Special relativity and speed of light miracle in Qur'an...debunked!

the speed of light = 299 792 458 m / s

A reader of Rational Islam? has asked me to look at a surprisingly common miracle claim: that the speed of light is foretold in the Qur'an. "Varma", whose blog has the admirably succinct title, Debunking Bucailleism, and which I thoroughly recommend, referred me to this Islamic miracle seeker site, Miracles in the Qur'an and to this miracle claim in particular.
Here's the introduction:

We know from Einstein that my clock and your clock will not run at the same rate. Time (or rate of our clocks) depends on acceleration and/or gravity. If my clock accelerates and/or is in a strong gravitational field then it will run slower than your clock. So time is relative. Quran 22.47 compares time of Earth with time at Paradise/Hell (1 day vs 1000 years); while Quran 70.4 compares time on Earth with time in wormholes (1 day vs 50,000 years).

And here's 70:4:

The angels and the Spirit ascend to Him in a day, the measure of which is fifty thousand years.

Now, call me an old nit-picker if you wish, but I don't spot any mention of worm-holes here. But perhaps I'm just being too literal ... expecting to read the phrase worm-hole when a claim is made that "the Qur'an compares time on earth with time in worm-holes".  Anyhow, let's see how the miracle claim continues. (Don't worry - it's not as bad as it looks!)

Here angels will experience 1 day while humans will measure it as 50,000 years (time vs. time and not time vs. distance as the other lunar verse). This can happen if:1) Angels accelerate to relativistic speeds.2) Angels are in a strong gravitational field.1) Outside gravitational fields: This agrees with Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which says that a faster moving object appears to experience slower time. Moslems use Einstein’s theory of special relativity with the following verse in the Quran to check whether those angels really accelerate up to the speed of light or not. Given this time difference (time dilation) we can calculate the speed at which that object traveled. We can verify if those angels really accelerate up to the speed of light, as claimed by Moslems, or not. Outside gravitational fields this speed turned out to be 99.99999999999981% of the speed of light:(Where ∆t_o is the time measured for a mover by a mover; ∆t is the time measured for a mover by a stationary frame; v is the velocity of the mover relative to the stationary observer):∆t_o is the time experienced by angels (1 day).∆t is the time as measured by humans (50,000 lunar years x12 lunar months/lunar year x 27.321661 days/lunar month).v is the velocity of angels in this case (which we intend to calculate and then compare to the known speed of light).c is the nominal speed of light 299792.458 km/s.From the above equation we can solve for the unknown velocity:   This time dilation (time difference) shows that angels indeed accelerate to relativistic speeds; outside gravitational fields this is the same speed calculated from the previous lunar verse also outside gravitational fields.We cannot calculate our local speed of light from this time dilation however we can calculate at what percentage of the speed of light those angels are traveling relative to an observer on Earth. By this we can compare a time dilation (50,000 years vs. one day) with a speed (12000 Lunar Orbits/Earth Day). We can do this by translating both of them to a common speed in km/sec. Outside gravitational fields 50,000 years vs. one day shows angels traveling at 12000 Lunar Orbits/Earth Day; it is the same speed in km/sec.

Oh boy! Where do we start? This all looks a bit daunting doesn't it? Isn't easier just to accept what we're being told and BELIEVE? That's exactly what the miracle seekers expect you to do...

I'll try to keep this simple.

The equation states that the speed of angels is equal to the speed of light divided by 1 minus the sum of: 1 divided by 16,392,000 (50,000 x 12 x 27.32) squared. 
Let's do the math (as the Americans say):
One divided by a very large number is a very small number - so one divided by 16.4  million is very, very small number indeed.
If we then square a number smaller than 1 we get an even smaller number. 
If we take an exceptionally small number away from 1 we will always get very, very, very nearly 1.

In other words, the very large number we start with (which the miracle seeker in this case has taken from a random verse in the Qur'an) can be just about anything over 100 and you will arrive at the desired answer (depending on how close to 1 you want to get).

