Reply to Johnny Mill

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Reply to JOHNNYMILL http://www.scribd.com/doc/19471160/Scientific-Miracles-in-the-Quran-Debunked JOHNNYMILL commented: After reading this, I must say, the author is very narrow-minded and totally focused on being anti-islamic and therefore racist. I have seen Dr. Zakir Naiks shows in India on tv and despite being a non-muslim, i believe he makes a lot of sense. The verse which says that the earth and sky were one and were torn asunder has been poorly interpreted. Any professional or anybody unbiased to islam would know that the 'earth' would refer to the ground and not the planet. indeed in the big bang, all matter was one as it was squeezed into a singularity, so the sky and earth were together. they were separated after the big bang as described in the verse and today we know the earth and sky as being two separate things. there is no ambiguity anywhere, only simplicity. The other verse about the rotation of the sun and moon is also poorly interpreted. Dr. Zakir never said that the sun rotated around the center of the galaxy. Also the verse only refers to the "rounded" orbits the sun and moon take and does not say anything about what they rotate around. Of course in those days and even now, from an observers point of view on earth, it seems the sun and moon are rotating the planet so i think you were confused here. The heavens also do not refer to the planets. i read a recent article in a newspaper about similarities in science and islam. it has recently been discovered that the earth is surrounded by seven distinct layers of magnetic regions of space which involve unimaginable distances. i believe it said that the first layer was 6 or 7 trillion km across and that the 6th layer was fifty something billion light years away. the 7th was too far to be measured accurately so i believe you are enlightened on this verse as well. Also, the statement that it has been known that the earth was round for 2500 years is a lie. only a few hundred years ago people were burned at the stake by the catholic church for even suggesting that the earth was round. the bible itself i am embarrassed to reveal states that the earth is flat as shown by Dr. Zakir so indeed this fact was a miracle of the Quran. So all your mistakes which your essay is based upon have been refuted. it only takes an unbiased observer to see that the Quran has miracles in it. I really do not like nor do i know anyone who likes racist or religously-biased people. thank you

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Reply to JOHNNYMILL Thankyou for your comments.However, I must disagree with them completely.I do not think that the author is narrow minded.He is merely pointing out a few of the many Scientific errors in the Koran. If you are so impressed by Dr. Zakir Naiks claims, then how come you do not convert to Islam? This seems to be the logical thing for you to do. As an Athiest I do not believe the claims of Fundamentalists of any Religion. In my opinion. Dr Naiks claims are complete nonsense, but I suspect that he is making a very good living from what he is doing. There is nothing racist about criticising Islam or Muslims. Islam is a Religion and not a specific Race or ethnic group. Muslims come from a wide variety of ethnic groups. I personally know of Black Africans and Asians who criticise Islam.Such criticism is not a Western monopoly. There is nothing Racist about criticising Islam.Such claims are just attempts by Muslims to censor freedom of speech.This is like saying that anyone who disagrees with Barrack Obama is racist and hates black people. Many Muslims routinely criticise other Religions.Why then should Islam be imune from the same criticism? Islam should be treated the same as other Religions and criticised just like other Religions. You are quite right to say that the Bible says that the Earth is Flat. In my view there is no doubt about this. The pictures below show what the Bible say the Universe looks like if it is taken literally.

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Obviously, any book that believes that the Universe looks like this cannot be the word of God. However, the Medieval Church did not believe that the Bible should always be interpreted literally. The Medieval Church was Roman Catholic and did not interpret the Bible in the same way that modern Protestant Fundamentalists do today. Even today, the modern Roman Catholic Church does not interpret the Bible literally. The Ancient Greeks of 2500 years ago discovered that the Earth was a sphere. Aristotle wrote about this in the C4th BC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth http://www.amazon.co.uk/Flat-Earth-History-InfamousIdea/dp/0330432893/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254515434&sr=8-3 From the time of Aristotle onward, all educated Greeks and Romans knew that the Earth was a sphere. When Christianity received official toleration from the Emperor Constantine in the early C4th AD many educated Greeks and Romans converted and eventually became the religious hierarchy of the Church. In order to reconcile Greeks Science with Christianity, many of the Church Fathers such as Augustine adopted allegorical or non-literal interpretations of the Bible. Below is what the Medieval Church believed the Universe looked like. It is based on the theories of Ancient Greeks such as Aristotle and Ptolemy rather than the Bible.

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It shows a spherical Earth fixed in space in the centre of a series of concentric spheres. The Sun, Moon and the five known Planets were believed to orbit the Earth.

Many Medieval writers such as Dante and Thomas Aquinas refer to this view of the Universe. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants accepted this picture of a Geocentric Universe up until around AD1700. Now, lets have a look at what the Koran says about what the Universe looks like. Notice how similar it is to the Universe of the Bible. I have provided evidence for this in other Presentations within my Scribd documents for anyone interested in seeing them.

