with evolution on Earth. This mentality is somewhat denying the problems. First you might say its not literal. How do you prove that? You can't. It's inference. Why would God put this story here? Why would he not put how the world was really made? Why would God say be and it is? Why would God say he is the best of designers? If the Creation story is a metaphor then what's the meaning of it? How can God leave us with half a meaning? What's the use of that? And is this book not supposed to be mubeen (clear)?
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*Interesting discussion about this here:
http://forum.darkness.com/topic/111586-adam-made-of-clay-and-blood/
Topic: Theory of Evolution and Islam, are they really incompatible?