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The greatest aim of materialism throughout the course of history has been to turn people away from belief in the existence of a Creator and to indoctrinate them with the lie that there is nothing else but matter. The aim here is to condition people to the idea of irresponsibility and convince them they are nothing more than a highly evolved animal. Since Darwinism is an extension of materialist thinking, such conditioning draws people closer to Darwinism because feeling oneself to be irresponsible may be very attractive to people in whose hearts there is no fully established faith in Allah. With the idea of irresponsibility, people fall into the error that it will be easier for them to live by their earthly desires. Throughout their lives, they behave as if they were unaware of the responsibilities they have to fulfill toward Allah. They believe that they can turn away from responsibilities imposed by the Qur'an, such as worshiping Allah, living with the idea of the Hereafter and being virtuous and eschewing evils that belong to earthly passions, and they foolishly imagine that they can thus live at ease. But the fact is that this system, which they imagine to be a very easy one, is in fact a source of enormous trouble. Someone who thinks he can be comfortable by rejecting moral virtues lives in a constantly troubled state, the spiritual emptiness resulting from not living virtuously. Someone who thinks that by being selfish they can be strong, and that behaving unjustly can benefit him, will constantly suffer the pains of these unpleasant misconceptions. The moral vice he exhibits rebounds against him. The physical and psychological damage inflicted by living in an environment where nobody loves anybody else, where nobody makes sacrifices for anyone else, where nobody protects or watches over anybody else and where there is no justice, love or compassion wears his life away. In short, the Darwinist inculcation of irresponsibility is not, as some people imagine, something that makes their lives easier, but rather and on the contrary makes their lives ugly and unpleasant and inflicts material and spiritual suffering. This can be better realized when one considers the social collapse going on in many Western countries.
Believing in Darwinism may seem rather more acceptable for some people who prefer not to think about all this. Because some people may have a predisposition to take things easy, imagining this will "simplify" their lives. Most people see nothing wrong in thinking of themselves as irresponsible beings descended from animals. And that is what Darwinism does, literally equating human beings with flies or insects.
The evolutionist and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould summarizes this way of thinking:
Humans represent just one tiny, largely, fortuitous, and late- arising twig on the enormously arborescent bush of life.179
The bus posters supported by the atheist Richard Dawkins in various countries are a clear and explicit instance of the ugly propaganda in question. The posters backed by Dawkins indoctrinate people with atheism and thus foolishly advise people to "enjoy life free of any responsibilities." This call may seem quite realistic to someone who does not think too deeply, and he will quickly receive the Darwinist conditioning in question. Everything is set out so simplistically that such a person will be unaware of the error he has fallen into and how he has been deceived.
The fact is that these posters constitute a great fraud and a grave error. Even if one does not believe, one still sees the proofs of Allah's sublime existence all the time and one still lives the destiny appointed by Allah, whether one wishes to or not. The proofs of faith are everywhere – for people who can truly see and think. People can only achieve happiness and enjoy what they experience through faith and love of Allah. Of course Allah, who creates the delights of this world as a blessing, will bestow most of the beauty and joy of these blessings on those who love Him most and who are closest to Him. Since unbelievers forget that it is Allah who bestows blessings and pleasures, they imagine they can attain happiness by living irresponsibly and without restraint. But the fact is that living heedless of Allah, in an unrestrained and irresponsible manner, always inflicts stress, troubles and sorrows on them. Blessings have always turned into afflictions and pleasures to be enjoyed have always ended in disappointment. Since these people are unable to reflect on the beauty of being close to, and believing in, Allah and since they fail to comprehend that Allah bestows all blessings, they imagine they can succeed by the use of such false propaganda techniques. But the fact is that they cannot live pleasant and peaceful lives, and neither can they influence the people around them. (The bus posters espoused by Dawkins attracted a great deal of criticism in many countries. Bus drivers in European countries such as Finland boycotted them because of the extreme reactions they attracted, bus companies decided not to use the posters, and they were also torn up by members of the public.) As a result, the posters in question were banned in many places.180)
Another place where this conditioning is carried out on an intensive basis is schools. Biology, a university text book, teaches students that in learning about the "nature of life" they must always bear in mind that "Evolution is random and not designed ".181 Students reading the university text book Life: The Science of Biology encounter the following passage: " Darwinian world view "means accepting not only the processes of evolution, but also the view that... evolutionary change is not directed toward a final goal or state."182 There can be no doubt that an education system that teaches the lie that man came into being by chance, as the result of blind and unconscious coincidences means regarding the poisoning of young minds by ideas that encourage anarchy, conflict, slaughter and selfishness as legitimate, and people receiving such indoctrination can be directed as desired. For example, the error taught to students in Douglas Futuyma's text book Evolutionary Biology is this:
The entire tradition of philosophical explanation by the purpose of things…was made completely superfluous by Darwin's theory of natural selection… The profound, and deeply unsettling, implication of this purely mechanical, material explanation for the existence and characteristics of diverse organisms is that we need not invoke, nor can we find any evidence for, any design, goal, or purpose anywhere in the world, except for human behavior
Futuyma's unscientific statement continues:
It was Darwin's theory of evolution, followed by Marx's materialistic (even if inadequate or wrong) theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, that provided a crucial plank to the platform of mechanism and materialism" that has since been "the stage of most Western thought"."183
But this is all a deception.
