The Flat-Earth myth

TashaN · Oct 17, 2005

I read that most of Christian nowdays believe in this passage:

Christianity has often been held responsible for promoting the flat Earth theory. Yet, it was only a handful of so-called intellectual scholars throughout the centuries, claiming to represent the Church, who held to a flat Earth. Most of these were ignored by the Church, yet somehow their writings made it into early history books as being the 'official Christian viewpoint'.

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c034.html

So, Was it the fault of some Christians who were interested in scince and they made mistakes in understanding the scriptures?

Did the Church when they heard of some people clamining that the earth is not flat was trying to make those people shut because thier new idea that the earth is not flat was concidered as a Satan work.

Moreever, is there any proof that the Fathers of the church didn't agree about the flat-earth myth?

This Thread is to learn only because some Muslims also interpret some verses the way they understood it instead of going back to ask the Scholars who are aware of these things about it.

How is the system in Christians world in these events? Do they allow anybody "in postion" to explain the bible the way s/he understand it?

Again, the thread is not about whether they should said the earth was flat or not but in how we should deal with the irresponsible interpretations for some scholars and is it thier fault to explain it the way they want or it's all for the sake of the development of human beings concidering the flat-earth myth as an exmaple ONLY to discuss about this issue.

Feathers in Hair · Oct 17, 2005

I'm afraid that it's not very ethical to post a claim about what another faith believes and then state that people are unable to discuss, in the thread where the claim was posted, whether or not that claim is valid. It's rather like saying " I've read that most Pagans believe that their saviour is a small piece of strawberry pie- why are they irresponsible in doing so?"

TashaN · Oct 17, 2005

FeathersinHair said:
I'm afraid that it's not very ethical to post a claim about what another faith believes and then state that people are unable to discuss, in the thread where the claim was posted, whether or not that claim is valid. It's rather like saying " I've read that most Pagans believe that their saviour is a small piece of strawberry pie- why are they irresponsible in doing so?"

I did explain that Christians nowdays as i read said that those who claim that the earth was flat are some scholars who didn't repesent the church and if so then they will be concidered whether they are irresponsible or they made scintific mistakes out of the church's well.

TashaN · Oct 17, 2005

Moreover, Christians themselves said those people who claim that the earth was flat were only a handful of so-called intellectual scholars throughout the centuries, claiming to represent the Church. Most of these were ignored by the Church, yet somehow their writings made it into early history books as being the 'official Christian viewpoint'.

Is this not clear enough that i wasn't talking from my mind but what Christians said about it or you still think the earth is flat?

Feathers in Hair · Oct 18, 2005

I am very sorry. I misinterpreted what you were asking. I became confused when you used the word "irresponsible", which generally infers that people know they are wrong and are doing something, anyways. However, in the suggestion you gave, I believe it was originally accepted, at the time, suggesting the world was round would be seen as being an irresponsible claim. I'm also sorry that you needed to ask if I thought the world is flat.

TashaN · Oct 18, 2005

FeathersinHair said:
I am very sorry. I misinterpreted what you were asking. I became confused when you used the word "irresponsible", which generally infers that people know they are wrong and are doing something, anyways. However, in the suggestion you gave, I believe it was originally accepted, at the time, suggesting the world was round would be seen as being an irresponsible claim. I'm also sorry that you needed to ask if I thought the world is flat.

It's ok and no need to apolgize and i knew that you misunderstood me and i just wanted to make it more clear for you but believe me no hard feelings.

Valjean · Oct 18, 2005

We must remember that the round-Earth theory is only a theory and has not been definitively proved.

michel · Oct 18, 2005

The Truth said:
It's ok and no need to apolgize and i knew that you misunderstood me and i just wanted to make it more clear for you but believe me no hard feelings.

Actually, there is a quote from the Bible that shows that the earth was known to be round.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH131.html

The passage saying the earth is round is Isaiah 40:22:

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
This passage may reasonably be interpreted as referring to a flat circular earth with the heavens forming a dome above it. Such an interpretation is consistent with other passages of the Bible which refer to a solid firmament (Gen. 1:6-20, 7:11; Ezekiel 1:22-26; Job 9:8, 22:14, etc.). It is also consistent with the cosmology common in neighboring cultures.

Isaiah 11:12 refers to the "four quarters of the earth", but we do not take that as indicative of the earth's shape.
The shape of the earth may already have been known in Isaiah's time. Ancient astronomers could determine that the earth was round by observing its circular shadow move across the moon during lunar eclipses. There is some suggestion that the Egyptians knew of the earth's spherical size and shape around 2550 B.C.E. (more than a thousand years before Moses). The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who was born in 532 B.C.E., defended the spherical theory on the basis of observations he had made of the shape of the sun and moon (Uotila 1984). If this information was known by educated Greeks and Egyptians during biblical times, its use by Isaiah is nothing special.

TashaN · Oct 18, 2005

michel said:
Actually, there is a quote from the Bible that shows that the earth was known to be round.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CH/CH131.html

The passage saying the earth is round is Isaiah 40:22:

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.
This passage may reasonably be interpreted as referring to a flat circular earth with the heavens forming a dome above it. Such an interpretation is consistent with other passages of the Bible which refer to a solid firmament (Gen. 1:6-20, 7:11; Ezekiel 1:22-26; Job 9:8, 22:14, etc.). It is also consistent with the cosmology common in neighboring cultures.

