Flat earth

[Blue_Horizon]

I don’t think we have proof that most of the authors assumed what you have described.

Educated people, esp ship captains knew the Earth was round because of line of sight issues.

Also, when I studied in college the “flat disk” with the dome around it, it was presented to me as a 2 dimensional representation, not a literal flat disk.

Just because the average man thought the Earth was flat doesn’t mean that the Authors of Scripture did. Maybe they did or maybe they didn’t, but it doesn’t really matter because the Bible does not directly support a flat Earth.

NOTE: I can also argue that the “flat disk with the dome around it” actually is a good description of the universe… the flat disk being the universe in space-time, while the dome representing the heavens and everything outside of space-time.

God Bless

Of course the Bible doesn’t teach flat earth theory, nor slavery, nor bigamy, nor the earth as the centre of the Cosmos or the evil of charging interest …though all these things were the “science” of the day and many of its authors clearly held these matters as unquestioned truths.

The Bible errs on many things, it is the Church that decides what it’s contents say and mean in matters of faith and morals and in all other matters neither the Bible nor the Church is any less fragile in it’s judgements as any wise man or institution surely.

 

[Geo17]

The Bible also assumes the sun moves around the earth.

How do you figure that the Bible says the sun goes around the earth? Do you have a book, chapter and verse for this?

 

[phil19034]

Well I don’t even need to look up the matter nor open the Bible as I recall asking my primary school teacher (a nun) at the age of 10 why the Bible recorded Joshua stopping the sun and the moon because she had just taught us the day before that it is the rotation of the earth that causes day and night. The Bible should have said Joshua stopped the earth and the moon.

??? This was a miracle, just like the dancing Sun at Fatima. There is nothing in the stories about Joshua that imply the Earth revolving around the Sun.

 

[phil19034]

Of course the Bible doesn’t teach flat earth theory, nor slavery, nor bigamy, nor the earth as the centre of the Cosmos or the evil of charging interest …though all these things were the “science” of the day and many of its authors clearly held these matters as unquestioned truths.

The Bible errs on many things, it is the Church that decides what it’s contents say and mean in matters of faith and morals and in all other matters neither the Bible nor the Church is any less fragile in it’s judgements as any wise man or institution surely.

I still fail to understand where in the Bible it supports your claim that the “authors clearly held these matters as unquestioned truths.” I’m not aware of any Old Testament authors being giants in Philosophy like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc.

A lot of the Old Testament was written “pre-science.” Meaning before scientific methods were formalized and before many of the great Philosophers of antiquity. Many of the scientific theories of the Cosmos were created AFTER most of the Old Testament was written by Philosophers like Socrates, etc.

So if you have evidence of these “unquestioned truths” at the time of the Old Testament authors, and that those “truths” reached Israel, please cite them as I will find them as interesting reading. Because again, the “History of Science” course I took in college does not completely your claims because, unless I’m mistaken, the scientific theories of the cosmos came AFTER the Old Testament was written.

And in regards to your comment about “The Bible errs on many things,” I would suggest using different language. The Bible does not contain errors. But does convey The Word of God via historical fact, allegory, and “legends.” But no errors.

God Bless

 

[Bridgit_Andrews]

A lot of people believe the earth is flat…not me…but others.

theflatearthsociety.org/home/

I had no idea people like this exist today. I can’t wrap my mind around the idea that the earth is flat. The curvature of the earth can actually be seen by the naked eye if one has enough altitude. Wow. Just wow.

 

[phil19034]

I had no idea people like this exist today. I can’t wrap my mind around the idea that the earth is flat. The curvature of the earth can actually be seen by the naked eye if one has enough altitude. Wow. Just wow.

yeap… just fly in an airplane on a clear day and you can see teh curvature of the earth.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

??? This was a miracle, just like the dancing Sun at Fatima. There is nothing in the stories about Joshua that imply the Earth revolving around the Sun.

I really don’t understand what you are saying.
Your question was not for a quote re the Earth moving about the Sun but the reverse I believe

Anyways, Joshua’s miracle was doubly spectacular then if you continue to hold the Sun actually stopped moving.

