The 1925 Scopes trial of a Tennessee school teacher charged with violating state law by teaching biological evolution, occurred on July 10-21, 1925.

One hundred years after the trial the culture war over evolution and creationism remains strong. The trial’s most memorable episode came on July 20, when Darrow successfully provoked Bryan to take the witness stand as a Bible expert. The Qur'an states that a day in God's sight is like 50,000 human years.

The 2-3,000 spectators witnessed Darrow’s interrogation of Bryan, which was primarily intended to make Bryan and fundamentalism appear foolish and ignorant. Darrow’s questions revealed that, despite Bryan’s’ assertion that he read the Bible literally, Bryan actually understood the six days of Genesis not as literal 24-hour days, but as six long and indeterminate periods of time.

Opinion polls still reveal that roughly 20-25% of all Americans reject both mainstream geology and mainstream biology. And disbelief in human evolution has been associated with higher levels of prejudice, racist attitudes and support of discriminatory behavior against Blacks, immigrants and the LGBTQ community in the U.S., according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Religious activities among Homo Sapiens have evolved over the last 80-120,000 years and therefore are in general, although not in detail, positively adaptive.

If one takes seriously the Biblical claim that humanity was created in the Divine image, or the Qur'an statement that humans were created to be vice-regents with God, spiritual evolution testifies to the creation of creatures who are social co-creators of purpose driven non-material responses to environmental and social challenges.

The evolution of religious activities that enhance the successful survival of humanity is not only concerned with enhancing the survival of our own species.

With the recent domestication of plants and animals; and the very recent industrial revolution, humans acquired a great deal of responsibility for the evolution and survival of many of the species on the planet itself.

Thus the behavior of religious people themselves now becomes a factor in the evolution of life on earth.

Religious behaviors are evidence of self-conscious creative thought processes most people associate with Homo Sapiens. Religious behaviors are the creative responses of intelligent minds to certain challenges and situations in life.

Also as successful bands of Homo Sapiens got more numerous, it became harder and harder to keep them from internal conflict and splitting.

Larger groups, or groups with strong alliances, were more likely to win when there was inter-group conflict. They also had reduced negative affects from inbreeding. New research found that a child of first cousins had an 11% probability of being diagnosed with a speech and language problem, versus 7% for children whose parents are not related. This my seem like a small difference but over a thousand generations it makes a lot of difference.

Also, technological advances and the accumulation of other know-how gets a jump start as populations expand, according to evolutionary biologist Maxim Derex of the University of Montpellier 2 in France.

His laboratory experiments reported in the November 13, 2013 issue of Nature, indicate that improvements in tool design occur more frequently as group size grows

Anything that helped larger groups create bonds that were more inclusive than just extended family behavioral norms, would increase survival rates for bands, clans, tribes, and larger tribal communities.

A very recent genetic study by Svante Pääbo, a major pioneer in ancient genetics at Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, found that compared to Homo Neanderthals our species had much greater genetic variety.

Homo Neanderthal genes suggested that sometime prior to 400-500,000 years ago, Neanderthal numbers decreased and the population stayed small, Pääbo's group determined. According to Pääbo, "Neanderthals had even less genetic variation than present-day Homo Sapiens. Genetic diversity among Neanderthals was about one-fourth as much as is seen among modern Africans, and one-third that of modern Europeans or Asians.”

A small population size would have been bad news for Neanderthals because it would have meant that natural selection had less power to weed out bad mutations. (National Geographic News online April 22, 2014) A child of first cousins had an 11% probability of being diagnosed with a speech and language problem, versus 7% for children whose parents are not related.

Why did ancient Homo Sapiens have a larger population size than Homo Neanderthals? Until recently the standard explanation was that our species was smarter or more technologically advanced then 'them”

But a just published study proves that there is little real evidence for that species chauvinistic view. (see Neanderthal Demise: An Archaeological Analysis of the Modern Human Superiority Complex by Paola Villa and Wil Roebroeks Published: PLOS ONE April 30, 2014 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone. 0096424

The real difference might have been the greater success that human religion had in keeping larger bands of hunter-gathers together over time; and in bringing them back together from time to time even after they had moved apart, through the establishment of religious festivals.

Shared public rituals and beliefs produced much more cohesion than shared blood alone.

This is reflected by the first archetypical set of directions given to Homo Sapiens, "God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God created him; male and female created He them. And God blessed them; and God said to them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth...'" (Genesis 1:27-8) and in the specific pilgrimage traditions to non-local sacred spots found in so many religions.

When YHWH establishes Sabbath rules at Mount Sinai, He tells Prophet Moses (Exodus 31:13) “You yourself are to speak to the Israelites, “You (all) shall surely keep my Sabbaths, for this is a אוֹת between me and you (all) throughout your generations, given in order that you may know that I, YHWH, sanctify you.” The meaning of a sign between two parties is what the text describes, a mutual promise—a pact. Thus, the phrase is better rendered as “this is a pact sign between me and you (all).”

God set Israel apart from all idol worshipers: "You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.” (Leviticus 20:26) and seven centuries later God added “Aaron was set apart to dedicate the most holy things, that he and his sons should make offerings before the LORD; and minister to him and pronounce blessings in his name forever. (1 Chronicles 23:13)

Finally, seven centuries later, God chose Prophet Muhammad to bring Tawhid Monotheism to the rest of the world’s idolaters.