Re: Cosmology And The Koran. Geocentric?
Brother, the context of the last part of verse 40 is not 37 but clearly the first part of verse 40 itself. The sun does not overtake the moon NOR does the night overtake the day. In essence, its simply referring to the obvious fact that day and night cannot happen at the same time, each has its own time and neither can contravene.
W/Salam sNOVA
You see I may not have made my point clear enough ...
The idea that both cannot happen at the same time is false. Dusk and Dawn are neither day nor night and you see many times the moon in plain view during the day. The verse does not associate the moon with night this will be a fallacy to suggest this. It also contradicts reason as we see the moon disassociated many times from the night sky.
Rather, if we look at verse 37 we can see that ...
If the day is stripped away we are left with night. In verse 40 we are told that the night does not "overpower" the daylight.
We can conclude therefore that the daylight can and does overpower the darkness, because of verse 37. It stands for reason that if what dominates is taken away then the result is the residual.
i.e. night is not a substance like daylight but merely the absence of daylight. The proof that I have that connects these two verses together is:
a) The whole section begins with "And a sign ... until the next section "
b) It is on the same topic, i.e. night and day
c) It is about simliar behaviour - night is caused by the absence of sun, whereas day is caused by it's presence.
d) The part that deals with the sun and moon in verse 40 are dealt with in verses 38 and 39, making a complete argument. Verses 37-39 set the conditions, verse 40 is the conclusion.
What the comparison is being made between the sun-moon couplet and the night-day couplet however, is still at large.
Note: I am choosing to use the word 'overpower' instead of 'outstrip'
Amazing facts ...
The moon and sun are two very differently sized objects, why is it that the distance of the moon from the Earth is such that when it comes across the sun it completely covers not being too big or too small?
The moon always has one face to the Earth, which means it's own axial rotation is exactly coordinated with it's orbit around the Earth.
In order to get this perfection, the Earth, the Moon and the distance of the Sun would have been very carefully calculated. It is a three way iteration.