Human beings are not freed from their responsibilities by regarding everything as simple and unconscious. And it is impossible for a feeling of avoiding one's responsibilities to make people happy. Once people cast off this feeling, they will not suddenly enjoy earthly pleasures or at once be freed from all their worries. There is a very important truth that atheists and Darwinists either do not know, or refuse to admit: Allah creates all things. It is also Allah Who creates blessings and pleasures in this world. And it is therefore Allah who bestows the sensation of enjoying earthly pleasures and a pleasant life.
If Allah so wishes He can make a person suffer the worst unhappiness and torment in the midst of all blessings and in great plenty and abundance. No matter how much a person may strive to have unlimited enjoyment of all delights, it is still Allah who bestows pleasure and happiness on him. One of atheists' and Darwinists' gravest errors is that they ignore this reality.
Everyone who thinks he has no responsibilities is also searching for love, comfort and security, just like everyone else. But he will possess none of these in a society made up of individuals like himself. Throughout his life, the irresponsible person tries to forget that he will one day die. But he is in fact constantly in the shadow of death. He sees the deaths of people around him and constantly witnesses sickness and accidents. Even the death of an insect will remind him of the death he is trying to get away from. No matter how much he tries to deny the fact of death, the fear of it will eventually enfold his entire body. He grieves for people around him who die and, according to his own beliefs, just cease to exist . He begins to find it impossible to deny that his own body cannot withstand the ravages of time, and that death is drawing closer all the time. Far from comforting him, denying the fact of death will bring with it fear, stress and worry.
Living irresponsibly in fact opens the door to all troubles and difficulties. A person who fails to properly appreciate that everything is under Allah's control will be terrified of the future. A person who fails to appreciate that all profit and loss lies with Allah will greedily pursue his own profit throughout his life, thus ruining almost that entire life. Someone who does not know that Allah has created a matchless life in the Hereafter in which a person can enjoy all delights will expect to see true love, friendship and loyalty in the system in which he believes. But the fact is he will only possess true love in this world if Allah so ordains. That expectation will never be met as long as he does not live for Allah. He will realize that his life is passing swiftly by without his attaining true love and devotion. But there can be no going back. He waits in terror for what lies in the future.
In his own eyes, he only has a few decades in this world. Since he has no belief in the Hereafter, he thinks he will "cease to exist" in a few decades' time. How can spending a few decades in this world believing that one will then cease to exist impart any happiness, pleasure or peace? It cannot, of course. That is why no atheists enjoy life in the way they claim to, and spend their time worrying about and fearing what the future will bring.
When they come to the end of their lives, such people will realize they have spent it all in empty and pointless pursuits and expectations. That is what irresponsibility brings with it. If someone has no hope of the Hereafter and wants to live unfettered and devoid of any values, then sooner or later he must face the consequences of that. Suicide, fighting, murder, slaughter, theft, rape and corruption are all consequences of an irresponsible life.
Yet as Allah reveals in the verse, "Does man reckon he will be left to go on unchecked?" (Surat al-Qiyama, 36), human beings are not created without responsibilities. It is only fear and love of Allah that can bestow peace and that leads a person to live a true and pleasant life with no fear and troubles. Someone who fears Allah knows he will have to account for himself to Him and cannot live in violation of his conscience. Nobody who fears Allah can harm anyone else, display poor moral values, or regard human beings as random entities. Someone who trusts Allah knows that it is Allah who creates him, preserves him and gives him his daily bread, health and strength and knows he can ask these things from Him alone. Someone who fears Allah knows that he is subject to an auspicious destiny created by Allah, that he is solely tested in this world, and that his real life will be the one appointed for him by Allah in the Hereafter. For that reason, they constantly strive in this world. They know that are responsible to Allah, that they must render account to Him, and that Allah does not create them to be unfettered and irresponsible.
For them, blessings are means for rejoicing, and it is only believers who can properly appreciate and enjoy blessings. People imagine that they will achieve satisfaction when they enjoy unlimited pleasures. But this lack of restraint leads people to become tired of, and even disgusted with, blessings. The delights they expected to enjoy suddenly turn into afflictions and burdens. But the state of mind that loves blessings from Allah and enjoys them because Allah created them is very different. Someone who lives in that way enjoys extraordinary delight. And by Allah's leave, the reward for living in that awareness is a pleasant life in this world and the Hereafter. Allah reveals in verses that:
