Attached Link: http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/image/planetary/earth/gal_earth_moon.jpg

Quote - "*wouldnt the light of the sun be "forwarded" from the other side into the unlit part of the planet side*"

For sure not. Look at photos from outer space of Earth and other planets and you'll see that the dark side is totally dark. There's no shiny atmosphere in the dark, that's for sure. :-)
Look at the link above. That was taken by the Voyager. Here are more photos of the Voyager:
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/photo_gallery/photogallery-voyager.html

Well, in fact, even in the iluminated part the atmosphere is barely visible because it's so small. The Earth's atmosphere has a 120Km depth and Earth has a 12756Km diameter. So, the atmosphere is only less than 1% of the total planet diameter. That's almost invisible at the distance, as the photo above can also testify. Up close, it's visible, as this other photo shows:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Top_of_Atmosphere.jpg