Was Earth Flat?

[PureX]

Because ideas of Atheism cannot ever be proven, then only two answers are possible:
1. God exists,
2. we do not know.
This means, that God must exist.

Actually both of those answers is correct. God exists, but we do not know what that entails.

 

[Nakosis]

Because ideas of Atheism cannot ever be proven, then only two answers are possible:
1. God exists,
2. we do not know.
This means, that God must exist.

Any brain is more complex than the Universe. Hence, if Bob feels or thinks something, it surely can be a real thing because his brain is more important than the entire Universe.
For example, many say that Earth is not a globe but a flat disk. Why? People are not crazy.
The planet was a flat disk in the past, and people feel it through the "genetic memory" or "ancestorial memory."
More in:
Was Earth Flat?

The Church dogma is a fixed reference point. This means, that if John says that Bible is wrong, the Bible is not wrong, but John is blaspheming religion. Earth was Flat.

God is Omnipotent. He changed flat disk into globe while Great Flood. OK?

cOLTER: "If flat earth or the Israelites vastly exaggerated flood story wasn't in the Bible, then people would dismiss the stories as silly myths."
Now in 2022AD it is better? Book told people of BC era that Earth is Flat to be taken seriously. But does God considered that the Book will be read in AD era, on 2022 AD? What about us? Paradox. The solution: Earth was flat. Now it is not flat. Miracle.

If you are going to use supernatural powers to justify ancient stories, I suppose you can justify a belief in any creation narrative that you might like.
Wouldn't be able to gain any scientific knowledge about our universe like that though.

 

[PureX]

No. The shape of the Earth is a question of objective fact. We know and have known for thousands of years that the Earth is spherical. The ancient Near East cosmology (shared by the Hebrew Bible) of a flat Earth encompassed by a solid dome firmament is simply wrong. To claim that the shape of the planet is a matter of perspective is nothing less than a full throttled rejection of reason.


I agree that there's no reason to expect an iron age tome to be aligned with modern science in all its claims. If you were to take the Bible at complete face value you would be forced to accept a myriad of ideas which we now know are not true. No, it's not a matter of perspective; the Bible's assumptions of a flat, six thousand year old Earth is wrong.


The OP is claiming that the Earth used to be flat as a matter of fact. Such claims are wrong and stupid.

"The Earth is ..." does not necessitate reference to it's actual geometrical shape. It can refer to it's conceptual image, especially in story form. To then force the former onto the latter is "stupid".

 

[blü 2]

there are all witches.. It is their time.

You must be a very busy feller!

Do you have a daughter you intend to sell into slavery? Make sure you follow the bible rules, by golly!

 

[questfortruth]

Are you saying that the idea that the planet was flat is a Church dogma?

No. But the official list of dogmas is Absolute Knowledge for theists. One dogma is: True Church's interpretation of Bible is true.

 

[mangalavara]

One dogma is: True Church's interpretation of Bible is true.

Good. Do you interpret the Bible the way that the Orthodox Church interprets it?

 

[ChristineM]

that's simply untrue. You are ignoring all other context to suit your bias for the context of "science". But all context is relative. And science is not the appropriate context for assessing an ancient religious story.

Please show me where it is wrong. This i have to see

 

[PureX]

Please show me where it is wrong. This i have to see

The context is misapplied. That's where it's 'wrong'.

 

[ChristineM]

The context is misapplied. That's where it's 'wrong'.

So you have no answer and put in irrelevance.

Reality was nust as factual then as it is now. Because people 2 or 3 thousand years ago did mot understand reality and so made up fictional stories in an attempt to explain really does not make it any less wrong

 

[Aupmanyav]

no it wasn't flat

Oh, then probably Allah made it in the fashion of Indian 'water ball' (I do not know the correct equivalent for Gol Gappa, Puchka, etc.).

The sun and the planets

For example. My home is part of Universe. But Universe is divided into two areas: my home and outside world. My home can be more complex than the outside world. So, brain is more complex than the remaining parts of Universe.

Some brains are complex, some do not have the necessary communication lines.

 

[1213]

...
Was Earth Flat?
....

I don't think so, because apparently there has been always mountains. I think it would be good to notice that in the Bible earth means dry land, not the whole planet.

