Darwinism and Moral Collapse

Moral degeneration constantly increases. Behavior that was disapproved of, scorned, forbidden or condemned a few generations before gradually becomes accepted, even sought after, and widely practiced—a very important question of which most people are unaware. Lifestyles and behavior until recently regarded as immoral are now permissible under the name of "different choices." Perversions such as homosexuality are accepted. Aggression in society; the rise in fraud; the way that spouses can easily deceive each other and sometimes both come to live with this; the serious rise in divorce and in drug and alcohol addiction; increases in such crimes as robbery and muggings; the way that people can commit murder without any qualms, the rise in the crime rate; the way people have no respect left for one another, the spread of gossip—these are just a few ways in which moral degeneration manifests itself. This situation, particularly prevalent in some Western countries, clearly shows how dangerous this degeneration is.

Phillip Johnson and his book Defeating Darwinism

At the root of all this lie the incorrect answers to the question of why human beings exist. The truth is that people exist in order to know God, their Creator. In the verse, "Only in the remembrance of God can the heart find peace" (Surat ar-Ra'd, 28), God reveals that there is only one source of the peace that people seek in the wrong places. The religious moral lifestyle commanded by God will bring a person peace and happiness in the world.

Ignoring this fact brings with it moral degeneration, and produces unhappiness, despair, and depression.

One major cause of this moral corruption is the Darwinist ideology defining a human being not as a servant of God, but as a selfish animal that came into being by chance. According to this unscientific claim, a human should not be expected to have different laws and moral values from those of an animal. Life is a struggle, and human beings must be totally ruthless, fighting tooth and nail with one another.

This means total contempt for proper moral values. In his book Defeating Darwinism, Professor Phillip E. Johnson of the University of California, Berkeley writes of the negative effects that have appeared in society since the 1960s with the weakening of religious beliefs and the prevalence of a materialist world view:

It would be roughly accurate to say that the 1960s marked the second American Declaration of Independence, ... [the declaration of some people's detachment] from God. One might expect far reaching moral and legal consequences to follow from such a declaration, and so they did.159

The molecular biologist Michael Denton states that it's impossible to analyze the troubles that left their mark on the 20th century without considering Darwinism:

The twentieth century would be incomprehensible without the Darwinian revolution. The social and political currents which have swept the world in the past eighty years would have been impossible without its intellectual sanction. It is ironic to recall that it was the increasingly secular outlook in the nineteenth century which initially eased the way for the acceptance of evolution, while today it is perhaps the Darwinian view of nature more than any other that is responsible for the agnostic and skeptical outlook of the twentieth century. What was once a deduction from materialism has today become its foundation.160

At this point it will be appropriate to examine the Darwinist claims that prepared the foundation for this moral collapse and degeneration.

Darwinism Constitutes the Basis of Atheism

Anger, aggression and violence rise in societies that do not live by religious moral values, where people turn away from moral attributes such as the affection, compassion, forgiveness, patience and tolerance commanded by God.

One of the main reasons why materialist circles support Darwinism with such intense determination is its atheistic aspect.

Atheism has existed since very ancient times, but with Darwinism, atheists imagined that they had finally found an answer to the question of how living things (and human beings) came to exist, which for centuries they had been unable to answer. They suggested that natural order and equilibrium had arisen as the result of coincidences, and that there was no purpose in the universe. However, every one of these views collapsed in the face of scientific, political and social advances made in the 20th century. Discoveries and analyses in a great many disciplines, from astronomy to biology, from psychology to social ethics, totally uprooted the theses of evolution and the assumptions of atheism.

Many evolutionists and materialists admit that Darwinism inevitably ends in atheism. Thomas Huxley was the first to state this openly, saying that when the theory of evolution was fully accepted, it would be impossible to believe in religion.

