Ostrich Egg argument, addressing the Islamic woman at the end:
Ostrich egg does not look anything like the earth, also the Qu'ran does not say it looks like an ostrich egg, it says its like were the ostrich lays its egg. Before the Ostrich lays its eggs it flats out the land, so if anything the Qu'ran is saying the earth is flat, flattened out, and then mountains are placed on it so that it does not move flap in the wind.
When the female ostrich fears a danger threatening her egg, she immediately digs into the sand to hide the egg, then "tadhoo" (flattens) the earth above it, so that it would not be seen by the vultures of the air who are always in search of such a delicacy for their next meal. Therefore, the word "al-udhu'wa" is used as a name of the ostrich egg since it is something (with the sand) flattened (over it). That is where the name came from. The Arabic dictionary never states that the verb "da'ha" means "made round" or "made in the shape of the egg of an ostrich".
[79:31] وَٱلۡأَرۡضَ بَعۡدَ ذَٲلِكَ دَحَٮٰهَا[] And the earth, along with it, He spread forth.
The word "Daha" has a couple meanings in Arabic: to even out, to roll, to spread/extend, cause to become egg shaped.
Now, the "ha" suffix means "it". So when you say "Dahaha" it translates to a few things (depending on context): Rolled it out, expanded it, evened it out, spread forth or made egg-shaped.
If you choose the egg-shaped translation it makes the verse nonsensical in my opinion.
The Earth is an oblate spheroid, an ostrich egg is a prolate spheroid. The two deformations from spherical are actually the opposite of one another. Describing the Earth as an ostrich egg is further from reality than describing it as a sphere.
The oblate spheroid is the approximate shape of many planets and celestial bodies, including Saturn and Altair, and – to a lesser extent – the Earth (with a = 6378.137 km and b ≈ 6356.752 km, providing an aspect ratio of 0.99664717, a flattening of 0.003352859934, and inverse flattening of 298.2572). It is therefore the most-used geometric figure for defining reference ellipsoids, upon which cartographic and geodetic systems are based.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblate_spheroidEgg shape
The shape of a chicken egg is approximately that of half each a prolate and a roughly spherical (potentially even minorly oblate) ellipsoid joined at the equator, sharing a principal axis of rotational symmetry.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsoid#Egg_shapeAn ostrich egg is similar in shape to a chicken egg, though slightly less pronounced in its deformation.
The quran makes plenty of scientific errors on the topic of embryology. It claims that the sperm turns into congealed blood. It does not, the sperm is merged with the egg, which despite being the first cell of the body, is mysteriously absent from the quran's "scientific" explanation.
The Earth is not a perfect sphere, so the distance to the center of the Earth varies from 6378 km (3963 miles) at the equator to 6357 km (3950 miles) at the poles.http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_earth.html#centerearthSo the average radius is half way between the two extremes (3956.5 miles). This means that the Earth's deformation (which, remember, is a deformation further away from ostrich egg shaped) is, as a ratio of its average radius: 6.5:3956.5. Or, for percentage fans: 0.16%. So the deformation from spherical is less than a fifth of one percent. Which is considerably less than the deformation from spherical of the majority of tennis balls, let alone an ostrich egg. Consider then (again) that that deformation is a deformation further away from the prolate shape of an ostrich egg, and you can begin to see how utterly hopeless the ostrich egg statement is.
Here a nail in the coffin if you take away earths atmosphere here is what you see:
it's a fucking potato shape!
Topic: Hamza Tzortzis vs Professor Pervez Hoodbhoy