Not only did the Sun and moon stop moving (though the sun was never really moving to start with so maybe its just the moon that was arrested by this miracle) … but the earth was allowed to keep revolving by God…yet the day still stood still.

But that would mean God must have made the Sun move 100,000s of miles around the Earth to make it seem stationary as the Earth continued to revolve.

Miraculous indeed.

Or perhaps even 10 year-olds can clearly see things some adults here still cannot see

 

[adamhovey1988]

This should not really even be a debate anymore, the ‘flat earth society’ should not exist.

However I do think its important to remember at one time, majority of people did believe it to be flat and to believe otherwise, you were labelled crazy, have to wonder what some of our science facts today that most people believe to be fact, will eventually be proven wrong. Every generation that has ever existed thru out history thinks they know it all, they have it all correct.

I often wonder what some of things will be that, in 100+ years, people will look back and wonder how we could have believed such things to be fact or true.

I hate to tell you this but even the ancient Greeks knew that the Earth wasn’t flat this is pretty well attested the thing about people believing the Earth was flat during Columbus’s time wasn’t even written down until about the 19th century. Now obviously the entire Earth’s population would include more than just the Greeks and there probably were people who believed that the Earth was flat but that was generally not true of the West. I don’t mean to sound rude but I get tired of people passing this off as fact.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I still fail to understand where in the Bible it supports your claim that the “authors clearly held these matters as unquestioned truths.” I’m not aware of any Old Testament authors being giants in Philosophy like Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, etc.

The Bible was largely unaware of the views of these men and held different views re the cosmos and what today we would call science. Those views were by and large those of the cultures around them.

A lot of the Old Testament was written “pre-science.” Meaning before scientific methods were formalized and before many of the great Philosophers of antiquity. Many of the scientific theories of the Cosmos were created AFTER most of the Old Testament was written by Philosophers like Socrates, etc.

You are confusing philosophy and science for a start here. And “natural philosophy” (the old word for “science”) is still validly identified as scientific knowledge even if it did not run tightly on the formal methods of today.

So if you have evidence of these “unquestioned truths” at the time of the Old Testament authors, and that those “truths” reached Israel, please cite them as I will find them as interesting reading.

There is oodles of stuff on the Net you can research yourself that will identify common cultural ways of explaining mysterious natural phenomenon and assumed social norms present in the Bible. Clearly polygamy was widely practised in the OT for example. As was slavery. It was simply an unquestioned way of life assumed true and decent by Israel and indeed all surrounding cultures of the time. So too with many scientific matters.
Obviously with maturity and increasing moral sensitivity Israel came to see its limitations and moved away from these practises to more noble lifestyles.
Why would you see it otherwise?

And in regards to your comment about “The Bible errs on many things,” I would suggest using different language. The Bible does not contain errors. But does convey The Word of God via historical fact, allegory, and “legends.” But no errors.

God Bless

Phil I really have no idea where you are coming from here.
The Bible is full of errors in many different disciplines both scientific and historical.
To deny this is to basically be as credible as a “flat earther” and similarly its not going to be fruitful to discuss that further with you if you cannot accept this.

 

[Geo17]

I had no idea people like this exist today. I can’t wrap my mind around the idea that the earth is flat. The curvature of the earth can actually be seen by the naked eye if one has enough altitude. Wow. Just wow.

I’m with you on this. I can’t believe some people think the earth is flat.

 

[phil19034]

You are confusing philosophy and science for a start here. And “natural philosophy” (the old word for “science”) is still validly identified as scientific knowledge even if it did not run tightly on the formal methods of today.

Phil I really have no idea where you are coming from here.
The Bible is full of errors in many different disciplines both scientific and historical.
To deny this is to basically be as credible as a “flat earther” and similarly its not going to be fruitful to discuss that further with you if you cannot accept this.

