Any flat earthers here?

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

The really good ones can actually make rather sound arguments which are difficult to dispute on an individual basis. When you put all the ideas together they're stupid. But individual arguments are pretty solid.

I'm not even kidding.

I'm not sure I agree. Would you like to present an individual argument on their behalf?

 

[Desert Snake]

I don't mock or put down someone for being a "flat earther" as I feel this model of reality is based on a sate of not understanding certain things about how the world works. You will receive no mockery from me. Some people can't "understand" things cognitively that they can't "internalize". Modern cosmology paints a picture of the universe that is difficult for human minds to truly envision and conceive, so I can see how it could be difficult for some to "internalize" such an awesome construct; especially when that awesome construct is different than what our senses "tell" us; such as the fact that the world, from our perspective as tiny beings on such a massive body, certainly looks and feels flat.

Would you care to explain to us why you believe the world is flat?

Well, first off, I should have said, I'm not a ''flat earther''. Like, I don't have diagrams claiming a ctual flat earth, or something// As in, what I meant was, we can use terminology that sounds like we are talking about a flat earth, because 'flatness' is a matter of perspective. The same as orbits, it's a matter of perspective.
Anyways, the point is, what we read in texts, is terminology, that could be used even today, its often descriptive, or from a perspective..

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, some of what you say does have some merit; in that, from the relative position of an observer, it's difficult to determine what is moving and what is standing still. Perspective is always a subjective experience.

So with the sematics out of the way: Do you believe that the cosmological model of a spheroid planet is objectively incorrect?

 

[Desert Snake]

According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, some of what you say does have some merit; in that, from the relative position of an observer, it's difficult to determine what is moving and what is standing still. Perspective is always a subjective experience.

So with the sematics out of the way: Do you believe that the cosmological model of a spheroid planet is objectively incorrect?

I use a globular concept of earth.

 

[Desert Snake]

Sorry. The word "ḤuG" in this verse seems to simply means a circle. Related to the word "M'ḤuGaH" (Isa. 44:15), which is a compass (used for drawing circles).

If your drawing a picture of a planet, that's what you would use. Planets are ''circles''.

 

[Desert Snake]

A Spheroid, is also a 'disc'.

So, we would have to know by descriptions or depictions, whether the authors meant spheroids, or 'flat discs'

 

[Tumah]

If your drawing a picture of a planet, that's what you would use. Planets are ''circles''.

It may be true when drawing a two-dimensional depiction of a planet that one would draw a circle. But in context of the verse in Isa. 40:22 it is discussing the actual item, not a depiction of it. In context, I believe it is referring to the horizon.

 

[Desert Snake]

It may be true when drawing a two-dimensional depiction of a planet that one would draw a circle. But in context of the verse in Isa. 40:22 it is discussing the actual item, not a depiction of it. In context, I believe it is referring to the horizon.

Ah, I see.

 

[Unification]

But a sphere isn't a circle. A circle is a 2 dimensional shape. The closest a sphere gets to being a circle is its shadow. A 3 dimensional object casts a 2 dimensional shadow. Moving on, 'Sphere' is not a new word. There is no reason, if they had meant "sphere" they would not have used a word meaning "sphere".

Thank you for the reply.

A circle is round and there are circles of a sphere.

"Sphere" is Greek and Latin, not Hebrew.

The point is being round, not flat.

 

[Unification]

Sorry. The word "ḤuG" in this verse seems to simply means a circle. Related to the word "M'ḤuGaH" (Isa. 44:15), which is a compass (used for drawing circles).

A circle is a circle and is round, not flat.

 

[Windwalker]

A circle is a circle and is round, not flat.

A disk is a circle and is flat.

 

[Unification]

No problem. There are so many things that do I'm used to it.


At least you think I'm eloquent.


Yep.


Of course knowledge and words evolve! That's one of the core tenants of my beliefs. I would not say humans thousands of years ago had no knowledge of anything because science wasn't around. They had knowledge of a lot that didn't require the specialized tools of science, like a telescope or an atom smasher. They could not however know things magically that required such advanced tools. Show me anyone in antiquity that understood what a galaxy cluster was, or dark matter, or black holes, or quantum mechanics, or bacteria and viruses. My point is that to take today's knowledge of these things and try to make Biblical writers have these sorts of magical insights into these things without the tools of science is pure fiction. You are force-fitting a modern understanding into the past, mythologizing it as a magical knowledge. That I do not accept as valid.


