the following way:
1.God created the heavens and the Earth
2.God formed man from the dust of the Earth and breathed life into him.
3.God made trees from the ground and put them into the Garden of Eden.
4.God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden.
5.God though Adam would be lonely, so he created birds and animals, which Adam named.
6.The birds and animals were not suitable helpers for Adam, so God but Adam to sleep, removed one of his ribs, and from the rib, he created woman, Eve.
The creation stories are believed by theists (people who believe in God). More secular people, (non-religious) on the other hand, tend to believe in the big bang theory. Christianity, is not the only religion to have two creation stories. The Qu’ran (holy book of Muslims) also features two creation stories. Firstly there is the version which is believed by the stricter Muslims. There are no clear statements as to the order of the creation.
- Created the sun, moon stars and planets.
- Separated night form day.
- Sent water to the Earth and created vegetation.
- Created birds, fish and animals.
- Created Adam, as the first human being. Adam was made, out of clay, into which God breathed life.
- Created Adam as the Kalifah of the Earth and made the angels bow down to Adam because Adam had been given free will.
- Threw Adam and his wife out of the Garden of Eden for giving into temptation of Satan.
- Creates by speaking.
I think that mostly, more secular Muslims would believe the more modern view of the creation story.
- It claims that the Arabic word translated in English is more correctly translated as ‘ages’ So the Islamic view is that God’s creation took six ‘ages’.
- There is no sequence of creation in the Qu’ran, but the first creation appears to be the heavens, and indeed, there is reference to their motion.’All the celestial bodies swim around, each in its rounded course’.
- Then God created life from the water. We made from water, every living thing.
- From this came vegetation: ‘sent down water from the sky with it we have produced divers pours of plants.
This Muslim version gives he idea of a gradual creation with a more evolutionary character.
The different religion’s creation stories have some differences and some similarities. The similarities would be that they all involve creating the world and its contents in some kind of sequence. They all include the creation of the heavens and the Earth, and the sun, moon and stars. Both creation stories have another version, which tend to be believed by the not so strict religious person.
The differences would be, the fact that the Bible’s creation story has a specific sequence to the events which took place, whereas the Qu’ran’s creation story creation stories have no particular order of events or sequence. Also in the Bible’s creation stories, there is no mention of evidence of Adam and Eve been taken out of the Garden of Eden through giving into temptation.
In one of the Bible’s creation stories, it states that God formed man from the dust of the Earth, whereas the Qu’ran tells that God made man from clay and breathed life into him.
The word Science means fact, not belief. Scientific cosmology is scientific theories as to how the world was created.
Scientists put forward a theory called the ‘Big bang theory’. This was a theory, stating that the world was formed millions of years ago by a big bang, the matter of the universe became so compressed that it produced a huge explosion.
The religious theory as to how the world was made is the creation story, Where God made the world in 6 days etc. The definition of the word ‘day’ does not have to mean 24 hours. It can mean an ‘age’ or period of time, which is how the creation story can be linked to the theory of evolution. God created the world in 6 days in a sequence of events. The same sequence of events in the same order happened in 6 stages over 6 ‘ages’. This makes them very similar.
You could say, the theory of evolution mentions ‘Dinosaurs’ and the Bible does not. But the creation story in the Bible does mention animals; not of any species, but you have to take into account that we didn’t start categorising animals until around the 17th century, so surely, dinosaurs could well have been classed as animals?
Scientific cosmology can sometimes be seen as supporting religious belief. For instance, the sequence of events in the traditional Bible creation story can be linked with the order of events in the Big bang theory, these are the therefore seen as supporting eachother.
There are scientists who have been led to believe in God through science, and many religious people say that science and religion are just two ways of looking at the same facts. Scientist came up with the ‘Big bang theory’; religion accepts this theory but claim that God caused the big explosion. These two claims could also be seen as supporting eachother.
Another way in which science and religion are connected or support eachother is that science says, “ objects in the world can be affected by forces which cannot be detected by human senses e.g., Gravity, magnetism”. In the same way, religion claims that human beings can be affected by a force which cannot be detected by human senses, a force the call ‘God’. These both link and support eachother.
Science leads to an awareness of God and many scientists are deeply religious. Take Isaac Newton for example. He looked at his thumbprint, how delicately and intricately it was designed. He decided, something as simple, yet so wonderful as this, could not have possibly been created by accident. There must have been a creator, But I think that the world is so perfect in its design, that one man could not have achieved such beauty and wonder. I think the world has always been like this and is here for a purpose, therefore, I believe in the steady state theory.
A lot of scientific theories end up including religious aspects as they just cant possibly fathom out a logical explanation to things.
I think that religious beliefs and scientific theories, both could not exist without eachother. Both have elements of the other. For example, the big bang theory claims the world started as a big bang, but when asked, what caused the big bang…Scientists, who cannot think of a logical explanation, simply turn to religion and reply with ‘God’. This is simply because, there is no proof otherwise.