God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters he called Seas. God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:10

And there was only single continent at the beginning. That single continent that was called earth could have been relatively flat.

 

[PureX]

So you have no answer and put in irrelevance.

Reality was nust as factual then as it is now. Because people 2 or 3 thousand years ago did mot understand reality and so made up fictional stories in an attempt to explain really does not make it any less wrong

We don't understand reality, now, either. We just think we do, as the ancients probably did in their time. You think because you see the Earth as a sphere that now you know what reality is. But geometry does not define nor contain reality. It just happens to be your modern day bias. Which is no different from the archaic bias of a flat Earth. Both are the "reality" of their day. Both are "true" within their context. But your bias is so strong that you can't even see any other possible context.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Because ideas of Atheism cannot ever be proven, then only two answers are possible:
1. God exists,
2. we do not know.
This means, that God must exist.

Let's extend your thinking a bit. The following must also be true if your words are:

Because ideas of theism cannot ever be proven, then only two answers are possible:
1. God doesn't exist,
2. we do not know.
This means, that God cannot exist.

Therefore, since neither the existence nor the nonexistence of a god has been proven, God must and cannot exist.

"Reductio ad absurdum, a Latin expression that literally means 'reduction to absurdity' [snip] starts by assuming as hypothetical the veracity or falsity of the thesis of the proposition to be demonstrated and, through a concatenation of valid logical inferences, it is intended to reach a logical contradiction, an absurdity. If a contradiction is reached, it is concluded that the starting hypothesis (which had been assumed to be true at the beginning) must be false (or vice versa)."

For example, many say that Earth is not a globe but a flat disk. Why? People are not crazy.

If they believe in 2022 that the earth is flat, they're "crazy" (not tethered to reality). I suspect most don't believe it and are hostile to science, and are just being contrarian. But the ones who actually believe that one can sail off of the edge of a flat planet are crazy.

Here's an interesting observation. Sam Harris said, "George Bush says he speaks to god every day, and Christians love him for it. If George Bush said he spoke to god through his hair dryer, they would think he was mad. I fail to see how the addition of a hair dryer makes it any more absurd."

if John says that Bible is wrong, the Bible is not wrong

Therefore, if questfortruth says the Bible is not wrong, the Bible is wrong.

Book told people of BC era that Earth is Flat to be taken seriously. But does God considered that the Book will be read in AD era, on 2022 AD? What about us? Paradox. The solution: Earth was flat. Now it is not flat. Miracle.

Here's another one of those enigmas believer wrestle with that the skeptic easily dispatches. Solution: no gods were involved, wrote anything, or thought anything, and primitive man guessed incorrectly.

Bible points to flat Earth.

The Bible also points to a god. And a firmament.

God is the author.

You responded to @cOLTER 's , "man didn't know any better when he wrote Genesis." The problem here is that the believer at once wants us to believe that the Christian Bible is the word of an eternal, omniscient deity AND that of primitive men who didn't know yet where the rain came from. The skeptic understands that it is the latter, and only the latter. Where's the part that looks like something primitive man couldn't have written?

It still is flat from a local perspective, if we discount it's topography. Point being, it's a matter of perspective, not an issue of "truthfulness".

Point being that it's the perspective of primitive people, not a deity. Of course the earth appears flat on average to the ancient shepherd. Of course it feels immobile and affixed. Of course it appears that the sun and stars are revolving about it.

Hell is a fiction sold by medicine men. It originally meant death. Primitive man didn't understand death, they assumed everyone awoke in the spirit world, good tribesmen and evil ones. So they invented a hell place for the people who sucked during life!

Agreed, but surprised to see it from a believer. Like others, you're making the same case that the humanist makes. The Bible shows the naturalistic evolution of culture and morality from the pre-Roman Old Testament, when the Hebrews were continually at war and worshiped a warrior god that smote its enemies with an angry vengeance just like them, to a different world, Pax Romana, and multiculturalism. Now, they did commerce with gentiles, and their god evolved to reflect that gentler, less martial existence. And now we jump ahead two more millennia and find that Christianity has adapted and continues t adapt to our modern world, one that often finds hell theology off putting, just as some marketing logos have had to update their appearance to reflect more modern sensibilities (Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben stopped looking like slaves or domestic servants). This is all very naturalistic.

