As easy as ABC

"As easy as ABC"
"As simple as 123"
"As easy as pie"
"Piece of cake"

These are words of ignorance at best, and of arrogance at worst.
Why do I say so?

  I say ignorant because we take things for granted and arrogant by failing to acknowledge the powers of Allah Almighty. Lately I have been reading in blogs, comments on blogs, and Facebook regarding atheism and the theory of evolution. These people deny the existence of God, The Creator, The Almighty. They kept harping about how we are 98% similar genetically with chimpanzees, thus consolidating the theory that we evolved slowly, bit by bit, from apes.

 However, they fail to see the obvious difference between us and apes. The fact that we are clothed, we speak in a myriad of tones and languages, we use our brains and hands to create very sophisticated instruments, vehicles and monuments, we have a financial system, places of learning, sites of worship, we live in community, and we even traveled to space are ignored. A popular Malay saying goes;

"semut di seberang lautan kelihatan, gajah di depan mata tidak nampak".

 Translated literally in english; "an ant over the sea was seen, but the elephant in front is not!" It means denying the obvious, but still harping on petty issues. Even if we evolved from apes, the complexity surrounding us is a "smack-in-your-face" evidence of the existence of a Creator. Let us take "ABC" as an example. Believe it or not, "ABC" is very complex and difficult. It is our ignorance and taking things for granted that made "ABC" a piece of cake. Still not convinced?

 Okay, get a piece of paper and write the letters "A", "B" and "C" on it.

 Done?

"Hey, what's so difficult about this? Ibn Mazeni must be a retard to say that it's complex"

Be patient, let us explore the complexities surrounding "ABC".

First, your eyes viewed this weird arrangement of letters that says " get a piece of paper and write the letters "A", "B" and "C" on it." For an eye to view this clearly, a ray of light went through it's cornea, the aqueous humor, the pupil, the lens, the vitreous humor and finally striking the retina. Complex? this is already simplified. For an image to be focused clearly, the image must fall exactly at the retina. For this to happen, the lens; with the help of cilliary bodies have to accommodate, either getting thicker or thinner in order to get the desired result as mentioned before.

Diagram1: formation of an image, how light rays travel through different parts of our eyes and ends up at the retina. 
Taken from http://www.ivy-rose.co.uk/HumanBody/Eye/Eye_Image-Formation.php without permission.

Diagram2: the accommodative properties of a lens to focus rays of light to form a "clear" image. 


   As the rays of light strike the retina, the sensory cells will convert the light stimuli into action potentials, or "impulses", which travels along the optic nerve to the brain. Let us explore more about this process. The retina is actually not as simple as the arrangement of letters which makes the word "r-e-t-i-n-a". The retina is actually made up of 10 layers!

Diagram3: The retinal layers, from outside-in; pigmented layer to limiting membrane.

Diagram4: Layers of the retina. From wikipedia.

It is very complex structure made up of several layers neurons(nerve tissues) and it's synapses(linkages between neurons). Of these layers, the photoreceptors cells are the ones which are directly sensitive to light. These cells are the rods and the cones, where rods function in dim light and responsible for black, shades of grey and white. While the latter support daytime function and the perception of colour.

 Thus, light rays reflected from your computer monitor travels through all the structures of your eye and ends up stimulating the rods and cones, depending on which light condition you are in. By stimulating these photoreceptors, chemical changes happen and convert the stimuli into "action potentials" or "impulses/signals". These signals are propagated through different layers of the retina and finally through the axons(it is akin to a wire, connecting one nerve cell to another) of the retinal ganglion cells.

Diagram 5: Impulse propagation from photoreceptors to ganglion cells. From LEFT, the photoreceptors are stimulated by light, they propagate signals to the bipolar cells(red cells with long "arms" a.k.a axons), which further send the signal through the amacrine and ganglion cells, and finally through their axons.

 The journey does not stop there though, the axons will converge to form the "optic nerve".



Diagram6: one of the optic nerves.

To cut a long-story short, the optic nerve continues as the optic tract and ends up at the brain, specifically at an area called the "visual cortex". In laymen terms, it is like a an institution at the brain which processes impulses from the photoreceptors of the eye. Below is a picture of the brain if viewed from behind. The "orange" areas correspond to the visual cortex.



Diagram7: Visual cortex


It seems that we have veered far from the real issue here. Have we? I don't think so. The whole processed described above is just one part of taking a piece of paper and write "ABC" on it. Let me summarise the whole process:

1. You visualise the image of my blog, with numerous characters forming a sentence of; "get a piece of paper and write the letters "A", "B" and "C" on it."
2. The image is focused by the lens of the eye onto your retina.
3. photoreceptors are stimulated and sends signals to the visual cortex at the brain via the optic nerve
4. brain processes the image of "get a piece of paper and write the letters "A", "B" and "C" on it."
5. Your brain makes you understand the weird characters as a "command" to write "ABC" on a piece of paper.
6. Brain sends signal to the "motor cortex", an area of the brain which controls voluntary movement of your muscles.
7. signal from the motor cortex goes to the pyramidal tract of the spinal cord.
8. Peripheral nerves from the spinal cord sends the signals from your "motor cortex" to the muscles in your arms.
9. A series of contractions and relaxations of your muscles in the arms and hands makes it possible to reach for a pen and a paper.
10. WAIT! You must use your eyes to find the paper and pen, thus repeat steps 1 to 9.
11, you have pen and paper in front of you.
12. again, repeat steps 1 to 9 in order to put the tip of the pen exactly where you want it, and to move it is such a way that forms the characters "ABC".

There you go, it took me two hours to explain partly the process involved in steps 1 to 3. Mind you, it is only a tiny part of the process. I haven't explained how an impulse/ signal is developed by each photoreceptor. How does it travel from one neuron to another. How does it end up at the visual cortex. How does the visual cortex process the image seen by the eye, how does the brain understand the command of writing ABC on a piece of paper. How does one part of the brain tells the other part; "motor cortex" in this case to do something voluntary. How does the brain coordinate the delicate movements of the numerous muscles of the hands and forearms to work together in order for you to write "ABC" on a piece of paper. These are some examples of the muscles of the hands:

Diagram8: Muscles of the hands. copyrighted© 1999 by Wesley Norman, PhD, DSc (http://home.comcast.net/~wnor/lesson5mus&tendonsofhand.htm)

  There it is, just some of the muscles. I haven't dwelled into the bones, ligaments, tendons, joints, arteries, veins, nerves, fat, and skin that makes a hand work as it should be. I have not described how each single cell work as a team to form different tissues in our body such as nerve tissues, muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons, blood and more. I have not reveled about how the heart pumps blood via numerous arteries, arterioles and capillaries to keep these different structures alive.  What I've touched in this post is just a tiny speck of the whole understanding of a human being, it is like an atom compared to the galaxy!

It is as complex in an ape. Or even in a single-cell organism like the amoeba.

  Hence, who are we to say that there are no Creator. How can this complexity happen without Allah creating it and lay down the rules for each and every being in this universe to function? Sometimes, we only need to look at ourselves and think deeply. If you think hard enough, you will reach the point where Allah is the Creator of all the universe and everything inside it.

  Each and every time you feel in doubt about the existence of Allah, take a look at your hands, clench it into a fist, and release it again, then repeat it a few times. Appreciate the delicate movements of your fingers, feel the gentle taps of your fingertips onto your palm, appreciate the control that you have over your body and be thankful that Allah have given you all this. Grab a pen and a piece of paper.

  Think of all the things that Allah has given you and made it possible for you to write "ABC" on a piece of paper.

As easy as ABC?

Think again!