If you don't believe me, let's put a totally different set of numbers into the equation and see if we come up with... the speed of light!
Here's a verse from the Holy Book of Spinoza which describes how long a day is for my magic hamster:

His Magic Hamster ascended to him in a day - the measure of which 37 years

37 x 365 = 13, 505. 
1 divided by 13, 505 =  0.000007405. 
Now let's square that ...which equals 0.000000000007505. 
Now lets take that away from 1. Wow - it's very nearly 1 (0.9999999999245)! 
Now if we times the speed of light by 0.9999999999245 we get.... 

299 792 547. 977 m/s!

So I am now claiming my magic hamster miraculously travels at very nearly the speed of light and therefore you must worship me!

Either the author of this miracle claim knows no maths whatsoever, or he (and I'd bet my house it's a he) is a  lying charlatan who knows full well what he's doing  - which is trying to mislead gullible, vulnerable people into believing Islam is rational and scientific. 

What a despicable b*stard.

PS If you're a Muslim and still believe the speed of light is contained in the Qur'an do please get in touch. 
Or failing that, you could try thinking for yourself.

When Islam discusses the deficiencies of women...

Sheik al-Zindani explains why women can't talk and remember at the same time

The following is taken from an answering-christianity.com article by a "recent convert" to Islam, "Karim", wherein the author makes a valiant attempt to explain away the infamous Bukhari sahih ahadith which seems to tell us that the Prophet thought women were less intellectually capable than men: (Mohammed asked some women, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half that of a man?" The women said, "yes," He said,"This is because of the deficiency of the woman's mind. " Vol. 3:826 Mohammed to women: "I have not seen any one more deficient in intelligence and religion than you*." Vol. 2:541)

Let's see how poor old "Karim" tries to defend the indefensible...

When Islam discusses the deficiencies of women, it is neither insulting them nor belittling them. Note to self: Must try this with Mrs Spinoza - "Darling, when I'm discussing your deficiencies, I'm not belittling you. It's evidently your paltry intellect which leads you to misunderstand me..." Some men, unfortunately, do precisely that when they quote the words of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that women "have a deficiency in their intellect and their religion". They take these words out of context as a means of oppressing women and putting them down. Really?  Who'd have thought it? The Prophet (peace be upon him) meant something quite different. Oh? Do go on...He said: "I have never seen among those who have a deficiency in their intellect and their religion anyone more capable than women of swaying the intellect of the most determined of men." He is actually asserting here the power of women to influence men and sway their opinion. This is one of the distinctions that women, in their natures, have. Yes - but he is ALSO saying that women are a group characterised by their deficient intellects. Now who could POSSIBLY find offence in that? 

He then went on to define precisely what he meant by these deficiencies. Listen, Muhammad old chap, as Mrs S says - when you're in a hole, just stop digging! In the remainder of the hadîth, some women asked him: "O Messenger of Allah, what is this deficiency in our intelligence and religion?" What a pity the hadith doesn't report the tone of the question of these long-suffering women .."Oh Messenger of Allah - do tell us why we're so stupid, won't you?" He replied: "Isn't it that a woman's testimony as a witness is half of the testimony of man?" They said: "Yes." He said: "This, then, is the deficiency in her intelligence. Q: Why is a woman's testimony worth half of that of a man? A: Because she is deficient in intellect Q: How do we know a woman is deficient in intellect? A: Because her testimony is worth half that of a man. Isn't it true that when she is in her menses, she leaves off prayers and fasting?" They said: "Yes." "Yes"?? Sisters! Come on for f*ck's sake! "Yes"?!? Is that all you can manage? "Must be your time of the month, dear!" "Oh- thank you for pointing that out. Thank goodness I have a clever, intellectual man in the house to remind me of these things." Jeez! He said: "This is the deficiency in her religion."

The Prophet, peace be upon him, simply used this phrase “deficient in mind and religion” to alert them to what he wanted to say to them. Er - as opposed to using words to confuse them, perhaps? The Prophet, peace be upon him, frequently uses such a method, inserting some words that may not be relevant to the point he wants to stress, so that they serve to attract the attention of his audience. OMG, girls! - he WAS using words to confuse you!

