The Quran does teach that Allah made the nearest heaven beautiful with stars and that devils who try to steal news from the unseen are repelled by a "piercing flame." The real question is whether this requires the belief that whole stars are physically thrown like rocks, and it does not.
Why the criticism sounds strong
The critic is not inventing the issue. The verses are real, and at first reading they can sound as if stars themselves are missiles fired at devils:
"Indeed, We have adorned the nearest heaven with an adornment of stars, and as protection against every rebellious devil. They cannot listen to the highest assembly and are pelted from every side, repelled; and for them is a lasting punishment, except one who snatches something by theft, but they are pursued by a piercing flame."
Quran 37:6-10
"And We have certainly beautified the nearest heaven with lamps and have made them missiles for the devils, and We have prepared for them the punishment of the Blaze."
Quran 67:5
So the strongest version of the objection is this: modern science says stars are vast distant suns, not small projectiles. If the Quran says stars are thrown at devils, then it has mistaken meteors for stars and assigned them a supernatural function. If that is what the text necessarily says, the criticism would be serious.
What the verses actually distinguish
Quran 37:6-10 makes a distinction that is often missed. It says the heaven is adorned with kawakib - stars or heavenly bodies - and then says the intruder is pursued by a shihab thaqib, a piercing flame. It does not say, "a star leaves its place and crashes into the devil." The thing that strikes or pursues is described as a blazing flame, which corresponds to what people see as a shooting star or meteor-like flare in the sky.
Classical Muslim commentators commonly understood the verse this way: the stars remain an adornment of the heaven, while flames or fiery streaks are used in the unseen matter of repelling devils. They did not teach that the entire star is uprooted and hurled, because that would make the visible order of the heavens collapse. The Arabic of Quran 67:5 can also speak broadly: Allah made the heavenly lamps a means connected to the pelting, not that every lamp is literally removed from its orbit and thrown.
Not a physics lesson, but not a falsehood
The Quran is speaking about two layers at once: the visible scene and the unseen reality behind it. We observe luminous streaks in the sky. The Quran says that, by Allah's command, such piercing flames also serve a purpose in the unseen realm: preventing devils from stealing heavenly information. Science can describe the physical side of a meteor - matter entering an atmosphere, heating, glowing, and burning. It cannot, by its method, confirm or deny whether Allah also appoints such events for an unseen purpose.
This is not "God of the gaps." The Quran is not saying, "We do not know what these lights are, therefore demons." It gives a theological account of purpose, while leaving the physical mechanism undescribed. A thing can have a material cause and a divine purpose at the same time. Rain, for example, has meteorological causes, yet the Quran also describes it as mercy and provision from Allah.
What this does and does not prove
The verses do establish that Islam affirms an unseen world: devils, angels, heavenly assembly, and divine protection from stolen revelation. A person who rejects the unseen altogether will naturally reject that teaching.
But the verses do not establish that the Quran thinks stars are tiny objects, or that whole stars are launched across space, or that astronomy is false. The wording allows, and classical explanation supports, a distinction between stars as adornment and piercing flames as the means of repelling devils.
So the objection only works if one forces the crudest possible reading onto the text. Read in its own language and within its normal scholarly understanding, this is not a scientific error. It is a statement about the unseen purpose of a visible phenomenon, not a mistaken astronomy textbook.