Caller Mohammed agrees with Rabbi on Evolution 11-29-06

     SAVAGE:  There are areas of unity between the religions and I think we need to strengthen those. We need to strengthen those areas of unity. Maybe this AM radio show can help do that. Mohammed from Orlando, welcome back to the program. Now, you heard the rabbi from New York and his views of evolution and creation you agree with?

CALLER: Yes, and that’s what Islam is definitely all about. When I was listening to his message or his … he uh, uh, has a great way of articulating the words that he was, uh, telling on this conversation. That, um, the way we were created and everything else, that’s exactly, I think, there’s a lot of similarities between all religious Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

SAVAGE:  But yet, many Christians call the show and they don’t believe in Evolution. They believe only in creation. Are there… um… Creationists within the Muslim tradition as well who reject evolution? I would think that the educated Muslim understands that you can have science and religion co-existing. 

CALLER: Definitely. Without science, I don’t think we actually can basically survive. And the word, the first word that came out when revelation came in upon the Prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, is “read,” which is basically a way of telling human beings to take themselves and educate themselves and go into areas of things like science and like I said, that’s the first thing that Muslims are encouraged to do is basically educate themselves. So, I don’t see there is a difference between… a lot of people when they hear “evolution,” they take it to the extreme that we all came out from apes or from another animal or some other beings, but that’s not how evolution is. So, evolution could be something that, um, basically, where, where, um…

SAVAGE:  Well, I had asked the rabbi yesterday how do you explain the previous, uh, pre-humans, for example. Let’s call them that. The Neanderthal, for example. How do you explain that? If God is perfect, why would he create an imperfect man before creating a perfect man? And his answer was very interesting. He said that God took a long time to arrive at man to teach us how much time and effort it takes to create even one man in order to show us how important life is and the divinity of mankind. I thought that was beautiful, didn’t you, Mohammed?

CALLER: Definitely and also, uh, in Islam, way before humans were created, there was another creature that walked on the earth, and that’s another creature which we call the Djinns. And the Djinns actually, they were living in Earth way before we came in and they did exactly the same thing that we’re doing right now. We’re shedding blood all over the place. And God, when he told the angels that he will create humans, the angels replied to him that you will create a human just like you did with the Djinns. And they will do exactly the same thing that the Djinns did. And He said, I know that, but I know more than you will. So that’s exactly the same way. So there’s a lot of creatures that…

SAVAGE:  So in other words, we’re still behaving like sub humans even though we’re humans.

CALLER: Exactly

SAVAGE:  And we’re not supposed to behave like that. We’re supposed to behave like the angels, but we’re still behaving worse than the ape.

CALLER: Definitely.

SAVAGE:   [Laughter] Mohammed, bless you. Alechem Salam. Thanks for listening to The Savage Nation.