And what about the hadith which says Muhammad saw that the majority of those dwelling in Hell were women? This should be good...How are you going to argue your way out of this one, "Karim"?

To start with, the Hadith does not say that most women are in hell. It says that the majority of hell dwellers are women, which simply signifies that more women fail in this worldly test than men. And you think that's somehow BETTER?! Then the Prophet, peace be upon him, points out their failure, which I'm sure went down REALLY well...which is not based on denying God. Rather, it is denying kindness, particularly in marital situations. Here's the spade...there's the hole - we'll just leave you to it, oh Prophet. The Prophet, peace be upon him, has pointed this out in more than one Hadith, warning women against grumbling and frequent complaints. I do the same, Muhammad - but do they listen? Do they? No! They just carry on moaning and whingeing and complaining and...she's standing behind me, isn't she...He is also warning them here against denying kindness by their husbands, highlighting a failing that is often expressed in denying past kindness.

Now all this patronising drivel may seem risible to those of us lucky enough to live without the hegemony of a ridiculous, medieval, clerical diktat. And indeed ridicule is often the only weapon we have to combat the evil of such hateful misogyny. But at the risk of sounding trite - remember that there are influential people, like Sheik al-Zindani in the video, at the heart of Islam who still regard it as acceptable to say (for example) that women are incapable of talking and remembering at the same time. And they use Muhammad's sayings and actions as reported in the ahadith (such as the ones above) to spread their obnoxious beliefs.  

Embryology in the Qur'an -"mudghah" or "chewed flesh"?

Here's the frontispiece of Hamza Tzortzis' (chief miracle seeker of the iERA, Islamic Education and research Academy) turgid study of embryology in the Qur'an. Notice the picture chosen to illustrate the study. Seem familiar? Of course it does...

...because it comes from the infamous illustration in Moore and Sheik al Zindani's text book, The Developing Human (3rd edition with Islamic Additions). The illustration appears in countless Islamic websites (and was copied in the first mail my convert friend sent to me to "explain" how miraculous the Qur'an was.) The picture is supposed to convince Muslims and putative converts that the verse 23:14 (“...Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump.”) predicts microscopic knowledge impossible for anyone in the 7th century Arabia to know. Notice how the somites (the segmental mass of mesoderm which look like the vertebrae) are particularly noticeable in the clinical illustration and which are equated with the chew marks on the picture of the piece of gum.

Now study the following photographs of three actual 28 day embryos. 

One is the embryo of a cat, one of a pig and one of a human. 

Spot the difference? It's tricky because at this stage there really is none. (The zygotes and early embryos of mammals are virtually indistinguishable from each other until the organogenesis process begins and the embryo begins to assume its future characteristics. This is an awkward fact for those who believe that humans were specially created by God and that we don't share common ancestors.) 

But where are the somites, those structures so evident in the clinical illustration beloved of the miracle seekers? Well they're there, of course, but they hardly look like the tooth marks in the piece of gum added by al-Zindani for the Islamic edition of Moore's text book, because they are internal structures.

In fact, the embryos look nothing like the chewed gum picture. 

The phrase "chewed lump" is not miraculous; it is not even particularly apt; it is inaccurate. How ironic that the miracle seekers should have drawn our attention to a translation of a verse that suggests that the author of the Qur'an was a fallible human being.

Of course, the further irony is that, as the guys at embryologyinthequran.blogspot have so clearly and tellingly pointed out, the arabic word mudghah doesn't mean chewed flesh anyway.

The actual definition is that it is a noun for something that is intended or suitable for chewing (such as a small “piece of meat”).

Here's the definition from The Hans Wehr Dictionary:

Thus we have a lunatic (al-Zindani) - renowned for his bizarre pronouncements (cure for AIDS etc.) and for his dubious and desperate attempts to con/buy western scientific respectability for his weird ideas - spotting Moore's clinical illustration of a 28 day embryo and thinking that the somites looked vaguely like teeth marks.