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Both the Bible and Koran take their Cosmology from earlier peoples such as the Ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians who envisaged a Universe looking like this.

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Now, concerning the Big Bang. (Surah 21:30) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Pickthall “Have not those who disbelieve known that the Heavens & the Earth were of one piece, then We parted them?” Yusuf Ali “Do not the Unbelievers see that the Heavens & the Earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder?” Hilali-Khan “Have not those who disbelieve known that the Heavens & the Earth were joined together as one united piece, then We parted them? “ Shakir “Do not those who disbelieve see that the Heavens & the Earth were closed up, but We have opened them?” Sher Ali “Do not the disbelievers see that the Heavens & the Earth were a closed up-mass, then We opened them out?” Khalifa “Do the unbelievers not realize that the Heaven & the Earth used to be one solid mass that we exploded into existence?” Arberry “Have not the unbelievers then beheld that the Heavens and the Earth were a mass all sewn up, and then We unstitched them?” Palmer “Do not those who misbelieve see that the Heavens and the Earth were both solid, and we burst them asunder?” Rodwell “Do not the infidels see that the Heavens and the Earth were both a solid mass, and that we clave them asunder?” Sale “Do not the unbelievers therefore know, that the Heavens and the Earth were solid, and we clave the same in sunder?” Irving “Have not those who disbelieve seen how Heaven and Earth were once one solid mass which We ripped apart?“ Dawood “Are the disbelievers aware that the Heavens and the Earth were of one solid mass which we tore asunder?”

This cannot possibly be referring to the Big Bang because the Earth did not exist at the Big Bang. The Big Bang occurred at the beginning of the Universe 13.7 Billion years ago. However, the Earth is only 4.6 Billion years old. Therefore, the Earth only came into existence over 9 Billion years after the Big Bang. Surah 21:30 is describing an Islamic version of a popular Ancient Middle Eastern Myth, the separation of Heaven and Earth and it has nothing to do with the Big Bang.

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In Egyptian Mythology, the Air God Shu raised up Nut the Sky Goddess Above Geb, the Earth God. Surah 21:30 is just another version of this Myth.

Surah 21:30 – Allah lifts up the Sky

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Next, concerning the Seven Heavens, here is a traditional Islamic picture showing Mohammed in the Seven Heavens as described in the Koran and Hadith.

Next to the orbits of the Sun and Moon. (Surah 21:33) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Pickthall “And he it is who created the night and the day, and the Sun and the Moon. They float, each in an orbit.” Yusuf Ali “It is he who created the night and the day, and the Sun and the Moon: all (the celestial bodies) swim along, each in its rounded course.” Hilali-Khan “And he it is who has created the night and the day, and the Sun and the Moon, each in an orbit floating.” Shakir “And he it is who created the night and the day and the Sun and the Moon; all (orbs) travel along swiftly in their celestial spheres.” Sher Ali “And he it is who created the night and the day, and the Sun and the Moon, each gliding along smoothly in its orbit.” Khalifa “And he is the one who created the night and the day, and the Sun and the Moon; each floating in its own orbit.” Arberry “It is he who created the night and the day, the Sun and the Moon, each swimming in a sky.” Palmer “He it is who created the night and the day, and the Sun and the Moon, each floating in a sky.”

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Rodwell “And he it is who hath created the night and the day, and the Sun and the Moon, each moving swiftly in its sphere”. 10. Sale “It is he who hath created the night, and the day, and the Sun, and the Moon; all [the celestial bodies] move swiftly, [each] in [its respective] orb.” 11. Irving “He is the One Who has created night and daylight, and the sun and the moon; each floats along in an orbit.” 12. Dawood “It was he who created the night and the day, the Sun and the Moon: each moves swiftly in an orbit of its own.” 9.

Dr Zakir Naik refers to this in his book “The Quran and Modern Science” and he claims on pages 12 and 13 that the Koran refers to the Sun orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy every 200 Million years. http://www.scribd.com/doc/17091235/The-Quran-and-Modern-Science-by-DrZakir-Naik

This claim is nonsense. There is no mention of any Galaxy in the Koran and also, the motion of the Sun and Moon are associated with the passage of night and day. The Koran is saying that night and day are caused by the Sun and Moon literally moving across the Sky every 24 hours as shown below.

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In conclusion, I consider Dr. Zakir Naiks claims to be completely untrue. The Koran is full of massive Scientific mistakes just like the Biblle and cannot be the word of God. This means that Mohammed or some of his followers wrote it and that Islam is a false Religion, just like Christianity. I have provided lots more evidence to support this claim in my other Scribd documents.

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