No. They were not scientific understandings with different words. Unless you mean to say that they understood by calling some possessed of demons, the same thing we do when we say they have a treatable psychological disorder or stomach cancer or something? You see, that was not scientific understanding with just different words. It was not understanding scientifically at all. It was speculation using mythological symbols to describe cause and effect relationships.

Let's take Adam and Eve as a good example. Modern science has shown that modern humans did indeed come from one man and one woman as a whole species. Well, the Biblical literalist would say that was a special miracle that they got that right scientifically, proving the Bible is divinely inspired! Right? No, not right. First of all "Adam and Eve" that science has demonstrated through DNA mapping, lived approximately 100,000 years apart making having babies together a tad bit challenging physically. But even so, even if we are to try to force-fit this in the book of Genesis, what makes more sense rationally? That this was secretly encoded into the texts via the omniscient God who knew the future where one day science would confirm his word to be true, or that common sense observation extrapolated a male and female as primary parents based on the fact it sees children born of men and women every day?

The words of the Bible are not about revealing hidden scientific truths, they are about thoughts about the world using metaphoric language and symbols, even if they themselves thought them literally true. It certainly was not about science, nor is it "hidden" in there for us to find today as a rational scientific culture. This does not devalue the Bible at all! It actually releases it from be dragged down into muck of silly pseudoscience and nonsense hermeneutics.


I'm not uncomfortable with it. I'm utterly dismissive they were in fact doing science in the Bible. They could not know something they didn't have the tools that would be required to know. They did not magically see into particle physics without the need of an atom smasher.


The hell you say? Where? I've never hear this one before.


Lots of places. Scientific knowledge come from scientific research using the tools of science. Spiritual knowledge comes from doing spiritual work using the tools of spiritual practices, such as meditation. And so forth. I subscribe to an epistemology pluralism. I would never say what insights I gain in meditation could ever be a replacement for doing science. Those who think science is hidden in the Bible, encoded by the Holy Spirit to prove God exists to the modern skeptic, seem to have a gross misunderstanding of where knowledge comes from. The discomfort that the Bible does not speak the language of modernity seems to be the core motivation behind this.

Batty is a good "metaphor."

I do know you're eloquent and very bright.

Adam and Eve are fictional characters.
There are modern day conscious models for them.
Adam- conscious - husband
Eve- subconscious - wife
Serpent- unconscious/ego - Satan

Adam "knowing" his wife is not sex.

The conscious impregnates the subconscious with a seed of knowledge, or a seed of thought (a child in scripture). The tree(dendrite)of knowledge. Where is knowledge? In the brain.

Numbers2:9 where it is talking about the twelve tribes of Israel camped around the tabernacle of God. Really, it's referring to the twelve cranial nerves camped around the brain of Consciousness.

All that were numbered in the camp of Judah were an hundred thousand and fourscore thousand and six thousand and four hundred. (186,400). Towards the east where the rising of the sun is. Light-Judah. (East hemisphere of brain)

Just as Jacob lighted up a spot at a place called Piniel. (Pineal gland)

So, during meditation, what happens?
Take me through the scientific process of how the brain accumulates knowledge internally, if you will, albeit a scientist or a meditator.

 

[Tumah]

A circle is a circle and is round, not flat.

A circle is a circle. But a circle is not a sphere.

 

[NewGuyOnTheBlock]

To say that the Hebrews lacked a word to describe a spheroid: as in the shape of a rock, boulder or human head; I find that hard to believe.

 

[Desert Snake]

To say that the Hebrews lacked a word to describe a spheroid: as in the shape of a rock, boulder or human head; I find that hard to believe.

I don't know about that, however, the ancient Greeks certainly portrayed the earth as spheroid, in sculptures.

 

[The Neo Nerd]

Is the earth actually flat?

 

[Windwalker]

Adam and Eve are fictional characters.
There are modern day conscious models for them.
Adam- conscious - husband
Eve- subconscious - wife
Serpent- unconscious/ego - Satan

Adam "knowing" his wife is not sex.

The conscious impregnates the subconscious with a seed of knowledge, or a seed of thought (a child in scripture). The tree(dendrite)of knowledge. Where is knowledge? In the brain.

Numbers2:9 where it is talking about the twelve tribes of Israel camped around the tabernacle of God. Really, it's referring to the twelve cranial nerves camped around the brain of Consciousness.