He adds a picture of a piece of chewing gum and hey-presto! - A MIRACLE!

What he forgot/didn't realise is: 

1. the embryo is approximately the same size as a grain of rice (4.5 mm!! - hardly a lump of flesh!)

2. the somites aren't nearly as visible as in the clinical illustration

3. that if they were visible at all, they'd be convex if anything, not concave like actual bite marks!

4. and that the word mudgah doesn't mean chewed lump anyway, but rather a lump/piece of meat of a size suitable for chewing

Those who choose to base their belief in God upon such dubious descriptions and inaccurate translations are fooling themselves, and their self-deception is aided and encouraged by idiots like Tzortzis and his acolytes at iERA who continue to spout this nonsense about tooth marks on the embryo.

PS I thoroughly recommend this site if you want to see further wonderful pictures of embryonic development.

Test the message! - Read the ahadith!

Back to the major dawah initiative of the moment at iERA (Islamic Education and Research Academy) : Don't shoot the messenger!Test the Message! Here's a typically rebarbative article in which the guys set out to protect the Prophet's reputation by telling us why it's impossible not to believe the ahadith (the actions and saying of Muhammad). It starts with a decidedly questionable statement:

The main contention against Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) prophet-hood is that the narratives concerning his life are not valid sources of knowledge.

Not at all, chaps... The main contention against Muhammad's prophet-hood is:
i.  the bizarrely repetitive, sometimes homophobic and misogynistic, and often plagiarised content of his message as found in the Qur'an and 
ii. those very narratives concerning his life and sayings you seem intent on having us believe
In other words, most of us are quite happy to accept, if you insist, that these narratives are genuine. We will even follow your expertise in distinguishing the genuine (sahih) narrations (or ahadith) from those with a less than perfect chain of narration, since so many of even the "genuine" (sahih) ahadith contain damning insights into Muhammad's strangely pagan-like beliefs and dubious character.

Never ones to under-sell their message, iERA then go on to list in excruciating detail why the ahadith are beyond doubt, and finish with the following (truly wonderful) claim:

In light of the above, to reject the narratives that elucidate on the life of the Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace) would be tantamount to rejecting all known historical truths because the science of hadith is far more thorough than the methodologies used is western history.

OK! OK! - calm down, fellas! I'll read and believe in the authenticity of the ahadith, as you're so insistent. So let's have a look at some of them...

The following sahih hadith are taken from Islam Review and are solely from Sahih Al-Bukhari, regarded by Sunni Muslims (like the chaps at iERA) as the most reliable and authentic collection of ahadith. I'll just reiterate: these are the ahadith that iERA insist are as true (or truer) "than all known historical truths" and help to prove that Muhammad was God's prophet...

WOMEN

Women are deficient in mind and religion.


• Mohammed asked some women, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half that of a man?" The women said, "yes," He said,"This is because of the deficiency of the woman's mind. " Vol. 3:826
• Mohammed to women: "I have not seen any one more deficient in intelligence and religion than you*." Vol. 2:541
The majority of people in hell are women.

• Mohammed said, "I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers are women. " Vol. 1:28, 301; Vol. 2:161; Vol. 7:124
Women are a bad omen.

• Mohammed said, " Bad omen is in the woman, the house and the horse." Vol. 7:30
Women are harmful to men.

• Mohammed said, "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women." Vol. 7:33
Women may not wear wigs.

• Mohammed said, " Don't wear false hair for Allah sends His curse upon such ladies who lengthen their hair artificially." Vol. 7:133

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SEX AND MARRIAGE

Mohammed's sexual strength is equal to 30 men.

• Anas said, "The prophet used to visit all his wives in an hour round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, "Had the prophet the strength for it?"Anas replied, "We used to say that the prophet was given the strength of thirty (men). " Vol. 1:268
Mohammed married a 9 year old girl.

• "Narrated Aisha that the prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nineyears old."Vol. 7:64
Allah hurries to please Mohammed's sexual desires.

