P.R.I.S.M: Primal Religious Instruction Serving Mankind

By M.B.O Owolowo

Religion is an integral part of mankind and affects everybody, regardless of religious inclination or posturing. The reality of our contemporary world is that matters of religion will literally stare you in the face – it’s ineluctable. There exists a wide spectrum of dedication, disinclination and aversion to religion, and the potential extremism among all categories is existential. In certain instances, adopted positions sometimes manifest as an aversion to religion, and by extension God. Historically, great minds, thinkers, philosophers and scientists have tried to decipher the meaning of life, and the matter of religion played a recurring role. In understanding the complexities of religion, the matter should ideally be approached via holistic and historical analysis, with the aim of unravelling its primal objective. The propositions of this project are derived from various academic sources, including theological exegesis – primarily Biblical and Quranic. P.R.I.S.M considers every form of belief and non-belief: from the agnostic to the atheist, Christian to Hindu, Jew to Muslim, and traditionalist to Zoroastrian. Maybe the concept of religion has been misunderstood and misrepresented? P.R.I.S.M is a multidisciplinary and rational approach to the matter of God and religion, from a universal viewpoint. Potentially, a proper understanding of these issues may assist mankind in its quest for peaceful coexistence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.B.O Owolowo
• Release date: May 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838479015

M.B.O Owolowo

M.B.O Owolowo is a writer and researcher who adopts a multidisciplinary approach to issues. He has published numerous articles via different platforms. Over the years, M.B.O has investigated and written about various socio-political and socio-religious topics globally, and primarily about issues affecting Sub-Saharan Africa.Owolowo was born to Yoruba parents in Lagos and grew up exposed to the exemplar religious diversity and harmony amongst the Yoruba in Western Nigeria. Living in the United Kingdom exposed Owolowo to the realities of discrimination – particularly racism, and the Islamophobia that ensued post-9/11. He is an advocate of dialogue and peaceful coexistence. Coming from a debating background, M.B.O conversed with people from a diverse spectrum - Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, free-thinkers, as well as the irreligious. As religion became a recurring theme in these conversations, M.B.O embarked on investigative research - comparatively and historically, to potentially identify the similarities and divergence between respective creeds and lack thereof. M.B.O believes religion is not the problem, but human perceptions and actions are. His inquisitive mind culminated in the publishing of his latest research-based book P.R.I.S.M: Primal Religious Instruction Serving Mankind.Owolowo was educated at the University of Lagos, where he earned a degree in Sociology. He has an MBA (Master of Business Administration) from Imperial College London.

Book preview

CHAPTER 4

THE CREATION CALLED MAN

Indeed, We created humans in the best form. – Quran 95:4

For a certainty, human beings are a special creation created by God The Creator; unique beings created with a sophisticated physiological composition and advanced intellectual capabilities. Man is one out of at least 8.7 million known species – a wonderful creation with billions of atoms: about 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (7octillion).⁵⁶Nonetheless, no matter how sophisticated or advanced a creation is, it was still created by a Creator. Based on the existentiality of the Creator and creation relationship, the logical prerequisite is to humbly accept the reality of man being a mere creation and that a Creator exists. The Quran highlights the infinitesimality of man with a comparison to the creation of the heavens and earth.

The creation of the heavens and the earth is indeed greater than the creation of mankind, yet most of mankind know not. – Quran 40:57

In view of this, man is one of many other creations, same as the sun and the moon. Creations exist within other creations, and so forth. As an example, it would be rather ludicrous to claim that because the sun is so unique in its composition compared to the other objects in the solar system that The Creator of the universe must have given birth to the sun!

Citing the moon as another example, if a blue moon coincides with a lunar eclipse, this creates a Super Blue Blood Moon eclipse – Supermoon.

Now, imagine a scenario where some people decide to state that because of the emergence of a special moon, like the Supermoon, then it implies that The Creator has given birth to the Supermoon. Progressing on a similar trajectory, imagine a scenario where a set of people decide to worship the unique moon. That is the similitude of worshipping the creation instead of The Creator. These analogies can be applied to any creation, including human beings. The act of giving birth in any manner or form is reserved for creatures with reproductive capabilities and cannot be associated with The Creator. For instance, the Quran gives a critical response to all forms of ideologies and concomitant manifestations that claim The Creator has a son.

And they say, The Most Merciful has taken [for Himself] a son.

Indeed you have done an atrocious thing.

The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits open and the mountains collapse in devastation – Quran 19:88-90

The inquisitive nature of man leads to conjecture, often warped in religious dogmatism. Generally, except for curiosity purposes, there is no functional significance in knowing the actual physical composition of The Creator, because such matters are beyond the scope of the creation. It can be argued that the exotericism or possession of such knowledge does not in any way assist the creation in its functional objectives. It is like computer software wanting to know the physical composition of the computer maker responsible for its design or creation.

