Response: The gaseous air surrounding a celestial body.
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7 layers of heaven
- Thread starter skydivephil
- Start date
Response: The gaseous air surrounding a celestial body.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So, how far do you think the gaseous air around earth extends?
Response: The atmosphere of the earth extends to a certain point. What that exact number is, you can look up. I don't know exactly what it is.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
Which atmosphere is our sun located within?
Response: The photosphere.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So the sun has it's own atmosphere, but it is not located within the earth's atmosphere, correct?
Response: Correct.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So, of the 7 layers of heaven, how many are layers in the earth's atmosphere, and how many are layers in the sun's atmposphere?
Response: The earth's atmosphere has a 7 layers. The sun has 3. Each layer differs from the other.
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skydivephil
Active Member
Fatihah, as you might have guessed from my name I'm a skydiver and so the sky and the atmosphere are of particular interest to me. Atmospheric layers have a very specific definition. Ready for the bad news? There are 5 layers of the atmosphere not seven. Don't take my word for it though. Check here:
Layers of the Earth's Atmosphere
"The atmosphere is divided into five layers."
or here:
Earth's atmosphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Earth's atmosphere can be divided into five main layers."
or here:
"The atmosphere is divided into five layers."
Atmosphere
or here:
"The atmosphere consists of five layers, held around the planet by the force of gravity. "
The Earth's Atmosphere
or here:
"The ATMOSPHERE is a protective cover of air blanketing our Earth. It has five layers"
ATMOSPHERE
So we have seen there are five layers of the atmosphere. How do we really know this? because a layer of the atmosphere has a very specific definition. If you've ever been skydiving or mountain climbing you are going to know all about it . When you ascend the temperature declines, so we have a simple relationship: higher altitude, lower temperature. But this only true until a certain altitude. Once one ascends above a certain height this relationship changes; as you go higher temperature actually increases. Its this flipping that defines the layers of the atmosphere and it happens five times, not seven. The layers of the atmosphere are
1 Troposphere: altitude up, temperature down
2 Stratosphere: altitude up, temperature up
3 Mesosphere: altitude up, temperature down
4 Thermosphere: altitude up, temperature up
5 Exosphere: altitude up, temperature down
When Islamic apologists say there are seven layers of the atmosphere they are simply wrong. If you want to defend them you should come up with your definition of the atmosphere which is consistent across seven layers. The problem is you can't. What they are really doing is deceiving themselves and they are doing so in a particular way, its a very human thing and its something you should read about, its called confirmation bias:
Confirmation bias - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Now if you read the wikipedia article on the atmosphere you will see they discuss other ways to describe the atmosphere, could this be Islam's saviour? Are there another two layers? Making seven? Sorry you lose, they mention another four. Strictly these other four are not layers of the atmosphere. For example the ionosphere is defined as that part of the atmosphere which receives ionising radiation. If we define atmospheric layers in that way there are only two. Whichever way you define it, you don't get seven layers.
What I find really funny is in their desperate attempt to try and make the Qur'an fit science Islamic apologists cant even agree which seven layers they are going to use.
Look at this Islamic web site:
Islam and Modern Science: LAYERS OF HEAVENS
here the defintion is
1.troposphere
2 stratosphere
3 ozonosphere
4 mesosphere
5 thermosphere
6 ionosphere
7 exosphere
But when you go on this web site:
Miracles of the Qur'an - Modern Science Reveals New Miracles of the Qur'an
1.troposphere
2 stratosphere
3 mesosphere
4 thermosphere
5 exosphere
6 ionosphere
7 magnetosphere
I think you can see that these Islamic apologists are clearly falling for that very human trait of desperately trying to make the data fit even when it clearly is impossible.
Response: Troposphere, stratosphere, OZone layer, mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, exosphere. When you add them up, that equals 7. Even modern science agrees with the qur'an.
skydivephil
Active Member
Fatihah, you also said the Sun is not located in the Earth's atmopshere, yet in the Qur'an:
41.12 So He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and revealed in every heaven its affair; and We adorned the lower heaven with brilliant stars and (made it) to guard; that is the decree of the Mighty,
Its saying the stars (of which the Sun is our nearest) are in our atmosphere.
Lets remind you that the nearest star is the Sun 93 million miles away, the next nearest star is Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away that's 24,635,923,200,000. miles away and thats the nearest star from our solar system!! Don't get me started on the furthest stars which are billions of light years away. Yet the Qur'an says not only are there stars in our atmosphere, not only that but they are in the lower heavens!!! Still think we should take this claim seriously?