• When the Quranic verse that allows Mohammed to postpone the turn of any wife was revealed, and when Mohammed said that Allah allowed him to marry his adopted son's wife, Aisha (one of his wives) told him, "O Allah's Apostle I do not see but that your Lord hurries in pleasing you. " Vol. 7:48
When a woman is divorced irrevocably, she cannot return to her husband until she marries (including having sexual intercourse) with another man.

• "Narrated Aisha: The wife of Rifaa Al-Qurazi came to Allah's Apostle and said, 'O Allah's Apostle, Rifaa divorced me irrevocably. After him I married Abdur-Rahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi who proved to be impotent.' Allah's Apostle said to her, 'Perhaps you want to return to Rifaa? Nay (You cannot return to Rifaa) until you and Abdur-Rahman (the impotent man) engage in sexual intercourse!" Vol. 7:186  

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HUMAN RIGHTS

Islam is to be imposed by force.

• Mohammed said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and whoever says, " None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, his life and property will be saved by me." (otherwise it will not). Vol. 4:196
Apostasy is punishable by death.

• Mohammed said, "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him." Vol. 9:57
A Muslim must not be killed if he kills a non-Muslim.

• Mohammed said, " No Muslim should be killed for killing a Kafir" (infidel). Vol. 9:50
Ethnic cleansing is practiced.

• Mohammed said to the Jews, "You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle (Mohammed) and I want to expel you from this land (The Arabian Peninsula), so, if anyone owns property, he is permitted to sell it." Vol. 4:392
• Mohammed's last words at his deathbed were: "Turn the pagans (non-Muslims) out of the Arabian Peninsula." Vol. 5:716  

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ETERNAL SECURITY

No assurance of Salvation.

• Mohammed said. "By Allah, though I am the apostle of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me." Vol. 5:266
God punishes a deceased if his relatives weep.

• Mohammed said, "The deceased is punished because of the weeping of his relatives." Vol. 2:375
When you speak badly about a deceased, the deceased will go to hell.

• Mohammed said, "You praised this, so Paradise has been affirmed to him, and you spoke badly of this, so hell has been affirmed to him. You people are Allah's witnesses on earth." Vol. 2:448
Urine on your clothes will bring punishment from God.

• Mohammed said, "The deceased person is being tortured in the grave not for a great thing to avoid, it is for being soiled with his urine. " Vol. 2:460
Holy war (Jihad) is a guarantee of heaven.

• Mohammed said, "The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to paradise (if he is killed). " Vol. 1:35

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MEDICINE

Drinking camel's urine will make you healthy.

• "The prophet ordered them to follow his camels, and drink their milk and urine , so they followed the camels and drank their milk and urine till their bodies became healthy." Vol. 7:590
Fever is from the heat of hell.

• Mohammed said, " Fever is from the heat of hell, so put it out (cool it) with water." Vol. 7:619
A fly in your drink is a cure.

• Mohammed said, "If a housefly falls in the drink of anyone of you, he should dip it (in the drink), for one of its wings has a disease and the other has the cure for the disease. " Vol. 4:537
How the baby's looks are determined.

• Mohammed said, "As for the child, if the man's discharge precedes the woman's discharge, the child attracts the similarity of the man, and if the woman's discharge precedes the man's, then the child attracts the similarity of the woman." Vol. 5:275

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MISCELLANEOUS

If you eat garlic don't come to the place of worship.

• Mohammed said, "Whosoever ate from this plant (i.e. garlic) should not enter the mosque." Vol. 1:812
Effect of evil eye

• Mohammed said, "The effect of an evil eye is a fact. " Vol. 7:636
Which shoe you should put on first.

• Mohammed said, "If you want to put on your shoes, put on the right shoe first, and if you want them off, take the left one first."Vol. 7:747
Breathing in your drink is bad.

• Mohammed said, "Don't breath into your drinking utensil."Vol. 1:156
God frightens his devotees with eclips.

• Mohammed said, "The sun and the moon are two signs amongst the signs of Allah and they do not eclipse because of the death of someone but Allah frightens His devotees with them. " Vol. 2:158

Satan urinates in people's ears, when they don't wake up for prayer.

