GilgameshEnkidu

There's a great article here about the flat earth myth.

Amaleq13

I don't suppose you know of a specific example of such an appeal that is directly relevant to the thread (ie one about the shape of the earth)?

When you quoted my question and then posted a response below it, the clear implication is that you were specifically trying to respond to that question. When you responded to my question about the apparent cluelessness of that initial response to my question, the clear implication was that you were continuing to try to answer it. That would have been a great time to indicate you really weren't answering my question but, apparently, deliberately posting irrelevancy. Refraining from including a quote of my question would have been an even better method.

With regard to your assertion above that you have "nowhere" made "that claim", I'll have to ask you to clarify. If you are referring to my first question above, I've already indicated how quoting my question carries the clear implication that you were trying to answer my question. If you are referring to my second question above, then you appear to be acknowledging you have no evidence whatsoever to support your earlier assertion:

aa5874

Well, now you read Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Joshua to see what is the literal shape of the earth. The shape is in the scriptures. It is that simple. Then you look for information by those affiliated with the Church to understand how they interpret the sacred scriptures.

The Sun, according to Severian, the Bishop of Gabala, can go around the earth at whatever speed, although it is flat, without contradicting the literal interpretation of the scriptures.

Lactantius, St Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, St. John Chrysostom, Diodorus of Tarsus St. Augustine and Cosmas all used literal interpretation of scriptures to come up with a fixed flat earth with all its variables that was contrary to Ptolemy.

Cosmas used literal interpretation of Genesis and wrote..."It is written: In the begining God made the heavens and the earth. We therefore first depict, along with the earth the heaven which is vaulted and which has its extremities bound together with the extremities of the earth."

So you see the shape is derived from a literal interpretation of the scriptures. And I don't think that Ptolemy derived his geo-centric system from scriptures, maybe that's why the afore-mentioned rejected his hypotheses.

Amaleq13

The appropriate word is "simplistic".

And continuing to use Augustine as an example of someone who believed in a flat earth certainly does not reflect well upon your reading skills.

Has arrogant ignorance become the new black? I didn't get that memo. :banghead:

Jehanne

I have evidence: At least two, perhaps as many as five, pre-Nicene fathers taught the idea of a flat-earth. In the eyes of the Medieval Catholic Church, this means that someone holding to the proposition that the Earth was flat could be a completely orthodox Catholic. Nowhere can you find a Magisterial pronouncement on this question, unlike Galileo! The opinions of the scholastic theologians from Bede onwards are just that, opinions.

Antipope Innocent II

So it seems. I certainly didn’t calculate on you being quite so ignorant of the Medieval world and so see the need to include a basic lesson on the place these people and the institutions they belonged to played in the Medieval Church. I foolishly assumed that you might even have that elementary level of understanding. Clearly I was wrong.

What institution do you think those gentlemen belonged to and worked within – the Mormons?

How the hell is listing nine medieval clergymen who were leading authorities within the Church “side-stepping the issue”?

About time.


We’re talking about Medieval Europe here. Unless you were a Jew, you HAD TO BE WITHIN THE CHURCH. What do you think these guys were – Hindus?!!

This is getting hilarious. Really? Martianus Capella was the Roman founder of the concept of the Seven Liberal Arts – the foundation of all medieval education and which was the basis of the education for all medieval clergy. Book Eight of his De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii formed the basis of all Medieval students’ understanding of astronomy, which was one of the seven basic subjects all undergraduates had to master before they could move on to further study. And that book clearly details how the Earth is a sphere.

Bede was the esteemed Abbot of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow. Perhaps you’re under the impression that the Abbot of this monastery was a Buddhist or a Muslim, so I’ll assure you now that he was a Catholic Christian and, as one of the most influential Church leaders of his time, very much “affliated to the Church”. He was also one of the most widely read and influential writers and thinkers of the Middle Ages and his De temporum ratione was the standard guide to the calculation of the dates of Easter. As such, it was read by virtually every priest in Medieval Europe. And it clearly details how the Earth is a sphere and the implications of that fact for the reckoning of time.

John Scottus Eriugena was a teacher at both the court of Charles the Bald and in King Alfred’s Wessex. I’m assuming this is unknown to you, since you seem to be under the impression that he was somehow not “affliated to the Church”, but you didn’t get to be a teacher (or even a student) in this period unless you were in Holy Orders. He was a clergyman of the Catholic Church as well as an influential writers used by other clergymen all over Europe. He also wrote about how the Earth was a sphere.

Raban Maur was Benedictine monk and Archbishop of Mainz. These are things that weren’t open to Shintos, so we can safely assume this prominent theologian of the Ninth Century was “affliated to the Church”. His widely read book De rerum natura (“On the Nature of Things”) detailed amongst other things the nature of the shape of the Earth – spherical.

Giles of Rome was the elected Superior-General of the Augustinian Order and Archbishop of Bourges and so, I think we can safely assume, not a devotee of Siberian shamanism but very much “affliated to the Church”. His much copied and much translated guide for secular rulers, De Regimine Principium, details how the Earth is a sphere.

Roger Bacon was first a Master at Oxford (which required, as I’ve said, Holy Orders) and a Franciscan Friar (not something open to Buddhists, last time I looked). As such, he became involved in the Fourteenth Century theological struggles between the Spiritual and Conventual factions of that order and was (possibly) imprisoned by the Pope. But that had nothing to do with his several references to and discussions of the fact that the Earth is spherical.

John Sacrobosco, whose work I quote at length above, was an English monk who was Professor of Astronomy at the University of Paris for other 30 years. I think, since he was a Catholic monk and professor at the pre-eminent university in the Catholic world, we can safely assume he didn’t worship Aztec gods and was very much “affliated to the Church”. Perhaps you didn’t realise this, but medieval universities were not secular institutions but were set up by clergy for the education of clergy with the study of theology as their highest and ultimate degree of education. Sacrobosco’s books on astronomy remained required reading in astronomy for all university students for centuries after his death. You might want to read those passages from De Sphaera again with that in mind.