All that were numbered in the camp of Judah were an hundred thousand and fourscore thousand and six thousand and four hundred. (186,400). Towards the east where the rising of the sun is. Light-Judah. (East hemisphere of brain)

Just as Jacob lighted up a spot at a place called Piniel. (Pineal gland)

You may not realize this but this was what I meant by reading back into scripture a modern understanding that simply was not there from the beginning. You could do this with anything, finding comparisons and correlations, such as reading all this back into Homer's Odyssey or the plays of William Shakespeare. Though it could be useful by way of speaking in symbolic language, it simply is not there, literally, in what was written or intended to be written. It's just good to be careful to not say it "is" there, meaning it was intentionally put there, hidden as it were by God through the unwitting participation of the authors, encoding special meaning to be discovered by moderns in America 3000 years in future. That is magical thinking.

As far as the comparisons between Adam and Eve and serpent with the conscious, subconscious and unconscious, there are problems with the analogy. For one the "ego" is not part of the unconscious. It's part of the conscious mind. It's what we think about ourselves and how we consciousnessly self-identify. You can be somebody else in a dream. And when you are in dreamless sleep there is no self-identification at all. The ego is simply those conscious objects we self-identify with, and that changes and grows over time in our stages of development.

Why Satan is identified with unconscious is a bit bewildering as well. Satan in reality as a symbol points to that which resists LIght. In the unconscious we are dealing with all manner of things that have been programmed into us that are not near the surface of the conscious mind, or the subconscious mind. These deal with instincts, desires, beliefs, linguistic structures, patterns of thought, and so forth. There are neither necessarily for God or against God.

As far as Adam "knowing" Eve, yes that is sex and not a metaphor for anything else. The term "knowing" was used throughout the OT to mean sex and never meant anything as elaborate as the conscious and the subconscious penetrating each other. They didn't even have any such understanding of the mind like this, nor tried to speak of it in metaphors. Once again, this is a reading back into scripture a modern understanding.

Where is knowledge, in the brain, you ask? I don't know. There are plenty of animals that have a knowledge of what to do the second they are born who don't have any brains at all. Where is their knowledge stored? Do we really know these things definitively? I tend to think the universe is a bit stranger than we imagine as we like to localize things, that DNA alone is responsible for everything. I keep an open mind on these things.

As for the rest about the 12 tribes and all that, I just think that's just more of the same. The problem with this is it that if that is what was meant, what was intended to be understood at some point in the future when we came to have scientific knowledge, then when that scientific knowledge changes and we no longer understand things the way we do today, then you make God include a scientific mistake in the Bible, proactively! It's really better not to set yourself or God up looking for hidden meanings in things. Too easy to tip God over this way.

So, during meditation, what happens?
Take me through the scientific process of how the brain accumulates knowledge internally, if you will, albeit a scientist or a meditator.

In meditation you are accessing both the subconscious and the unconscious mind, as well as the "collective unconscious" as well as Ground Emptiness, and so forth. There's quite a lot that happens in meditation. Again though, I don't believe the Bible contains the secrets of neuroscience hidden in its pages! That is reading back finding loose correlations and making a mythology out of it misusing symbolism to mean secret knowledge.

 

[Nietzsche]

Thank you for the reply.

A circle is round and there are circles of a sphere.

"Sphere" is Greek and Latin, not Hebrew.

The point is being round, not flat.

Did you not read Tumah, the Hebrew Guy's, posts? He explains it quite well that it's "circle", not "sphere". Also, if you notice, I said "word meaning sphere". As in, I was not expecting Hebrew to use a Greek word. Just a word comparable to it.

 

[Unification]

You may not realize this but this was what I meant by reading back into scripture a modern understanding that simply was not there from the beginning. You could do this with anything, finding comparisons and correlations, such as reading all this back into Homer's Odyssey or the plays of William Shakespeare. Though it could be useful by way of speaking in symbolic language, it simply is not there, literally, in what was written or intended to be written. It's just good to be careful to not say it "is" there, meaning it was intentionally put there, hidden as it were by God through the unwitting participation of the authors, encoding special meaning to be discovered by moderns in America 3000 years in future. That is magical thinking.

As far as the comparisons between Adam and Eve and serpent with the conscious, subconscious and unconscious, there are problems with the analogy. For one the "ego" is not part of the unconscious. It's part of the conscious mind. It's what we think about ourselves and how we consciousnessly self-identify. You can be somebody else in a dream. And when you are in dreamless sleep there is no self-identification at all. The ego is simply those conscious objects we self-identify with, and that changes and grows over time in our stages of development.

