Yusuf Estes and the lies about embryology

Here's our old friend again, spouting mendacious clap-trap to the good folk at Guide USTV. "Who knew -even a hundred years ago - what the egg inside the mother looks like at the moment it's fertilised? Nobody... because it's microscopic"  And your point is, Yusuf? Ah, here we go... "An' yet, in the Qur'an it's clearly described"  Is it, Yusuf? Is the "egg at the moment of fertilisation" really "clearly described" in the Qur'an?? (You know, sometimes ol' Yusuf just makes it too easy for us, doesn't he?) So...according to brother Estes, this is what is described in the Qur'an in miraculous detail 1400 years before anyone human could possibly know what it looked like.

 Or, if you prefer...this:

or this...

And what is the miraculous passage that "Sheik" Estes wants us to believe describes the microscopic scene above? Well, it all revolves, it seems, around the word "alaqa", which (as followers of the Islamic miracle seekers will know) has three distinct meanings which Estes enumerates: a leech, a blood clot or something that clings. "All three of these are an EXACT description of what a baby looks like AT THE MOMENT OF CONCEPTION", Estes tells his amazed audience.
Now forgive me if I'm being over-picky here, Yusuf...but "exactly like"??? I'm no micro-biologist, but even I can tell that the awe-inspiring pictures that scientific endeavour has allowed us to see have f*ck-all to do with a leech or a blood clot.
Once again, Yusuf Estes, you are lying to an audience of gullible people desperate to have their faith confirmed by whatever means possible.
Once again iERA you are supporting this shameful practice.
Shame on the lot of you.

iERA's "3 Reasons for God" ... and David Attenborough's one reason for no God

Unlike the extremely rational Sir David Attenborough, seen here explaining how he responds to those who quote the wonders of Nature as proof of a benevolent Creator, iERA see the evidence somewhat differently.

Here's an excerpt from the One Reason section of their dawah site, (ironically) entitled "3 Reasons for God". It's an up-dating of the Blind Watchmaker argument, cleverly using a mobile phone in place of the watch. Do these guys have an original bone in their bodies, I wonder? How little respect for your readers' intelligence do you have to have to think that they are going to fall for a rehash of a pre-Darwin analogy? 

Since the universe has order and is governed by the ‘laws of science’, we should question how this order came about. The most effective way to answer this question is to reason to the best conclusion. Take your mobile phone for example, your phone is made of glass, plastic and metal. Glass comes from sand, plastic comes from oil and metal is extracted from the ground. Imagine you were walking in a desert (where there is lots of oil, sand and metals in the ground), and you found a mobile phone lying around. Would you believe that it came together by itself? That the Sun shone, the wind blew, lightning struck, the oil bubbled to the surface and mixed with the sand and metal, and over millions of years the mobile came together by chance?No one would believe such an explanation. A mobile phone is clearly something that was put together in an organised way, so it would be rational to believe that it must have an organiser. In the same way, when we see the order in the universe, isn’t it rational to say that the universe has an organiser? (NO iERA, that is excruciating in its befuddled, twisted logic. No intelligent person believed it the first time round when William Paley suggested this analogy in his book, Natural Theology, 50 years before Darwin's On the Origin of Species and no reasonably thoughtful person is going to swallow it now)

Funny how we all see what we want to see, isn't it?  For example, were I too see this little fella lying on the  Adult black fly (Simulium yahense) with parasite (Onchocerca volvulus) emerging from the insect's antenna, magnified 100x ground in front of me, my immediate reaction would not be to think here's yet more evidence of a benevolent creator, everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Rather, I would think if an omniscient God created this little bastard then he's got a damn warped sense of humour.

"Onchocerciasis is the world's second-leading infectious cause of blindness. It is not the nematode, but its endosymbiont, Wolbachia pipientis, that causes the severe inflammatory response that leaves many blind. The parasite is transmitted to humans through the bite of a black fly of the genus Simulium. The larval nematodes spread throughout the body. When the worms die, their Wolbachia symbionts are released, triggering a host immune system response that can cause severe itching, and can destroy optical tissue in the eye."  

Thank you, God, for creating that little beauty.

Ah - but the poor African child who succumbs to this noxious creature is simply undergoing a test, no doubt. Our minds are too feeble to comprehend the great scheme of God's plan. Silly me. 

All things dull and ugly,
All creatures short and squat,
All things rude and nasty,
The Lord God made the lot.
Each little snake that poisons,
Each little wasp that stings,
He made their brutish venom.
He made their horrid wings.

All things sick and cancerous,
All evil great and small,
All things foul and dangerous,
The Lord God made them all.

Each nasty little hornet,
Each beastly little squid--
Who made the spikey urchin?
Who made the sharks? He did!

All things scabbed and ulcerous,
All pox both great and small,
Putrid, foul and gangrenous,
The Lord God made them all.

Amen.