Clivedurdle

BBC Radio 4 UK has been trasmitting a fascinating programme on major errors of thinking by Francis Wheen.

He interviewed a South London evangelical who is a flat earther and geocentric advocate, who criticised the creationists for not going far enough! The Bible is quite clear that the sun goes around the earth!

Maybe it would be interesting to start debates about flat earths and geocentricity. I suppose you can believe the earth is a sphere and be a geocentric!

The Evil One

Here's a link (you can listen to the prgrammes too, though the one with the fundy doesn't seem to be up yet):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/...of_folly.shtml

MachineGod

Is this for real? Are there really people who think the sun goes around the earth? Or that the earth is flat?

Creationists is one thing, I think evolution and “creation� are both possible. But to say the sun goes around the earth and that the earth is flat is just plain lunacy.

The Bible isn’t clear on that stuff. Even today we use descriptive metaphors such as “the sun “rises� in the east and “sets� in the west. The sun isn't going anywhere, but that how we describe it even today.
The bible also never says the earth is flat. In one verse it says “circle of the earth�. Where the word circle was used in Hebrew to also describe something spherical.

And even if someone wanted to say, “circle of the earth means it was a flat circular disk� would not agree with the terms used in the bible such as “four corners of the earth�. A flat circular disk wouldn’t have “corners�.

Even those who try to say the Bible claims the earth is flat due to statements of “the four corners of the earth�, doesn’t have enough sense to see that the four corners are the point where the four rivers split in four directions, during the description of the garden of Eden.

Jeez, that old saying that some people just can’t see the forest through the trees, is definitely true.

RBH

MachineGod askedAt a "scientific" creationism conference in Ohio in the late 1980s - around 1988, IIRC - with Duane Gish and Carl Baugh sitting on the stage, a geocentrist creationist speaker tried to demonstrate (with two paper cups) why the shadow of a solar eclipse went the wrong way if the earth actually orbited the sun. He failed, and while he fumbled around his wife stalled, saying, "I'm sure inspiration will come back soon." It didn't.

RBH

SEF

The only plausible biblical scholar to appear on another message board said the word was for a circular (and flat!) dance, ie it did not mean a sphere. While I know a little biblical hebrew, I don't have access to any original texts to check this - and we all know the importance of checking the original source.

NB If you mean Isaiah 40:22 (took me a while to find because it was misnumbered in my concordance!) then the rest of that bit is about foundations (ie under a flat thing if meant in that sense) and tents over things (ie definitely not possible with a sphere). Then there's the slight problem of Jesus being shown all the kingdoms of the world from a high mountain, Matthew 4:8, revealing that the bible writers were still ignorant - especially compared with their neighbours who had known for centuries that the Earth was approximately a sphere.

Igor Trip

Flat earth

This might be real
http://www.alaska.net/~clund/e_djubl...rthsociety.htm

SHEIKH BIN BAZ:
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/dream...cappend19.html


Sorry but this is a wind up. (Check out Springfield)
http://www.flat-earth.org/

Info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth


Geocentric world

http://www.geocentricity.com/whygeocentricity.htm


http://www.geocentricbible.com/index.htm

Resistor

So now we're violating the First Law of Thermodynamics, as well as the second? You'd think the people who write these things would realise that if that were true, someone objective would have pointed that out, rather than just people whose only aim is to defend the Bible. How many people do you know of who don't care whether the Bible is inerrant or not that say that the theory of evolution violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics?

SEF

That one really deserves to be taken out of context!

Clivedurdle

Keep trying Radio 4 link for when they put the programme on, the guy was wonderful, and very convincing!

Imagine you believe the Bible is the word of God and that Satan has warped our minds in sin. You cannot appeal to logic, or the laws of thermodynamics!

These guys are internally consistent!

By the way, the Bible is very clear about the shape of the earth and geocentricity!

http://www.aimoo.com/forum/postview....%20the%20earth

Another strategy is needed to get these views changed! Direct attacks only get people to defend their positions more!

Magus55

The word sphere doesn't exist in Hebrew, which is why they used circle. And while metaphoric, why can't a tent cover a sphere? Ever put a cone on top of a sphere?