• Narrated Abdullah: the prophet was told that a person had kept on sleeping till morning and had not got up for the prayer. The prophet said, "Satan urinated in his ears." Vol. 2:245

Yawning is from Satan.

• The prophet said, "Yawning is from Satan and if anyone of you yawns, he should check his yawning as much as possible, for if anyone of yuo (during the act of yawning) should say: "Ha", Satan will laugh at him." Vol. 2:158

Stars are missiles which God uses to hit the devils.

• The creation of stars is for three purposes, i.e., as decoration of the sky, as missiles to hit the devils, and as signs to guide travelers. Vol. 2:15

 Let's not forget, lest we are tempted to regard these sayings and actions as a bizarre but ultimately unreliable and therefore unimportant part of Islam, that if we do, then according to iERA,

all other established historical narratives must be rejected, including World War One, the battle of Hastings and the Norman invasion of Britain! 

So let me get this clear. If we DON'T believe that Muhammad had sex with a nine year-old, or told his followers to kill apostates, or thought that a fly's wing was a curative or that women have deficient minds.... then we might as well deny WWI happened?

Goodness - I truly love you guys at iERA sometimes!

*for an Islamic explanation this "most misquoted and misunderstood hadith" (the one where Muhammad says women are deficient in intellect etc) please click here. No really, PLEASE do.

Scientism and obscurantism at iERA...

Take a trawl through the innumerable Islamic websites proclaiming the miraculous nature of the Qur'an and one soon encounters a depressing refrain: science is to be relied upon only when it is confirmed by the Qur'an (or, at the very least, when it doesn't contradict it).
Apart from the ludicrous claims of preternatural  knowledge of embryology, isostasy, cosmology etc. in the Qur'an, this also leads followers to deny such universally accepted (in the scientific community) theories such as evolution, since however hard the miracle seekers try to twist the original Arabic and search the tafsirs they cannot but accept that Allah has plainly stated that all species were created at once and that man can trace his origins back to two individuals, Adam and Eve, created by Him.
Hence science that plainly contradicts the Qur'an (and thus God) must be denied. Denial, however, is not enough. Such blasphemous beliefs must be denigrated and belittled lest any curious Muslim be tempted to reflect upon the overwhelming evidence for science that contradicts the Revelation and reach his or her own conclusions, namely: Allah wasn't much of a scientist.
Christianity, of course, has been here before. But the West had the Enlightenment and religion has retreated in the light of advancing knowledge ever since. Islam, however, is still fighting to maintain its grip on its followers' hearts and minds, and the deniers of evolution - such as those neanderthals at iERA - will go to any despicable lengths to hide knowledge from those who are the targets of their dawah.
Take the use of the term "scientism". Miracle seekers use it relentlessly when what they actually mean is ...well, science.
Here's our favourite miracle seeker, Hamza Tzortzis of the Islamic Education and Research Association writing about Richard Dawkins in his paper, A response to the God Delusion 

The statement presumes scientism to be the only way of establishing facts. 

In case you're wondering (and my spell check certainly is...), scientism sees science as "the absolute and only justifiable access to the truth". It's used exclusively in a pejorative sense. And yet the irony is that the miracle seekers love quoting (cod)science when they think it'll confuse the bejesus out of their gullible readers. 
Here's Hamza again, explaining why evolution is "impossible" (well, it's true we have our doubts with you, Hamza, ol' son) by quoting from Barrow and Tipler's book, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle..

Evolution is impossible because we have not had enough time on Earth yetAccording to John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, the odds of assembling a single gene are between and 4^-180 to 4^-360. The implications of this are that there simply has not been enough time since the formation of the earth to try a number of nucleotide base combinations that can even remotely compare to these numbers!