Why Satan is identified with unconscious is a bit bewildering as well. Satan in reality as a symbol points to that which resists LIght. In the unconscious we are dealing with all manner of things that have been programmed into us that are not near the surface of the conscious mind, or the subconscious mind. These deal with instincts, desires, beliefs, linguistic structures, patterns of thought, and so forth. There are neither necessarily for God or against God.

As far as Adam "knowing" Eve, yes that is sex and not a metaphor for anything else. The term "knowing" was used throughout the OT to mean sex and never meant anything as elaborate as the conscious and the subconscious penetrating each other. They didn't even have any such understanding of the mind like this, nor tried to speak of it in metaphors. Once again, this is a reading back into scripture a modern understanding.

Where is knowledge, in the brain, you ask? I don't know. There are plenty of animals that have a knowledge of what to do the second they are born who don't have any brains at all. Where is their knowledge stored? Do we really know these things definitively? I tend to think the universe is a bit stranger than we imagine as we like to localize things, that DNA alone is responsible for everything. I keep an open mind on these things.

As for the rest about the 12 tribes and all that, I just think that's just more of the same. The problem with this is it that if that is what was meant, what was intended to be understood at some point in the future when we came to have scientific knowledge, then when that scientific knowledge changes and we no longer understand things the way we do today, then you make God include a scientific mistake in the Bible, proactively! It's really better not to set yourself or God up looking for hidden meanings in things. Too easy to tip God over this way.


In meditation you are accessing both the subconscious and the unconscious mind, as well as the "collective unconscious" as well as Ground Emptiness, and so forth. There's quite a lot that happens in meditation. Again though, I don't believe the Bible contains the secrets of neuroscience hidden in its pages! That is reading back finding loose correlations and making a mythology out of it misusing symbolism to mean secret knowledge.

The entire "conscious" mind consists of the three. The "conscious" itself is not the ego. It gives rise to the ego.
An alternate model:
Adam:neocortex
Eve: Limbic
Serpent: reptilian complex.

Bible literalcy creates religion. Misusing symbolism and metaphors creates religion and divide. Inequality between man and woman. Directly after the tree of "knowledge" Adam "knows" his wife Eve and gives birth to Cain, who ends up in the Land of Nod-unconscious.

How does knowledge get turned directly into "sex?" Knowledge-know. Not, knowledge-sex.

Because it's predominantly "defined" as "sex" by mindkind doesn't make it that. Defining it as sex is hypocritical because you're arguing against me doing that, yet applying "to know" as sex oneself. Entering sex in place of "to know," metaphorically.

Snakes don't talk. Minds, however, think.

Every human that's ever existed has a mind, and awareness, and conscious thinking ability. Ancestors thousands of years ago, would be no different.

Your conscious model, and collective unconscious model, what is based from? Jung?

"COLLECTIVE" unconscious you refer to, there would be no such thing if "there was no understanding of the mind like this." Humans thousands of years ago meditated also, are you implying they couldn't acquire knowledge and experience also? Knowledge "of" and knowing/experiencing are two different things. One doesn't need knowledge "of" to know/experience all that we do today. Are you implying that their minds were different than ours yet are still part of a "collective" mind? They were consciously aware just as we are. Their experience was written down in metaphors, without having the words we use today. Most of the words we use today have been evolving collectively and are roots and originated from all of the Hebrew and Greek and Latin words. Same knowledge/experience yet not having the words we use today. The truth is the same as it was 2-4 thousand years ago as it is now.

"God" has been brought up often by you. "God" is also a word and metaphor which contains some heavy baggage and endless mental concepts and images.

There is old truth and new truth. Most ignore new truth, because they are stuck in religion and literalcy. For example, one "God" in three persons has caused endless amounts of divide. Modernly, we can see that it is not three persons, it is three forms. Consciousness, matter, and energy.
That would be something of the collective conscious.

The collective unconscious would be stuck in metaphors and asleep-deceived.

The rest of the tabernacle breaks down the human brain rather well. Not just the 12 cranial nerves.

Misusing symbolism such as "sex" applied with "to know" and literal husband and wife is what creates many problems, not hidden knowledge. Hidden knowledge is harmless and beneficial. It's only painful and harmful to the closed neurologically minded who can't stand to hear anything their ego defends against at all costs. Invaded territory of mental conditioning.

 

[Unification]

To say that the Hebrews lacked a word to describe a spheroid: as in the shape of a rock, boulder or human head; I find that hard to believe.

Such is true. Words evolve as does everything. The only way would be to apply the word that means "circle, compass, CIRCUIT, to "describe" spheroid.