No, I’m not confusing philosophy and science. Per St. Thomas Aquinas and per Classical Education, Philosophy = the study of the natural world. What we know today as the “sciences” are subdivisions of Classical Philosophy. What you call “Natural Philosophy” is what I would call “Classical Philosophy.” “Science” differs from Philosophy in that Science must adhere to the scientific method. When science and scientists ignore or skip the scientific method, it ceases to be science.

This is why the majority of scientists who have doctorate degrees have a Doctorate of Philosophy. The junk pseudo-science they call philosophy in colleges today would have never been accepted as legitimate philosophy in most of the 19th century and before.

The junk that they teach in college today, in the name of “philosophy” is not philosophy. I’m sorry, but there are very few institutions of high education left in the world that teach real philosophy - most of them are Catholic Seminaries.

In regards to the Bible. We are not on the same page. I am taking issue with your use of the word “error.”

The Bible has no “errors” in it. To say otherwise goes against the Catholic faith. To error means to be wrong or convey a falsehood. In many Books of the Bible (esp the Old Testament) what’s important is the moral of the story, not the details of the story. For example: one would not read a children’s story and stay it’s filled with errors. No, one would read the story and search for the moral of the story - the message the author is trying to convey though the story. A lot of the Old Testament is the same way.

It’s also important to remember that The Bible is NOT a science book and is NOT a history book, and does NOT pretend to be one. The Bible documents Salvation History by using a combination of oral history, allegory, legends, etc. to convey the Word of God. There are no errors in the Bible, only errant interpretation. For example: to read the Book of Genesis and then to say that God created the universe, the Earth, and the first humans in total of 144 hours is incorrect. Each “day” in the Bible does not correspond to one earth day. The ancient Jews understood this. Creation in 6 days is not an “error.” It’s not scientifically & historically accurate to say Creation took 6 earth days, but that’s NOT what the Bible is claiming. The passage of time has ZERO importance in the Old Testament and is not a detail the ancient Jews were concerned with.

The Old Testament utilizes a literary genre style which is rarely used today, filled with exaggeration with little regard for fine details.

God Bless.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

No, I’m not confusing philosophy and science.
The Bible has no “errors” in it.

Sorry Phil, if those are your starting premises we have no common language to fruitfully discuss further.

 

[hu324b]

The conspiracy would be massive if this was true - not possible - all you got to ask yourself is when you flew from the west coast to Hawaii or southeast Asia - did they knock everyone out in the plane and then fly them the other way ? What a ridiculous theory - get on a plane and fly across the Pacific to south east Asia or Japan and then tell me the world is flat - you can also see the curvature of the earth from the plane. Common sense people not had to prove.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Yep still 21st , all day long.

 

[Geo17]

The Old Testament utilizes a literary genre style which is rarely used today, filled with exaggeration with little regard for fine details.
God Bless.

This is an interesting proposition. I’m not sure what it means because I know little of literary genres. I’ve also met many people who would disagree. But I kinda like the idea because I don’t consider the creation days to be 24 hour days. Although they could have been. Interesting idea.

 

[phil19034]

Sorry Phil, if those are your starting premises we have no common language to fruitfully discuss further.

So do you believe The Bible is the Word of God or simply a collection of myths?

 

[Ignatius]

My brother after the flesh texted me that his coworker says the Bible teaches the earth is flat. This is suppose to be a problem because that makes the Bible wrong. Does anyone have a good answer for that?

Where does it say the earth is flat?

 

[Blue_Horizon]

So do you believe The Bible is the Word of God or simply a collection of myths?

Last time I looked it was written by men using the ink, paper, language, letters, words, sentences, definitions, concepts and knowledge of their day.

That doesn’t stop it containing the word of God, but it is at the same time words of men which are fallible re history and natural knowledge, copying, translations and transmission.
That’s fine, God writes straight with crooked lines and infinite souls can vivify frail finite flesh.
It is the Catholic Magisterium that sifts the wheat from the chaff so we do not succumb to any human errors contained within.

You clearly have a fundamentalist Protestant view of the Bible and disagree with the above.
Which is why we are unable to discuss this topic further.