Look again at the world
Creation and thanks
The signs in nature, what science shows, and the thanks it all calls for.
Signs in Creation
Rain, a seed, the sea as ink
2 minWonder, not proofWhy we never say a verse “predicted” science.
47 minThe map of signsEvery natural sign we found in the scriptures: 122 of them, in 10 groups, each with its Jewish and Christian echo and what science says today.
2 minLook closerThree galleries of the small, the shining and the growing things that scripture asks us to look at.
9 minThe ant who warned her peopleA king hears an ant call out to save her colony, and he smiles. Proverbs sends us to the same small teacher.
9 minThe bee was inspiredA bee comes home and dances a map. Scripture says she was guided.
9 minBirds held in the skyWings spread, wings folded. Who holds them up? A sign you can see from any window.
9 minA camel through a needle's eyeThe same impossible picture in the Gospels and the Qur'an, and the same scholarly argument about a rope.
10 minThe cow without blemishThe longest chapter of the Qur'an is named after a cow. Behind it lies a murder, a lot of questions, and a heifer the Torah knows too.
10 minThe crow that taught burialThe first killing in scripture ends with a bird scratching at the ground. Science now knows crows study their dead closely.
10 minDarknesses, and the lightIn the Qur'an, darkness always comes in the plural and light is always one. Physics, and the human eye, have their own things to say about both.
10 minBy the dawn as it breathesBefore the sun appears, the sky has already started to glow and the birds have already started to sing. Three faiths rise early to meet it.
10 minBy the fig and the oliveTwo of the oldest trees people ever planted, sworn by in the Qur'an and sat under in the Bible.
10 minThe four looksA camel, the sky, the mountains, the ground under your feet. Look at how each was made.
11 minGreen, then strawA meadow goes from green to gold to dust in a single summer. Three scriptures use it to talk about the length of a life.All 35 →See every episodeLook at the creation
Science: the cosmos, the elements, life, the Earth, us
11 minThe sky we breatheA layer of gas thinner, compared with the Earth, than the skin of an apple.
10 minCarbon, the element of lifeDiamond and pencil lead, sugar and DNA, coal and the air you breathe out: one element with four hands builds the chemistry of every living thing.
11 minDNA: the book inside every cellThree billion letters, written in a four-letter alphabet, copied every time a cell divides.
11 minA universe set just so?Change some of nature's numbers a little and there would be no stars, no carbon, no us.
10 minGravity: the hand that holds the skyThe weakest force in nature keeps your feet on the ground, the Moon in its path and galaxies whole. Nobody yet knows what it really is.
9 minLightIt is the fastest thing there is, the oldest thing we can see, and the reason you can read this. Light is stranger than it looks.
10 minMountains on the moveThe ground beneath your feet is drifting about as fast as your fingernails grow.
10 minThe deepThe ocean covers seven tenths of the planet, makes half its oxygen and holds most of its living space.
10 minThe periodic table: 118 building blocksEverything you have ever touched is made from a short list of elements.
9 minPhotosynthesis: eating sunlightEvery leaf is a solar-powered factory that turns air and water into sugar and gives out the oxygen we breathe.
11 minHow big is everything?From a picnic blanket to two trillion galaxies, the numbers are so large they stop making sense. That is where the wonder starts.
10 minMade of stardustThe hydrogen in your body is almost as old as the universe.
10 minThe beginningThe universe has a history, and it started hot, dense and small.
10 minThe brain, and the mystery of the mindEighty-six billion nerve cells, a hundred trillion connections, and the power of a dim light bulb.All 20 →See every episodeWatch
Watch
Why we give thanks
Worship, gratitude, and the thanks the world calls for
2 minCount the giftsLeave this page open. While you read, this counter adds up some of the things that keep you, and the world, alive.
2 minWhat if…?What if one thing were taken away, or turned up or down a little?
8 minI exist. I recognise. I give thanks.Three steps. You are here. You did not make yourself. Thanks is the natural reply.
8 minWhy have people worshipped kings, the Sun and idols?For thousands of years people bowed to rulers, stars and carved figures. The scriptures read this as a real instinct, pointed the wrong way.
8 minA day of restSix days you work. Then you stop, and enjoy what you have been given. A weekly rest may be the oldest gift of time in the world.
9 minHarvest and thanksgivingTins of beans on a school hall table. A hut with a roof of branches.
13 minOne God, one orderLight that left a quasar eight billion years ago obeys the same rules as the torch in your kitchen. Many believers see in that a single signature.
8 minPilgrimage: going there to say thank youEvery year, millions of people walk, fly and queue for days to stand in one particular place. Why travel to thank a God who is everywhere?
8 minRemembrance: keeping God in mindBeads slipping through fingers. A name repeated with each breath. A blessing for a rainbow. Across traditions, people practise not forgetting.
8 minSacrifice: giving up what you loveJews, Christians and Muslims all remember Abraham's hardest test.
8 minWhy do the practices look so alike?Fasting, prayer, giving, sacrifice, pilgrimage, a day of rest. Why do so many traditions do such similar things?
9 minWhy do we give thanks at all?Someone holds a door open and we say thank you without thinking. So who do we thank for eyes, ears, air and fruit?
8 minWhat is worship?In Hebrew and Arabic, the word for worship grows from the word for work and service. Worship is not only something that happens in a building.Prayer and worship
Salah, prostration in three faiths, and the weekly day and its sermon
Prayer and worshipSalah, prostration in three faiths, and the weekly day and its sermonOpen →Watch more: Creation and thanks
10 films and talks, chosen for this page. They play here.
What makes Genesis unique among ancient Creation stories
Bible Society · 4 min
Covenant & Conversation | Bereishit | Rabbi Sacks
The Rabbi Sacks Legacy · 10 min
Charlie and Blue Ask about Allah and Creation
TrueTube · 7 min
Doesn't evolutionary creation contradict a plain reading of the Bible?
BioLogos · 2 min
Creation and ecology: A Biblical Wisdom perspective
Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge · 11 min
Cambridge Faculty of Divinity: creation and ecology, a biblical wisdom view.
What does Alhamdulillah mean? | Ep. 2 | Deeper into Dhikr with Dr. Omar Suleiman
Yaqeen Institute · 12 min
Yaqeen: what does Alhamdulillah, "all praise is God's", mean?
Modeh Ani: How to Say This Jewish Prayer
myjewishlearning · 1 min
Count the gifts
whoisallah.org.uk · 1 min
Powers of Ten™ (1977)
Eames Office · 9 min
Powers of Ten: the scale of creation from a picnic to the stars.
- More films and talks on F-ILMWatch free