Dear Sohail Saheb

As usual, your article titled "Charles Darwin and the Evolution of the Human Mind" is well researched and thought provoking. Indeed, you are a prolific writer with original ideas. How you manage your creative work including poetry despite your professional responsibilities is amazing, hei mashq-e-sukhan jari-----.

I do not accept the Theory of Evolution, but respect those who do. Where we have come from is a subject of unending discourse. Even if one accepts the premise of the evolutionary process, the fact remains that things do not evolve out of nothing. There has to be a starting point and a force that triggers the chain of evolution and then keeps it in motion.  In my understanding, no creation can be attributed to an evolutionary process or mere accident without an enabling force. Even the process of evolution or an accident does not occur in a vacuum.

In the mid-nineties, I was traveling along the Silk Route surrounded by sky-high mountains and valleys as deep as I could see. I was overwhelmed by that experience and felt humble and insignificant. Then I thought that those overpowering mountains were a trivial part of the planet earth which is a fraction of the solar system and that too an insignificant part of the universe. To assume that all this came into being or evolved in due course of time by itself is an admission of ignorance.

It is amazing that the human mind can not conceive of a simple brick without a brick maker, a wall without a bricklayer, a watch without a watchmaker, a nest without a bird and a web without a spider but is ready to assume that his own intricate self, his immediate surroundings and the entire universe came into being without a "Designer" or a "Maker". It seems that proponents of evolution and self-creation have two sets of rules: any form or substance that needs human or animal intervention necessitates an initiator but any creation that is beyond human power does not need a maker; it just happens.

In my view, it is a bit arrogant to assume that the universe revolves around man and the test of existence is human comprehension; what man does not see, feel, hear, taste or smell does not exist.

No man can enjoy peace and tranquility in a kingdom after challenging the authority of the king, as behind the façade of supreme authority and confidence the king is a fallible and insecure person.. He has no inherent power. He is aware that his authority emanates from the acquiescence or capitulation of his subjects. However, the ultimate creator has no such hang-ups and man enjoys an unlimited latitude to rebel or challenge His authority without fear of retribution. In the former Soviet Union, one of the most repressive systems of governance ever invented by man, the authorities used their state might for seventy years to establish a God-free society but failed to erase the concept Creator from the human psyche.

The dilemma is that man is too self-assured of the knowledge he has and what he does not know, he just does not know. The discoveries in the field of Time and Space are mind boggling and raising more questions then providing answers. It is evident that there is a vast area of "unknown".  The overconfident man is still nibbling on the periphery of the infinite sea of knowledge. My professor used to say that knowledge makes you humble, as you realize how ignorant you are. Just now (8 .30 A.M., May 06, 08), I saw on CNN a huge eruption in Chile, at a place 800 miles away from the capital Santiago and nearby city had to be evacuated. It was reported to have happened after 9000 years. In human vocabulary, this episode is called natural disaster. However, the question is what "nature" is? Are we not admitting our ignorance by attributing so much that is happening around us to an undefined phenomenon called nature?

For man the only way out is to surrender and recognize the limits of his intellect and comprehension:

Na ma'halle guf'tugu he na ma'qaame jus'tuju he
na jahaN hawas poNh'che na khi'rad ko he rasai

With my best regards,

Anis Zuberi

P.S.

(Sohail Saheb, I am not attempting to convert naysayer or starting a discourse on the subject that has been debated enough. I respect your viewpoint and hope you will reciprocate my feelings. If you permit me then I would like to email my comments to the recipients of your message. The addresses were attached to your email)