 

[ChristineM]

We don't understand reality, now, either. We just think we do, as the ancients probably did in their time. You think because you see the Earth as a sphere that now you know what reality is. But geometry does not define nor contain reality. It just happens to be you modern day bias. Which is no different from the archaic bias of a flat Earth. Both are the "reality" of their day. Both are "true" within their context. But your bias is so strong that you can't even see any other possible context.

Certainly we understand it better than the guessing that was common 2000+ years ago.

No, i think no such thing so stop guessing. Earth can be measured as an oblate speroid. Is that real. Certainly as far as 3 dimensions goes. For further dimensions all bets are off.

As opposed to bronze age bias. Guess which one i will take?

The reality of their day is they did not know the shape of the 3 dimensional earth. So in ignorance they guessed it wrong.

No not true with their context. But the best they could come up with in their ignorance.

Actually around 500bc, most greeks considered the earth to be round by simply observation. As i understand it the bible OT (and obviously NT) were written after that date. So was it deliberate ignorance?

 

[Glaurung]

"The Earth is ..." does not necessitate reference to it's actual geometrical shape. It can refer to it's conceptual image, especially in story form. To then force the former onto the latter is "stupid".

You can use the word 'earth' to mean ground and in that sense the 'earth' can be flat. I can accept poetic descriptions of the Earth as having foundations and corners and not insist that such language necessitates the belief in a literal flat Earth. But the authors of the Hebrew Bible clearly believed their descriptions of the Earth were more than poetic because everyone in the Near East believed as they did; in a flat Earth covered by a solid firmament under and over which the sun and moon traversed. This model is wrong and we know it is wrong. There is no 'perspective' where that model has any basis in truth and I have no interest in post-modernist sophistry that wants to claim that fact is but a mere matter of narrative.

We don't understand reality, now, either. We just think we do, as the ancients probably did in their time. You think because you see the Earth as a sphere that now you know what reality is. But geometry does not define nor contain reality. It just happens to be your modern day bias. Which is no different from the archaic bias of a flat Earth. Both are the "reality" of their day. Both are "true" within their context. But your bias is so strong that you can't even see any other possible context.

The ancients did not know about germ theory so by your reasoning our modern ideas about one of the major causes of disease are but mere bias of the current era. Yes, obviously, our perceptions of what is true is determined by our historical contexts, but that does not mean all perceptions are equally good. Reality is not determined by context.

Actually around 500bc, most greeks considered the earth to be round by simply observation. As i understand it the bible OT (and obviously NT) were written after that date. So was it deliberate ignorance?

As I said multiple times in this discussion. Everyone in the Near East believed in a flat Earth cosmology at that time. Heck, the Chinese held to a flat Earth until the 17th century. Just because the Hellenistic world figured it out does not mean everyone else did.

 

[ChristineM]

As I said multiple times in this discussion. Everyone in the near east believed in a flat Earth cosmology at that time. Heck, the Chinese held to a flat earth until the 17th century. Just because the Hellenistic world figured it out does not mean everyone else did

Very true but...

Greece was very influential throughout the middle east. I find it strange that the message did not translate.

 

[HonestJoe]

Nobody knows my IQ. Hence, I can have infinite score of IQ. I can be most complex brain in the world.

You said any brain in your OP though (even after your usually editing game).

Also, you can't have an infinite IQ score and IQ doesn't necessarily equate to "complexity" of the brain (it could even be the opposite). A decent IQ would help you understand what is wrong with your OP assertions but you need something beyond IQ to be willing and able to admit it.

 

[Glaurung]

Greece was very influential throughout the middle east. I find it strange that the message did not translate.

As far as I am aware, once you get a few centuries into the Christian era the shape of the Earth ceases to be a serious question in that part of the world. At least among the educated. Possibly because Greek arguments for a spherical Earth became widespread and undeniable.

 

[Twilight Hue]

Wow, just wow...

You know what they say about the imagination. It's boundless what one can think of. ;0]

 

[ChristineM]

As far as I am aware, once you get a few centuries into the Christian era the shape of the Earth ceases to be a serious question in that part of the world. At least among the educated. Possibly because Greek arguments for a spherical Earth became widespread and undeniable.

In time, yes.