Isaiah 11:12 refers to the "four quarters of the earth", but we do not take that as indicative of the earth's shape.

The shape of the earth may already have been known in Isaiah's time. Ancient astronomers could determine that the earth was round by observing its circular shadow move across the moon during lunar eclipses. There is some suggestion that the Egyptians knew of the earth's spherical size and shape around 2550 B.C.E. (more than a thousand years before Moses). The Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who was born in 532 B.C.E., defended the spherical theory on the basis of observations he had made of the shape of the sun and moon (Uotila 1984). If this information was known by educated Greeks and Egyptians during biblical times, its use by Isaiah is nothing special.

Dear Michel, If you read my first or second post you will notice that i wasn't saying the bible is wrong but i was saying that some or all scholars at that time made mistakes in explaining these verses.

My question was, what if we never knew that the earth is not flat as we do now and there is no such a thing as NASA and the institutions which is similar to it?

would it that be we believe the earth is flat if they didn't bring the picture of the sphare earth for us?

What if there are things nowdays holy books as a whole that we explain it in a away that it will appear as a logic error and a huge mistake in the future and how can we avoid that?

TashaN · Oct 18, 2005

Seyorni said:
We must remember that the round-Earth theory is only a theory and has not been definitively proved.

Do you mean that you still not sure whether the earth is flat or round?

MdmSzdWhtGuy · Oct 18, 2005

The Truth,

Seyorni was making a joke. He knows full well the Earth is round. Any sailor from the
Middle Ages also knew it was round. As you travel on the water, the fact of the Earth's
roundness is quite obvious. As you climb higher on the rigging, you can see farther.
As you approach sea level, you cannot see as far. Water is flat, relative to the Earth's
surface, and the only way the rigging/vision distance phenomenon can exist is with
a round Earth. So we wouldn't need pictures from space to prove beyond doubt the
Earth is a sphere.

Now on to your real question, at least as I perceive it.

If Biblical and Q'uranical etc. . . scholars are wrong in interpreting verses/sura, and we know
for sure that some times they are (e.g. flat Earth theory) how do we avoid this?

If I mis-stated your question I apologize.

As a self proclaimed skeptic I would answer your question thusly. Unless and until any
interpretation of a verse/sura is proved to my satisfaction using the scientific method,
or some other method known for accuracy, such as cross referencing from a variety of
accounts/sources, I would be very suspicious of the scholar's claims.

Personally when someone makes what I perceive to be a fantastical claim, I first look for
whether that account can be proven or not. Very often it cannot. When it cannot, and
I am asked to accept the claim "on faith" then I become even more skeptical and begin
to look at what motive might drive the person to make such a claim. Very often you will
find that they have some ulterior motive, generally a pecuniary interest, (money) in
making such claims.

So short answer is, to avoid buying into a false interpretation, be skeptical of the claims and
make them prove what they are saying. Merely stating something with no proof is hardly
sufficient grounds for belief don't you agree?

B.

Valjean · Oct 18, 2005

I was speaking tongue-in-cheek, Truth, plus making an oblique reference to the Christian fundamentalists in my country who continually insist that evolution is "only a theory" as they lobby for intelligent design to be included in biology classes.

TashaN · Oct 18, 2005

Seyorni said:
I was speaking tongue-in-cheek, Truth, plus making an oblique reference to the Christian fundamentalists in my country who continually insist that evolution is "only a theory" as they lobby for intelligent design to be included in biology classes.

OK. sorry because i misunderstood you :bonk:

Anyway, the flat-earth was just an example and we can expand in our discussion and me personally believe that evolution is "only a theory" because no body saw a semi-Monkey turn to be a human being by plain eyes and it's all just assumption and many schoalrs found many places where they mention the evolution as it collapsed already since a while.

TashaN · Oct 18, 2005

MdmSzdWhtGuy said:
The Truth,

Seyorni was making a joke. He knows full well the Earth is round. Any sailor from the
Middle Ages also knew it was round. As you travel on the water, the fact of the Earth's
roundness is quite obvious. As you climb higher on the rigging, you can see farther.
As you approach sea level, you cannot see as far. Water is flat, relative to the Earth's
surface, and the only way the rigging/vision distance phenomenon can exist is with
a round Earth. So we wouldn't need pictures from space to prove beyond doubt the
Earth is a sphere.

Now on to your real question, at least as I perceive it.

If Biblical and Q'uranical etc. . . scholars are wrong in interpreting verses/sura, and we know
for sure that some times they are (e.g. flat Earth theory) how do we avoid this?

If I mis-stated your question I apologize.

As a self proclaimed skeptic I would answer your question thusly. Unless and until any
interpretation of a verse/sura is proved to my satisfaction using the scientific method,
or some other method known for accuracy, such as cross referencing from a variety of
accounts/sources, I would be very suspicious of the scholar's claims.

Personally when someone makes what I perceive to be a fantastical claim, I first look for
whether that account can be proven or not. Very often it cannot. When it cannot, and
I am asked to accept the claim "on faith" then I become even more skeptical and begin
to look at what motive might drive the person to make such a claim. Very often you will
find that they have some ulterior motive, generally a pecuniary interest, (money) in
making such claims.

So short answer is, to avoid buying into a false interpretation, be skeptical of the claims and
make them prove what they are saying. Merely stating something with no proof is hardly
sufficient grounds for belief don't you agree?

B.

i agree with you and you understood excatly what i meant.

The Flat-Earth myth

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