A Flat Earth

[mklhawley]

Hey, someone brought it up, so I wanted to put my two cents in.

Someone had recently stated on a ripper forum that a flat earth was disproven in 1492 (Columbus sailing the ocean blue), but reproducible scientific confirmation that the earth was not the center of the universe occurred at the Paris Worlds Fair in 1851 with the Foucault Pendulum. Prior to this, the scientific community was finally embracing the idea of an earth orbiting the Sun, but the general public was not on page with it. There are actually many people today who still believe the earth is the center of the universe.

People talk of the Copernican theory of the planets orbiting the sun, which was proposed after 1492 in 1543, upon Copernicus' death. He asked his Lutheran priest friend to publish his paper once he passed away.

2,200-plus years ago, Greek mathematician and Alexandrian librarian Eratosthenes actually determined the circumference of the earth.

I'm just "Babylon"; sorry.

Sincerely,

Mike

[lynn cates]

well

Hello Mike. Well spoke, mate.

Sometimes we forget about Erastosthenes and his well experiments. And NOT all in the mediaeval period were ignorant of his results.

Cheers.
LC

[Phil H]

I thought it was now widely accepted that in intellectual circles it had never been forgotten that the world was a "globe".

I believe it is now thought Colombus had maps that gave him a pretty good idea where he was going. There is also the Piri Reis map done for the Sultan in Constantinople.

Even the flat earth society, last time i looked, did not seem to treat itself too seriously any more.

Like the hollow earth theory, I didn't think the flat earth idea had survived the "space age" as what was once difficult to explore is now easily photographed.

Gullible people and clever authors will, of course, holddifferent views - akin to the aliens built the pyramids idea. But does ANYONE take such people seriously.

By the way had yuo heard, Van Gogh was JtR?

Phil

[mklhawley]

Yes, I should have called the thread 'Geocentrists'. Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe(1546-1601) was the astronomical rock star of the day and he proposed an earth-centered model, but he believed the earth was spherical.

[Damaso Marte]

Yes, I should have called the thread 'Geocentrists'. Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe(1546-1601) was the astronomical rock star of the day and he proposed an earth-centered model, but he believed the earth was spherical.

Brahe would not have been a geocentrist if he had a more powerful telescope. His objection to the Copernican system was that it predicted parallax in our observation of stars, which he didn't see.

We've since of course observed exactly that.

[Robert]

The earth was always round but is getting flatter since the advent of Eric Pickles.

[Cogidubnus]

You mean there are two oblate spheroids?

Dave

[mklhawley]

Brahe would not have been a geocentrist if he had a more powerful telescope. His objection to the Copernican system was that it predicted parallax in our observation of stars, which he didn't see.

We've since of course observed exactly that.

Hi Damaso,

Maybe, but Tycho Brahe was Lutheran and here’s what Martin Luther said about Copernicus,

"People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool [or 'man'] wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

The power of embracing the beliefs of your spiritual leaders is amazing. Even today, there are tens of millions of people who believe that the earth is ten thousand years old, even though there is absolutely no arguments in the scientific community.

Sincerely,

Mike

[RivkahChaya]

What amuses me is that the idea of scriptural infallible. At one point, only the instructions for the priests (the book of Leviticus, more or less) were "set in stone," so to speak, then around 500 BCE, Ezra showed up with a 5-book Torah that people were supposed to accept as the word of HaShem. At some point, a history of the Jewish people, composed by someone who had probably a portion of the Torah, came to be accepted as fact, but the Jews still regarded other works, like Job, as fiction to illustrate a point, and works of prophets, while inspired, not describing factual experiences, but either visions, or else just parables.

When Christians adopted Jewish scripture, they decided at some point to regard all of it as fact, including Job, and Jonah, the latter of which is not only fiction, but probably intended to be a parody (yes, the bit about the "great fish" is supposed to be funny; it's making fun of some of the wacky things prophets had in their visions).

I realize most denominations have relaxed their stance on the infallibility of scripture, but it still amuses me that the "infallible" denominations are not aware of the history of the documents.

RE: Columbus. IIRC, his main problem was that he thought the world was smaller than it actually is, and had no idea there was a huge land mass blocking his new route to India.

[mklhawley]

Hi RivkahChaya,

In researching my book, I discovered that the use of 'interpret the verse literally until you cannot' is not scriptural but finds its origins with John Calvin and the requirement of Sola scriptura. Calvin realized that once everyone was now their own 'Pope', i.e., they must now receive the Holy Spirit and interpret Scripture themselves, he knew that thousands of interpretations would result. He believed this might be eliminated by having everyone interpret literally (but since there are over 30,000 different protestant denominations, it didn't work). With the assistance of 'statements of faith', this tradition has been passed onto successive generations.

At the same time, the Age of Enlightenment came on the scene, which challenged much of this, and denominations such as Baptists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, (those denominations influenced by Calvin), fought back, especially when Charles Darwin's Origins of Species hit the bookshelves (figure of speech).

Sincerely,

Mike

[RivkahChaya]

I thought "sola scriptura" was Martin Luther. Calvin may have been the one to say that "sola" somehow meant "literal," I guess. The popes had been interpreting scripture for the people for a long time, and I guess the idea was to toss it all out and start over.

It amazes me what some Christians insist on taking literally, that Jews have never, ever taken literally, even in view of some of the things that Orthodox Jews take literally-- or at least go to weird lengths to try to follow.

[Mayerling]

I seem to recall that the best brief discussion on "flat earth" and "hollow earth" theories, and other crazy notions like Vellikovsky's comet theory, was Martin Gilbert's "In The Name of Science", which Dover has reprinted a few times. The last notable "flat earth" exponent was a leader of a Christian group in the Midwest named Voldiva, whom Gilbert showed was a fanatic and a paranoid.

Jeff

[DVV]

Life was pleasant when the Earth was flat.

[TomTomKent]

People knew the world was round when Columbus sailed. He carried with him a globe and medieval maps certainly portray the world as round, divided into land masses. Oh, and of course sailors were well aware of how and why objects appeared on the horizon.

[Errata]

To the best of my knowledge there was no suggestion whatsoever that anyone particularly thought the earth was flat or that Columbus set out to disprove that until Washington Irving said so in one of his essays. One of his fictional essays. I guess it stuck. I mean there any number of maps predating Columbus showing the earth to be round. Most of them maps created by clergy. I think people get it confused with heliocentrism for some reason.

I''m sure at some point we thought the earth was flat, but I would think the first sailors figured it out pretty quickly when the land disappeared over the horizon.