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skydivephil
Active Member
When you add up layers that aren't actually layers of the atmosphere you can get any number you like. If you read my response and understood it you would see that.
skydivephil
Active Member
How about ten layers?
Troposphere, stratosphere, OZone layer, mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, exosphere, biosphere, lithosphere,planisphere
Troposphere, stratosphere, OZone layer, mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, exosphere, biosphere, lithosphere,planisphere
Response: Stars are in the atmosphere. You disagree? Prove otherwise. As for the sun, the sun is not mentioned anywhere in the verse. The word "sun" is not there. And lastly, it does not say that stars are in the lower heaven. It is you who is saying so. For the correct translation is light, or lamp. And the light of the stars can be seen in the lower heaven.
Response: And if you read mine, you would have seen proof to the contrary.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So, the sun, and other stars are not contained in any of the 7 layers of heaven?
Additionally, the earth's atmosphere has five main layers. If you include layers determined by properties other than temperature (and which overlap, contain, or are contained within other layers), like the ozone layer, then it has ten (troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere, ozone layer, ionosphere, homosphere, heterosphere, and the planetary boundary layer).
Anyway you slice it, in order to come up with 7 layers, you have to arbitarily ignore layers of the atmosphere. Additionally, the sun and stars are not contained in any of the earth's atmospheric layers, so if you're defining the 7 layers of heaven as the earth's atmospheric layers, then the sun and other stars are not contained in any of the seven layers of heaven.
Response: To the contrary, if you divide it that way, it has 10. But what you do is your business. Allah divides it into 7. For the authority of how the atmosphere should be divided or classified is not held by your or me. Within the division of 7, each of them is in fact a layer, therefore it's in perfect agreement with science, for no scientists says that the 7 layers don't differ from each other.
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Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
So the qur'an could say 2 layers, 3 layers, 9 layers, etc. and it would be equally miraculous. I guess miracles are easy to come by when one is flexible enough with their criteria.
skydivephil
Active Member
i see you side stepped my entire point that there are not seven layers of the atmosphere. No mater , lets move onto to your next point. You claim its me that says the Qur'an says the stars are in the lower heaven. i think not,
here are three different translations:
41.12": So He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and revealed in every heaven its affair; and We adorned the lower heaven with brilliant stars and (made it) to guard; that is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing.
(12) So He ordained them seven heavens in two periods, and revealed in every heaven its affair; and We adorned the lower heaven with brilliant stars and (made it) to guard; that is the decree of the Mighty, the Knowing.
فَقَضَىٰهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَٰوَاتٍۢ فِى يَوْمَيْنِ وَأَوْحَىٰ فِى كُلِّ سَمَآءٍ أَمْرَهَا ۚ وَزَيَّنَّا ٱلسَّمَآءَ ٱلدُّنْيَا بِمَصَٰبِيحَ وَحِفْظًۭا ۚ ذَٰلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْعَلِيمِ ﴿٢١﴾
41:12] Thus, He completed the seven universes in two days, and set up the laws for every universe. And we adorned the lowest universe with lamps, and placed guards around it. Such is the design of the Almighty, the Omniscient.
Oh and by the way of course I can prove stars are not in the atmosphere, if they were the Earth would collapse into them. Work out the gravitonal effect of a star in the atmosphere and you will see. here's a clue the mass of the sun is 2 times 10 to the 36th power kg. Of course thats ignoring the effect of heat and radiation. Now I know the word sun is not in the Qur'an, but heres a wake up call, the sun is a typical star. The qur'an says "brillaint stars" are in the (according to you) atmosphere.
Your argument that its the light thats in the atmosphere is silly. First off during the day the stars are not visible. Does god remove them from the atmosphere each day. Even during the night, the stars are not visible if its overcast. does he take them out then too? Even if its not overcast the number of stars actually visible is 6,000, compare this to the number of stars estimated in our own galaxies of several hundred billion and don't forget there are several hundred billion galaxies out there.
But much more importantly the Qur'an does not make a distinction between the light form the stars and the stars themselves. That's your distinction, you are desperate to try and salvage the Qur'an when it clearly makes no scientific sense whatsoever. Wy would the light be placed in the atmosphere, ask the Astronauts that went to the moon they saw the same stars too. the qur'an describes the stars in a way exactly consistent with people being ignorant of current cosmology.
lastly you haven't given us your definition of what an atmospheric layer is, I have given you the one that is normally defined and I have given plenty of independent references to back it up, why don't you do the same?