I wonder if Hamza would be happy to quote the figures if he knew he was using "science" from an author infamous for writing a study on the mechanism for raising the dead (The Omega Point).
George Ellis, writing in the journal Nature, described Tipler's book on the Omega Point as "a masterpiece of pseudoscience ... the product of a fertile and creative imagination unhampered by the normal constraints of scientific and philosophical discipline",and Michael Shermer devoted a chapter of Why People Believe Weird Things to enumerating what he thought to be flaws in Tipler's thesis. Best of all, Physicist Sean M. Carroll thought Tipler a "crackpot". I suppose it won't surprise you to learn either that Tipler was a fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, a society which advocated, wait for it... intelligent design.

So here's another -ism for you Hamza: obscurantism - which we might summarise as attempting to blind your readers with the dubious science of creationist crackpots while attacking the real science of world-renowned scientists.

iERA and Gods existance (sic)

Gods Existance

It pains me to put such illiterate nonsense in my blog title but sometimes aesthetic concerns must bow to the greater need to expose the cretins at the Islamic EDUCATION and Research Association (a registered charity, for f*ck's sake) for what they are. Today they deserve to be pilloried not just for their moronic attempts at philosophy and logic but for their evident ignorance of basic grammar and spelling.

The offending title appears in the "advanced dawah" section of their website. This is presumably where those who have progressed beyond basic bollocks go to learn specialist techniques for spouting cutting-edge, innovative, jaw-dropping bollocks. 

The first subheading under their nonsensical title is "The Dawkins delusion - a response to Richard Dawkins". I bet the professor is quaking in his atheist boots...

(Unfortunately, the link appears not to work. If anyone can track down iERA's no doubt searing endictment of the professor's work on evolutionary biology I'd love to hear from you...)

Islam, Creation and the Total Perspective Vortex

The universe within one billion light years (thanks to atlasoftheuniverse.com)

The most horrifying form of torture/punishment in the known Universe, The Total Perspective Vortex (it's so mind bogglingly terrifying it even gets Capital Letters) is a small, featureless steel box, barely big enough for one man to stand in. 

The hopeless victims stand in the Vortex, and are suddenly shown, for the merest instant, the whole of the Universe: the whole infinity of creation, spanning over several trillion light years, and countless millennia, with an insignificant dot saying "You Are Here". 

The victims, totally demoralised by their experience, fall dead from the vortex, wherupon they become the burden of the Vortex' custodian, Pizpot Gargravarr. 

To date, Zaphod Beeeblebrox (former President of the Galaxy, and "The best bang since the Big one") is the only man to have survived the vortex, solely because he is a hoopy frood and the Vortex told him as much.
 from Urban dictionary and ultimately the blessed Douglas Adams

There are probably more than 100 billion  (10¹¹) galaxies in the observable universe. Each galaxy has on average between 100 billion and one trillion stars. 
Put another way, if we were to represent galaxies as frozen peas (in other words I'm asking you to imagine a frozen pea containing between 100 billion and a trillion stars) then the known universe contains enough peas to fill the Albert Hall.
Such numbers are almost impossible for us to comprehend. And for most of human history, of course, we haven't had to. The great mysteries of the cosmos have been just that - mysteries. Man has made up wonderful stories to put a human scale to the incomprehensible: whether it be a the world carried on the shell of a giant turtle or on the back of Atlas or the stars seen as lamps in a series of "heavens".
But now that we are beginning to fathom the truly mind-numbing immensity of the universe we are left with some awkward questions.
Such as why did God create at the very least 6 sextillion planets? Couldn't that be seen as just the tiniest bit wasteful?  Why would God need so many galaxies containing so many solar systems containing so many planets if all he needed to create life was to say "BE!"?
We are told that the creation of life is an incredibly unlikely event....so unlikely that only God could be responsible. And yet what is now finally being revealed to us is a universe that has been mixing chemicals on sextillions of planets for billions of years. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE WOULD EXPECT TO SEE IF LIFE HAD TO EMERGE BY CHANCE BECAUSE THERE IS NO GOD.
For why would God need so many failed experiments?
Where in the Bible or the Qur'an is there the slightest hint that God needed so much time and so much space to finally crack this creation business?

Last word to DA:

Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams