I had the following article linked to me by my good friend Skeptic on the forum which is apparently a response to mine and TheRationalizers videos on 'science in the Quran', mainly the Big Bang theory videos.
As the article is quite long I will just link it and use excerpts in this thread.
http://y3dxgl90.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/big-bang-verse-in-the-quran-and-its-critics/Argument 1:The uploader argues that my statement (The earth is a part of the universe and not separate from it as the verse concludes in this claimed context) is incorrect, yet goes on to state this:
the verse states that the Heavens (which includes all the heavenly bodies present in the Universe) and the Earth were all joined together as (ONE UNIT OF CREATION), before being separated (INTO SEPARATE UNITS OF CREATIONS).
This is exactly the point. If you have ONE thing and separate it into TWO things, then you have
TWO separate things.Definition of separate: To keep apartHe then goes onto try and cover this reality with :
..that we call as a singularity and then this one object or unit of creation was unstitched or separated into several separate units of creations, which resulted in the formations of planets, stars and galaxies etc.
But this ofcourse is a clear ploy to avoid the reality that the entire foundation of 'The big bang theory in the Quran' is based on the premise that the term 'HEAVENS' is referring to the universe itself. No matter how you attempt to skew your vision of it --'
The universe (heavens) and the Earth were joined and we cloved them asunder' concludes that they were once one entity but have since been removed from each others company. It does not conclude that the Earth was formed in the Heavens and stayed there or that the Earth formed from parts of the heavens within it (either of which would be significantly closer to explaining the reality than the Quran can do).
He then says this:
They had a very narrow view of the Universe, they didn’t knew anything about how the stars in reality looked like or is there anything beyond them. They considered stars as something different from the Sun,
16:12 And He hath constrained the night and the day and the sun and the moon to be of service unto you, and the stars are made subservient by His command. 77:08 So when the stars are put out7:54 Allah is He, who created the sun, the moon, and the stars (all) governed by laws under His commandment. 22:18 See you not that to Allah bow down in worship all things in the heavens and on earth, the sun, the moon, the starsYes, people really did have a narrow view of the universe didn't they...
Argument 2:The critics also raise the argument against the existence and/or formation of planet earth i.e Earth came into existence or was formed 9 billion years after the Big Bang, based on Scientific Evidence.
REFUTING RESPONSE 2:
This argument is a childish view of Science and is completely wrong, because matter never gets created nor it is ever destroyed, but rather it changes its shape, form and properties through time.
ENERGY cannot be created or destroyed;
ENERGY.
Matter on the other hand
can be destroyed aslong as it changes or reverts back to energy, an example is a nuclear reactor, you input matter and you get energy output: E=mc2
But the so called 'refutation' is ignoring a clear issue: Does the writer of the article honestly conclude that a glass of water that we find in the sink today is the same as early Big Bang electrons and quarks?
Surely if the answer is 'yes', then we can conclude that the Qurans verse should be saying:
'The Heavens and
everything else were joined together and we cloved them asunder' seeing as the energy in the beginning is essentially the same as everything around us, my cat and coffee table included..
The reality is that you don't get to shimmy around this issue.
In order for the Earth to exist --a long history of Cooling down, plasma state, gravitational forces on Hydrogen, nuclear reactions and billions of years are needed for Earths matter to exist. You don't get to make excuses or try and argue semantics for what is almost word for word the same nonsense we find in the Bible
Gen1:'
In the beginning god created the heavens and the Earth'; Yet another book that didn't understand the reality of the situation.
If anyone wants me to respond to any other points in the article then let me know, but for an example of what I don't particularly care to bother can be explained in this following quote..
So lets take another claim of the Critics, that when they say that if Quran really mentioned the Big Bang and the Origin of the Universe, so clearly or in other words, if it really meant that. Then why didn’t the Muslims were the first people who discovered the Origins of the Universe and created the Big Bang theory in there golden era.
REFUTING RESPONSE 5:
Well the answer lies in reading the verse once again.
“Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will they not believe?” [Quran-21:30]
Now see, that the verse is directed towards the disbelievers, if Muslims had discovered the Big Bang theory, then they would have proven the Quran wrong, because it predicted that it will be the disbelievers who would be pioneering the discovery of the Origins of the Universe. So see the Divine Wisdom of Quran, it covers everything in its divine wisdom in such a manner that Human intelligence is unable to even think in that direction..