Mankind often goes off in a tangent and gets preoccupied with convoluted otiosity, which does not assist human existentiality. The most critical fact remains; there are two separate entities, where one is reliant on the other to come into existence – Creator created creation.

Following the many centuries of continuous research, mankind is gradually attaining more knowledge about the conception of the creation within another creation (Man on Earth), related ontological revelations and coming to terms with the ever-present concept of God The Creator. Often, when the concept of a creator is discussed, the creationism discourse literally takes a new dimension. The limitation of the creation’s (human) thought processes becomes evident and usually manifests as an impediment. A common challenge that confronts those who fail to fully grasp or acknowledge the existence of God The Creator, is due to the misplaced requirement or tangential prerequisite of physical evidence, particularly in science. Those in this category are primarily scepticism-oriented and observer-dependent, and openly professing the ‘seeing is believing’ mantra, often without deeper ratiocination. The fact of the matter is, not all observations are scientific, because science can only attempt, but not explain everything in our dynamic world. There are certain phenomena that are confined to the acceptance of our reality – social environment. For example, what would be the scientific objective of trying to prove the human nose can be used to see or be a suitable alternative for sight function, when the human eyes have been established for that purpose! A scientific endeavour to prove death is another example, because such an experiment will not only be an exercise in futility but result in irreversible death – which will be the only certainty.

Supposed scientific facts have inherent limitations, even though certain impediments may not be revealed at the time of discovery.  In view of such developments, fluctuating facts and inconstant truths can be appreciated as inherent limitations to the eternality of science. There are no absolute truths in science; scientific facts are not set in stone and evolve from time to time. An established scenario in the field of science is when scientific theories are superseded, and a few examples include the Caloric Theory, Phlogiston Theory and Emission Theory. It is quite possible some people believed and died believing in such theories because those theories coincided with their own existence, and those theories may have been rendered obsolete after their demise. For example, Isaac Newton’s work on universal gravitation – Theory of Gravity – held sway for two centuries, until it was upended by Albert Einstein’s work on special and general relativity – Theory of Relativity.

Based on this premise, any aspect of science claiming the nonexistence of God, for example, should not be taken as fact, because of inherent flaws and potential falsifiability. For instance, a thorough dissection of the evolutionist view will reveal the entire process of evolution must have started after the initial creation. To a certain extent, the theory of evolution has been somewhat stultified by its inherent limitation. These often-inherent impediments manifest from the pivotal refusal to accept that creation evolved after a creator kick-started the entire process. As the centrality of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection (Evolution) is deconstructed, the initial natural process of existence is highlighted, and this ought to raise the question of the first natural selection process. What initiated the first process of natural selection? Did the first organism select itself?

The trajectory of this idea culminates in insinuating that the initial organism self-created. This is highly improbable and an impracticable scenario.

The same argument applies to self-replication theories, because to replicate is to copy. In other words, to be able to replicate something, that thing must exist. Without the existence of the thing to be replicated, then replication is impossible. Based on this premise, the entire replication process terminates at an initial thing – molecule, polymer, organism, etc. Whatever that initial thing to be replicated is, it does not possess self-creation abilities, and was a creation created by a creator.  Fundamentally, an extremely powerful force must have initiated everything; something that existed as a sole, incomparable and resoundingly unique entity. In analysing the scientific viewpoint, even scientists – at least the sincere ones – accept, the undisputable certainty that one thing in particular, kick-started all this matter.

A critical aspect of the limitations of science is brought to fore when the matter of creation is explicated. Science may succeed in replicating creation, particularly in human form, but cannot give life to anything. Furthermore, the existence of the soul becomes problematic to scientists who doubt the existence of a creator. Personally, I am of the opinion that if science cannot create human beings, then I am inclining towards accepting the belief in the existence of a creator. Despite so called scientific achievements of mankind, human beings did not even create themselves. To put it succinctly, humans are a creation incapable of creation. To be clear, the creation in focus is not referring to replicative science – in layman’s terms, copy and paste science – but actually creating something from nothing. The inabilities of man to replicate man as a creation are enough reasons for those who ruminate to accept the existence of a creator. If human beings cannot create (creatioex nihilo), then what exactly is the basis for arrogance?

Over fourteen centuries ago, a fundamental question on creation was asked in the Quran:

Or were they created by nothing, or were they the creators [of themselves]?

– Quran 52:35

Obviously, human beings were not created by nothing, neither did human beings self-create! In essence, all the billions of people that have existed in our collective histories, civilizations, including advancements in knowledge, sciences and technologies, are literally an insignificant tiny dot in the bigger scheme of universal affairs. Mankind sometimes gets consumed by its scientific achievements, and egotistical tendencies make humans forget they were once a drop of fluid (sperm).

Essentially, human beings were once nothing and would have remained nonexistent without the creative capabilities of The Creator.

Has there not been over Man a long period of Time, when he was nothing - (not even) mentioned? – Quran