William Provine, professor of history at Cornell University and also an evolutionist, states that the world view of someone who believes in the theory of evolution is at complete variance with religion.161

Charles Smith, former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, also admits this, saying "Evolution is Atheism."162

Phillip Johnson describes the importance of the theory of evolution for atheistic and intellectual trends incompatible with religious moral values:

… the triumph of Darwinism implied the [denial of the existence] of God and set the stage for replacing biblical religion with a new faith based on evolutionary naturalism. That new faith would become the basis not just of science but also government, law and morality. It would be the established ... philosophy of modernity.163

As Johnson states, many scientists with a blind faith in Darwinism and materialism have made it their aim to use science as a means of rejecting God. But the fact is, science is a most valuable means of revealing the proofs of God's existence. The last 20 years have seen a rapid rise in the numbers of scientists who support the fact of creation. Every new study, and every new piece of information shows that an exceedingly sensitive and flawless equilibrium exists in the entire universe, and reveals the work of a superior and great Intelligence that belongs to Almighty God, Who is exalted and rich beyond any need.

Michael Denton states that Darwinism brings atheism in its wake and causes great damage to humanity's way of looking at itself:

... [Darwin's] new and revolutionary [at the same time unreasonable and unscientific] view of the living world ... implied that all the diversity of life on Earth had resulted from natural and random processes and not, as was previously believed, from the creative activity of God. [Surely God is beyond that!] The acceptance of this great claim ... was to play a decisive role in the secularization of western society. ... It was because Darwinian theory broke man's link with God and set him adrift in a cosmos without purpose or end that its impact was so fundamental. No other intellectual revolution in modern times ... so profoundly affected the way men viewed themselves and their place in the universe.164

They do not measure God with His true measure. God is All-Strong, Almighty. (Surat al-Hajj, 74)

The loss or weakening of belief in God leads to a society's spiritual collapse. People with no fear of God, who deny that they will find their true, eternal lives after death and will be recompensed for their deeds in this world with Paradise or Hell, can be exceedingly unreliable, aggressive, ruthless and self-interested, and prone to dangerous criminal behavior. For someone who has no fear of God, there are no bounds. As long as that person thinks that he can somehow avoid being punished by laws, he may commit all kinds of immorality and cause all kinds of disruption in society, may cheat people, hurt them and engage in much similar behavior.

Fear and love of God, on the other hand, ensure that people live by proper moral values, behaving in ways that meet with His approval. This allows a society to progress, and also strengthens it. Otherwise, there will be no end to conflict, war, ruthlessness and injustice.

God commands goodness, justice, honesty and order. In the Qur'an, He reveals:

And to Madyan We sent their brother Shu'ayb who said, "My people, worship God! You have no other deity than Him. A clear sign has come to you from your Lord. Give full measure and full weight. Do not diminish people's goods. Do not cause corruption in the land after it has been put right. That is better for you if you are believers." (Surat al-A'raf, 85)

Do not lie in wait on every pathway, threatening people, barring those who believe from the way of God, seeking in it something crooked. Remember when you were few and He increased your number: see the final fate of the corrupters! (Surat al-A'raf, 86)

Darwinism Proposes the Lie that Man is Unrestrained and Purposeless

The following words by the evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson are the clearest summary of Darwinism's view of humanity, founded totally on deceptions:

Man stands alone in the universe, a unique product of a long, unconscious, impersonal, material process with unique understanding and potentialities. These he owes to no one but himself, and it is to himself that he is responsible.165

This claim represents one of Darwinism's classical falsehoods, and one of the main causes of societal collapse. Darwinists cannot offer the slightest scientific evidence for proposing that man managed to bring himself into the world, yet seek to preserve this falsehood for ideological reasons. According to their unrealistic claim, there is no predetermined reason for the existence of human beings—allegedly purposeless entities who will one day die and disappear. Yet the truth is very different. God created man from nothing. Behind human creation is a definite purpose, which is revealed in the Qur'an. God created human beings to serve Him. Every human will remain on Earth for the time allotted in line with a specific destiny, and after that allotted period has come to an end with death, will be resurrected. On the Day of Judgment, all human beings will be called to account for their actions in this world. That evolutionists try with all their power to forget this fact, and to cause others to deny it, changes nothing. So long as they refuse to abandon these errors in this world, denying God and the Day of Judgment and maintaining that man is a purposeless entity, when the Day of Judgment actually comes, the regret they experience will be very great. Our Lord has revealed this in the Qur'an:

If only you could see when they are standing before the Fire and saying, "Oh! If only we could be sent back again, we would not deny the signs of our Lord and we would be among the believers." (Surat al-An'am, 27)

Suggesting that there is no purpose behind their lives leads people to suffer a feeling of emptiness and terrible depression. Those who believe that falsehood see life as meaningless and unnecessary, and this in turn leads to a spiritual collapse. The irrational, illogical claims of Richard Dawkins, one of today's most prominent proponents of the theory of evolution, are typical of the materialist view. Dawkins maintains that human beings are all mere "gene machines," and that the only reason for existence is to pass their genes on to subsequent generations. According to Dawkins, there is no other purpose behind the universe: Man and the universe are both products of coincidence and chaos. This belief will inflict great despair and unhappiness, since nothing has any significance for someone who believes that at the moment of death, he will simply cease to exist. Friendship, love and good deeds give no joy to someone who imagines that they will receive no reward and will not survive in any case.

Did you suppose that We created you for amusement and that you would not return to Us? (Surat al-Muminun, 115)

In addition, this distorted moral fabric will make people imagine that their evil deeds will go unrecompensed. That will lead them to imagine that they can conceal those deeds to avoid being punished for them, and therefore feel no compunction or hesitation over lying, hypocrisy, gossiping, making unjust profits, theft and even murder. In any society where the number of people deceived by such a twisted conception increases, then order and stability will be out of the question.

One of the most striking instances of the damage that Darwinist propaganda inflicted on the human soul appears in the preface to Dawkins' book Unweaving the Rainbow:

A foreign publisher of my first book confessed that he could not sleep for three nights after reading it, so troubled was he by what he saw as its cold, bleak message. Others have asked me how I can bear to get up in the mornings. A teacher from a distant country wrote me reproachfully that a pupil had come to him in tears after reading the same book, because it had persuaded her that life was empty and purposeless. He advised her not to show the book to any of her friends, for fear of contaminating them with the same nihilistic pessimism.166

As can be seen from Dawkins's admission, the pessimism and purposelessness that Darwinism suggests represent a grave threat to society. People are offered not a bleak message, as by Dawkins suggested, but a bleak lie that seeks to divert them from the truth that inspires joy. That joy lies in the fact that man is not lonely, friendless, and abandoned but possesses a purpose stipulated by God.

Forgetting that God has created human beings for a specific purpose, societies are condemned to suffer a moral and spiritual collapse. Most of those addicted to drugs and alcohol, who turn their backs on life, and suffer such psychological disorders like depression and stress, and who commit suicide, are unaware of their lives' true purpose.

I only created jinn and man to worship Me. (Surat adh-Dhariyat, 56)

Despite being an evolutionist, Fred Hoyle says this of the nihilistic philosophy—that life is pointless and that human beings are worthless—emanating from The Origin of Species:

I am haunted by a conviction that the nihilistic philosophy which so-called educated opinion chose to adopt following the publication of the Origin of Species committed mankind to a course of automatic self destruction. A doomsday was then set ticking.167

God has created all human beings to serve Him, and has breathed His own soul into them. Man is not an entity that came into being by chance from inanimate substances, but an entity created by Almighty God, to whom He gave reason and conscience and all kinds of blessings. Human beings—whom Darwinist materialists imagine to be purposeless and free of any restraint—actually have a most valuable purpose in life, to please Almighty God, Who created them, brought them into being from nothing, and gave them a soul and consciousness. At every moment of our lives, we should abide by our Lord's commandments with the greatest care and enthusiasm, hoping to earn His mercy and eternal Paradise in return. A person's true life is in the Hereafter, which will begin after death. In this world, a person must live in order to attain Paradise.

God reveals in the Qur'an that human beings are not free from all restraint:

Does man reckon he will be left to go on unchecked? (Surat al-Qiyama, 36)

Did you suppose that We created you for amusement and that you would not return to Us? (Surat al-Muminun, 115)

The Social Darwinist Lie That "Man Is a Species of Animal"

Richard Dawkins and his The Blind Watchmaker

Those deceived by this irrational, unscientific claim maintain that all of man's attributes are a legacy from his so-called "animal ancestors." This has dangerous effects on a person's view of himself and of others. Someone who regards other people as animals will disregard their ideas, and consider their lives to be of little value. He will regard a person's death as no more important than that of a dog or a cat. The fact that people are in need will cause no discomfort to someone who regards them as animals and thinks that in any case, animals evolve through conflict and competition. Such a frightening view completely does away with love and respect among people. For these reasons, those deceived by Darwinism must not ignore what this deception will cost them.

George Gaylord Simpson says this about the way Darwinism regards human beings:

In the world of Darwin, man has no special status other than his definition as a distinct species of animal. He is in the fullest sense a part of nature and not apart from it. He is akin, not figuratively but literally, to every living thing, be it an ameba, a tapeworm, a flea, a seaweed, an oak tree, or a monkey—even though the degrees of relationship are different...168

According to Social Darwinist propaganda, the death of a human being is no different to that of a fly. Darwinism attaches no great importance to human beings. Even the condition of these children may have no effect on the consciences of people deceived by Darwinist propaganda.

In fact, however, this claim is unscientific, irrational, and illogical. Humans and animals are entirely different entities created by God. Animals act in the light of instincts and lack reasoning. A human being, on the other hand, is an entity capable of judgment and who can reason. Those who maintain that man is a species of animal seek to apply the law of the jungle to human societies, which will lead to a terrifying chaos that eliminates all peace and well-being.

Darwin expressed this distorted view in one of his letters, wondering whether human beings' ideas could be of any value, based on the falsehood that they evolved from animals:

With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the minds of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? 169

Darwin's words neatly summarize evolutionists' terrifying view of humanity. This grave error of Darwin's came to pervade a large part of the Western world, and the idea that human beings are animals is still propagated in many countries today, even in school textbooks. For example, Biology: Visualizing Life, published in 1994, says:

You are an animal, and share a common heritage with earthworms and dinosaurs, butterflies and sea stars.170

Benjamin Wiker, a university lecturer in science and theology and author of Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists, states how, after Darwin there came an enormous deviation in the way man was regarded. He describes how the error of considering human beings to be the same as animals spread, ignoring the differences between them:

… most if not all of "traditional" morality is based on the assumption that human beings are a distinct species. Thus, the prohibition against murder is defined in terms of human nature. Don't murder! Don't murder what? Aphids? Anteaters? Orangutans? No, don't kill another innocent human being. With Darwinism, however, that species distinction between human beings and other animals is completely blurred. There is no longer any moral line to be drawn because the species line has been erased.

An example of the suffering inflicted on innocent people by Social Darwinist philosophy. Present-day terrorist attacks are also the result of Darwinist values, which maintain that human beings are the same as animals, and have inflicted nothing but blood, suffering and tears on humanity.

Darwinists like Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer understand this perfectly. ... Once we see ourselves as just one more animal on the evolutionary spectrum, then we must either affirm that our morality applies to all living things or deny that our morality has any foundation at all. Generally Darwinists provide a kind of incoherent stew of both. They treat some animals as if they had the same moral status as human beings, and treat human beings, in some respects, as if they were just one more animal. On the one hand, they will argue for animal rights; on the other, they assert that deformed or old and infirm human beings should be "put down" out of the same compassion we show for our pets.171

As we've seen, one main reason why evolutionists seek to portray man as a species of animal is their desire to eradicate all moral values. If man were an animal, as Darwinism would have us believe, then even the concept of morality would be of no importance to people. The damage this would inflict on society is beyond all imagining. For that reason, all humanity must be on its guard against Darwinism and the deceptions of this scientific forgery.

In alleging that human beings are no different from animals in physical and biological terms, Darwinism also seeks to impose the idea that human and animal behavior are no different from one another. This lets undesirable characteristics and behavior, such as violence, aggression, and selfishness, ruthless competition, rape and homosexuality, allegedly inherited from man's animal ancestors, assume the status of "natural behavior" for people. For instance, the evolutionist scientist Philip Jackson Darlington writes:

The first point is that selfishness and violence are inherent in us, inherited from our remotest animal ancestors. Violence is, then, natural to man; a product of evolution. 172

All sorts of crimes are therefore seen as normal and justified, and it is even suggested that they should not be punished. In Ever Since Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould says this view began with the Italian expert on criminology professor Cesare Lombroso:

God commands justice and doing good and giving to relatives. And He forbids indecency and doing wrong and tyranny. He warns you so that hopefully you will pay heed. (Surat an-Nahl, 90)

Biological theories of criminality were scarcely new, but Lombroso [Italian physician, Cesare Lombroso] gave the argument a novel, evolutionary twist. Born criminals are not simply deranged or diseased; they are, literally, throwbacks to a previous evolutionary stage. The hereditary characters of our primitive and apish ancestors remain in our genetic repertoire. Some unfortunate men are born with an unusually lage number of these ancestral characters. Their behavior may have been appropriate in savage societies of the past; today, we brand it as criminal. We may pity the born criminal, for he cannot help himself... 173

As is evident from the evolutionist Gould's description of Lombroso's idea, the commission of crime is regarded as something beyond free will, a legacy from human beings' alleged animal ancestors. However, this is an unrealistic claim. God has created all human beings with their lower selves that constantly impel them towards evil, but also with a conscience that protects them and cause them to avoid evil and do good. It is revealed in verses that:

And [I swear by] the self and what proportioned it and inspired it with depravity or sense of duty, he who purifies it has succeeded, he who covers it up has failed. (Surat ash-Shams, 7-10)

All human beings, therefore, are aware of whether their deeds are good or bad, and their behavior proper or otherwise. Everyone is responsible for avoiding what is evil and doing what is good. In the same way that those people who do good receive the finest recompense for their actions, so those who do evil will inevitably be punished. The theory of evolution, depicting all forms of crime and immorality as justified, leads people to terrible disasters, both in this world and the Hereafter.

Unlike animals, a human being possesses a soul breathed into him or her by God, reason, free will, conscience, common sense and the ability to distinguish between good and bad. Humans are able to make decisions and judgments, deliver punishment and reward, and learn from experience, and are tested by God. None of these abilities are to be found in any other living thing, nor is it possible for them to be so, because they have nothing to do with humans' physical structures, or their genes. They are all features of the human soul.

That being so, everyone with reason must acknowledge that truth and accordingly, live an honorable and determined life, reconcilable with good conscience.

Poor Morality Imposed by the False "Struggle for Survival"

As already stated, one of Darwinism's main deceptions is the claim summed up in terms like "the struggle for survival" and "the survival of the fittest." According to evolutionists' unrealistic claims, life is a sphere of conflict and competition for all living things, including man. In such a world, there is no place for features of proper morality such as love, respect, cooperation or altruism.

In The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote that humanity had reached its current position through struggle, that it had to continue to struggle in order to progress, and that no law should be allowed to impede that process:

Man, like every other animal, has no doubt advanced to his present high condition through a struggle for existence consequent on his rapid multiplication; and if he is to advance still higher he must remain subject to a severe struggle.

Otherwise he would soon sink into indolence, and the more highly-gifted men would not be more successful in the battle of life than the less gifted. Hence our natural rate of increase, though leading to many and obvious evils, must not be greatly diminished by any means. There should be open competition for all men...174

In the dark world imposed by Darwinism, the important thing is for people to spend their whole lives in struggle. Yet this claim lacks any scientific validity, and is also incompatible with reason and logic. When such dangerous suggestions are put into practice, honesty and heroism, loyalty and devotion will be replaced by hypocrisy and selfishness, mendacity and disloyalty; and only those who possess these negative characteristics will be victorious. The foundations on which Darwinism bases its twisted view of the world and morality are frequently implied by evolutionists, in order to influence people.

For example, in an article titled "The Center of Life," Lorraine Lee Larison Cudmore, who holds a doctorate in biology, openly admits that in the evolutionist view of life, compassion and pity have no place:

Evolution is ... hard, inescapable... There is just no room for compassion or good sportsmanship. Too many organisms are born, so, quite simply, a lot of them are going to have to die. The only thing that does matter is, whether you leave more children carrying your genes than the next person leaves.175

Like racism, savage capitalism and eugenics examined previously in this book, the perverted ideas and dangerous practices reinforced by Darwinism are the results of errors and deceptions concerning the struggle of the strongest for survival. The fact remains, though, that life is not a sphere of struggle. Human beings' only struggle must be against their own lower selves. By fighting against evils in his own nature and those around him, a person must seek to bring positive features such as love, compassion, affection, peace, security, respect, and loyalty to prevail. That is a requirement of the moral values that are pleasing to God and which He has chosen for His servants.

Social Darwinism Attaches No Value to Human Life

The graph below shows the enormous rise in crime levels over the last 30 years. The more societies distance themselves from religious moral values, the greater the ensuing moral collapse and crime levels.

When Darwinism's dogma of the "struggle for life" and its mistaken views are put into practice, human life is rendered worthless. Killing people for any reason whatsoever, abandoning them to starvation, provoking war, slaughter, carrying out acts of terrorism, and exterminating people for being mentally or physically handicapped or belonging to a different race all become "legitimate."

In line with this twisted mentality, one who attaches no value to human life is the American professor E. A. Ross. According to Ross's Social Darwinist view: "The Christian cult of charity as a means of grace has formed a shelter under which idiots and cretins have crept and bred." Again according to Ross: "The state gathers the deaf mutes into its sheltering arm, and a race of deaf mutes is in process of formation." Since these actions obstruct so-called natural evolutionary development, he declared that the shortest way to better this world was to leave all such people on their own to be eventually eliminated through natural selection.176

What a ruthless view this is! Man is possessed of a conscience, and conscience commands one to protect the weak, the down-and-out and the poor. Otherwise, if man loses his ability "to think like a human being," then he really will achieve a position inferior to that of animals—because animals show great solidarity and cooperation. (For detailed information, see Harun Yahya's Devotion Among Animals: Revealing the Work of God, Global Publishing, Istanbul.)

Ross is not the only Social Darwinist to place scant value on human life. A great many share his terrifying ideas. For example, the evolutionist Peter Singer, Princeton University's professor of bioethics, goes so far as to say that people with severe physical handicaps must be regarded as unworthy of life. He expressed this cruel opinion in the following terms:

According to the Darwinist mindset, which regards man as a species of animal, humans are of little worth. Under Social Darwinist logic, nothing must be done to help people who are suffering in pain and fear; and such people are abandoned without help or protection. However, under Islamic moral values, every believer is responsible for striving to ensure others' peace, security and well-being.

If we compare a severely defective human infant with ... a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacities... Only the fact that the defective infant is a member of the species Homo sapiens leads it to be treated differently from the dog or pig. Species alone, however, is not morally relevant...177

Singer went even further and said that the mentally handicapped might be killed in scientific experiments or even for food purposes! Singer's exact words are:

Mental defectives do not have a right to life, and therefore might be killed for food – if we should develop a taste for human flesh – or for the purpose of scientific experimentation.178

Even such revolting and savage behavior can be supported in Darwinist logic. Joseph Fletcher, former president of the Right to Die Society, makes a similar claim regarding the mentally handicapped:

Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of their organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes ... [Idiots] are not, never were, and never will be in any degree responsible. Idiots, that is to say, are not human.179

There are only grounds against those who wrong people and act as tyrants in the Earth without any right to do so. Such people will have a painful punishment. (Surat ash-Shura, 42)

The killing of newborn babies is yet another practice condoned by Darwinism, which attaches no value to human life. Darwinism condones such an unconscionable idea: If looking after a newborn poses a hardship for the parents that will hold them back in their struggle for survival, then in evolutionary terms, that baby should be killed. Darwin claimed that animals were frequently observed to kill their newborn, and that this was an important factor in population control. In an article in Science magazine, the evolutionist Barbara Burke has this to say:

Among some animal species, then, infant killing appears to be a natural practice. Could it be natural for humans, too, a trait inherited from our primate ancestors? ... Charles Darwin noted in The Descent of Man that infanticide has been "probably the most important of all checks" on population growth throughout most human history.180

As we have seen earlier, Darwinists like Haeckel encouraged suicide and claimed that those who thought life was unbearable had the right to put an end to it. Yet God has made the taking of one's own life a sin.

All these savage practices and beliefs—eugenics, euthanasia and racism—show how Darwinism is an ideology that attaches no value to human life, and is constructed on myths of no scientific value.

The fact is that the life of every single human being is of great importance. Under Qur'anic moral values, people regard each other as valuable and important, and sacrifice for one another. A believer will give food to someone else, even if he needs it himself:

They give food, despite their love for it, to the poor and orphans and captives. (Surat al-Insan, 8)

Muslims are charged with protecting the poor, helping the abandoned and protecting orphans, helpless women and men, children and the elderly. In one verse, for example, God has commanded people not even to say"Ugh!" to their parents (Surat al-Isra', 23) and always to "say the best" to one another (Surat al-Isra', 53). In another verse, God reveals: "... if someone kills another person—unless it is in retaliation for someone else or for causing corruption in the Earth—it is as if he had murdered all humanity. And if anyone gives life to another person, it is as if he had given life to all humanity." (Surat al-Ma'ida, 32)

It's a manifest truth that a society where everyone regards every human being as having reason and conscience, as valuable and important will be filled with peace, security, love and respect.

The slaughter perpetrated to “Eenforee Natural Sselectıon”

On 20 April 1999, two American students from Columbine High School in the state of Colorado, 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, attacked their school armed with guns and bombs. After killing 12 students and a teacher in the space of half an hour they then committed suicide. Searches of the two students' homes immediately after the attacks uncovered most interesting documents and information. In one of his pieces of writing dated 26 April 1998, printed on the Westword web site based in Denver, Eric Harris wrote that he and Klebold would enforce "natural selection" in their school: These youngsters who killed their friends, saying that they shall carry out natural selection, wrote in their diaries that they were more highly evolved— and therefore superior— to other people. Sometime in April [of 1999] me and V [Klebold, whom he called "V" of "Vodka" in the journals] will get revenge and will kick natural selection up a few notches. Armed with the following; a terrorist bag full of noisey crickets, noisey crickets strapped to WD40 cans, pipe bombs with a ... load of shrapnel, fire bombs, chlorine gas bombs, and smoke bombs.1 In addition, the words "NATURAL SELECTION" were printed on Harris' T-shirt at the time of the attack. 2 It appears from the writings that theirs was an act of revenge against teachers and students whom they regarded as "inferior."3 In most of his writings, Harris constantly referred to natural selection and feelings of superiority. In the three videos they shot before the attack, the two referred to themselves as more "evolved" than others and to the feeling of being "above human."4 Indeed, exactly in April as Harris had written in his journal, he and Klebold entered Columbine High School with weapons similar to those they had referred to and began massacring the students there. Both were known in the school for their admiration of Hitler, and wore T-shirts with swastika emblems on them. Furthermore, the day they carried out the attack would have been Hitler's 110th birthday. These two boys were apparently ordinary high school students with stable family backgrounds, whom nobody had ever imagined would perpetrate such an attack. In addition, it appears from their journals that they had good relations with their families and experienced no problems with them. The abnormally aggressive streak in these young people's characters which propelled them to perpetrate such a psychopathic attack must have been supported by the education they received. They resorted to the concept of "natural selection," which they had learned in school, in order to resolve problems with classmates whom they thought had excluded them. It is by no means surprising that people "educated" to believe such false ideas as that life is a struggle to the death, that one has to fight to survive, that the strong crush the weak, that human life is of no value, and that human beings are no different from animals, carry out attacks that they link to natural selection. The view of life they acquire as a result of their education is the one imposed on people by Darwinism. People who learn about natural selection's ruthless competition in textbooks and in class, and who imagine this is the only way to survive, are able to regard such hatred and ruthless enmity as legitimate. They will therefore be capable of perpetrating similar actions. However, when educated in the light of values taught by the moral values of the Qur'an, rather than of dogmas such as "natural selection," young people-–and indeed all society—will seek to be forgiving, to feel love, affection and friendship, and to ensure peace and peacefulness rather than hatred and conflict. The solution to moral degeneration lies in the intellectual overthrow of the philosophy that leads to it and its replacement by the moral values commanded by the Qur'an. Notes 1. CNN, "Columbine Killer Envisioned Crashing Plane in NYC, 6 Aralık 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/05/columbine.diary/ 2. Denver Rocky Mountain News, 25 Haziran 1999, s. 4A, 14A 3. Antonio Mendoza, "High School Armageddon", http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/columbine.html 4. Antonio Mendoza, High School Armageddon, http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/columbine.html