Question 10: How would you explain the fact that apes act in a similar way to humans?

Dear Brother / Sister,

Answer: This question has a biological aspect and a wisdom aspect. When it is considered biologically, man’s aspect resembling to that of animals and his spiritual aspect are mentioned.

Man’s common aspect with all animals is eating, drinking and some carnal behaviors. Besides, man has similar structures with animals in terms of cells and elements. For example, the laws of biology, physics and chemistry that occur in cells and the deeds such as digestion of nutrients ingested, their use in the body of the living beings, respiration, excretion, growth, development, differentiation and reproduction are all similar. On the other hand, the basic structure of DNA, which is the basis of the genetic structure of all living beings including plants, consists of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, iron and sulfur.

The genetic structure of any living group is encoded in its DNA just like the information stored on a flash disk. It is the information that is encoded and stored in that DNA, rather than the similarity of the DNA structure, that is essential and that differentiates each group of living beings from others. What is important is the information encoded there, not the similar structure of the flash disk or using the same flash disk.

In this regard, it is not enough to make generalizations that there are some gene relationships among living beings, or that similar structures or behaviors are seen.

The similarities among living beings are evidence that they have the same creator, not that they emerge from one another.

Another aspect of man is his spiritual realm. Man is different from animals in terms of this aspect. He has emotions and thoughts such as curiosity, anxiety, imagination, memory, love, compassion, justice and enmity, which form his world of feelings. What makes man real and superior to animals are these feelings and thoughts. Man improves spiritually to the extent that those feelings develop, enhance, become prosperous and are enlightened; he can even surpass angels.

There are a lot of wise reasons behind man’s having common aspects with animals and plants, and some animals’ behaving like human beings, that is, the reason why they are created like this. Only the creator knows the real reasons. As far as we can understand, one of the many reasons for these similarities between living beings is an incentive for research and investigation, and since the world is a testing place for the hereafter, some events are linked to reasons as a requirement of the test.

In fact, instead of similarities one should wonder how so many differences are created. There are approximately seven billion people in the world and their faces are different from one another. Even the most skilled painters cannot draw seven billion different human faces on an A4 sheet of paper. Let us add the faces of the monkeys to them. The faces of all monkeys are different from both human faces and one another’s faces. Moreover, newly created faces are not the same as those created in the past; nor will they be the same as those to be created in the future. Only faces? Every parts of living beings are quite different from others. For example, the fingerprints of all people are different. Creating such differences will of course be possible with some similarities. Only atheist evolutionists can deny Allah by emphasizing similarities among living beings.

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