MARS OR PARADISE?
Man's Future Abode
DEFENCE scientists from the US are planning to use genetically engineered algae, bacteria and plants to radically transform the climate of Mars and transform it into an Earth-like planet. Scientists from Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) aim to warm up and potentially thicken Mars’ atmosphere by growing green, photosynthesising plants, bacteria, and algae on the barren surface of the red planet. “For the first time, we have the technological toolkit to transform not just hostile places here on Earth, but to go into space not just to visit, but to stay,” Alicia Jackson, deputy director of DARPA’s new Biological Technologies Office said recently at a DARPA-hosted biotech conference.
The above is from a PTI news report released on June 29, 2015 and published in The Times of India under the title ‘Will tweaked microbes make Mars Earth-like?’
This plan is undoubtedly utopian with little scientific data for support. Both man and the universe have some limitations that make it impossible to bring this plan into effect. It lies more in the realm of dreams than in reality.
The Quran is a book that speaks about the Creator’s plan for this world. This world was created only for a temporary period. At the culmination of this period, the whole world will undergo a great change and then a new world will be formed. This new world will be man’s future abode.
This has been spoken about in the Quran in these words: ‘On the Day when the earth shall be changed into another earth, as shall be the heavens.’ (14: 48)
In such a situation, man should devote himself to the task mentioned in another verse as: ‘And hasten to forgiveness from your Lord and for a Paradise as vast as the heavens and the earth, which has been prepared for the God-fearing.’ (3: 133)
According to the creation plan of God, Paradise will be man’s future abode.
It is a fact that this world is gradually becoming uninhabitable for humans. This is why scientists are searching for an alternative for planet earth. Some people are in pursuit of a ‘space colony’, while others This world was created only for a temporary period. At the culmination of this period, the whole world will undergo a great change and then a new world will be formed. 36 Spirit of Islam Issue 36 December 2015 are planning to develop Mars into another earth. All these are only romantic ideas and not scientific schemes. If it were possible for science to make a planet in space habitable for man through new technology, then the first application of this technology should be to reshape the earth and make it once again habitable as it was created.
The truth is that the time has come for man to transform his thinking and work towards attaining Paradise, which according to the creation plan of God will be man’s future abod e.
Ungratefulness
A great disadvantage of an ungrateful attitude is that it produces a mentality of non-acknowledgement. Failing at first to acknowledge the favours of one’s fellow men leads one to failure to give wholehearted credence to the Lord of the Universe.