And so we could go on - Jean Buridan was a priest and a lecturer at the University of Paris, Nicolas Oresme was a canon of Sainte-Chappelle and later Dean of Rouen and also a lecturer at Paris. So we can be fairly certain they weren’t Shi’ites. Both were very much “affliated to the Church” and both were quite clear on the shape of the Earth: spherical.

The level of ignorance about the Medieval world that would be required to even try to argue that a priest, two canons, a friar, two bishops, an abbot and a saint of the Catholic Church were, somehow, irrelevant to the question of what churchmen in the Middle Ages taught and thought is utterly jaw-dropping.

WTF? What were they then – Scientologists??!! Copernicus was a canon of Fromborg Cathedral! This is getting absolutely bizarre.

So, if I can get this pretzel-shaped logic straight, these two guys who were supposedly not members of the Church (both of whom actually were), could not teach or propogate a flat Earth, but Bede, John Scottus Eriugena, Raban Maur, Giles of Rome, Roger Bacon, John Sacrobosco, Jean Buridan and Nicolas Oresme could? What part of “lecturer at Oxford” or “Professor at Paris” don’t you grasp? How could Bede and Sacrobosco’s books be standard texts used by clergy all over Europe without anyone in “the Church” noticing?

You seem to understand virtually noting on this subject at all. These guys weren’t holding some kind of personal opinion that they only mentioned to friends after a few too many drinks. They were authors of the some of the most influential works of philosophy and theology of the whole period and amongst the most prominent teachers of their age. They were the guys who SAID what the opinion of the Church was.

No, I’ve just got tired of telling someone who simply won’t listen that that letter was talking about the movement of the Earth and not its shape. Several others here keep trying to tell you this as well, but you don’t want to listen to them either. In fact, you’re the only person on the (spherical) planet who reads this letter this way and refuse to budge from your muddle-headed misinterpretation because it would require you to re-evaluate some major errors and serious prejudices.

You are, in other words, displaying all the characteristics of a dogmatic fundamentalist.

Amaleq13

I will let anyone reading this thread decide for themselves if what you offer as evidence does anything to support your claim. I'm done wasting time with you. :wave:

aa5874

And you forgot to mention [/b]All the Fathers and modern commentators.[/b] They all agree to the literal interpretation of Genesis, the Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Joshua.

These are some of the Popes during the Middle Ages, Calixtus III, Pius II, Paul II, Sixtus IV, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI, Pius III, Julius II, Leo X, Adrian VI, Clement VII, Paul III and many more. I need documented records to show that any of these Fathers rejected the literal translation of the scriptures, which was anti-Ptolemaic, and authorised the Medieval Church to do so.

I need to see an edict from the Papal authorities condemning a literal interpretation of Genesis which contains the fixed-flat earth story.

Antipope Innocent II

Wait a minute - you "forgot" to explain how a priest, two canons, a friar, two bishops, an abbot and a saint of the Catholic Church are, somehow by some bizarro logic, not part of the Catholic Church. These were the very people who determined what Catholic theology was - they were leading theologians and professors at the two main universities of the age: Oxford and Paris. So it's easy to see why you've simply snipped the information on how central they were to Medieval thought that I so kindly spoonfed you and are now trying to dance away from your bizarre assertion that these guys, somehow, didn't represent the Church or that their public teaching and central textbooks, somehow, represented their private opinions.

Six of those guys are Medieval popes. Six aren't. But hell, you've managed to get just about everything else you've said in this thread wildly wrong, so why stop now.

You need to go and do some basic reading on Medieval exegesis, since you seem to think that the literal interpretation was the automatic and only way Medieval theologians read the Bible. This false assumption is at the heart of your entire muddled and stumbling performance on this thread and is the cause of your wild misinterpretation of the two documents from the Galileo case that you keep waving around. If you had any idea about how the Bible was interpreted in the Middle Ages you'd realise that the literal level of exegesis was usually the least important of the four potential levels of interpretation. You'd also understand that those statements in the Galileo case are exceptional precisely because they lay such primary emphasis on the literal interpretation of Joshua etc in relation to the movement (NOT the shape) of the Earth.

You've never explained why those statements make no mention of the shape of the Earth BTW. Just as you've never explained why there are no Papal or other offical rulings that the Earth is flat. Nor have you explained where all the Medieval flat Earthers are hiding and where their writings can be found. Finally, you still haven't explained why those nine leading Medieval thinkers I've detailed openly taught that the Earth was a sphere and were never contradicted, censured, questioned, arrested or even so much as blinked at by the Church.

Just for fun (because, boy, am I having fun!), let's add the Medieval theologian par excellence to that list:

Sciences are distinguished by the different methods they use. For the astronomer and the physicist both may prove the same conclusion - that the earth, for instance, is round: the astronomer proves it by means of mathematics, but the physicist proves it by the nature of matter.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, 1.1.1

What did he just say? Did you get that? (BTW I'm really hoping I don't have to now explain to you who Thomas Aquinas was, because I'm getting a little weary of leading you through the basics of Medieval thought). Anyway, here we have the man considered in his lifetime and long afterwards to be the Catholic Church's greatest theologian, a theologian whose works are still regarded as authoritative touchstones in the Catholic Church even today. And here, on the very opening page of his vast masterwork, when he wants to use an example of something that is (i) well known, (ii) provable and (iii) provable by both mathematics and by physics, he chooses ... what? He chooses the fact that the Earth is round.

Did he he not get the memo that the Earth was meant to be flat? Didn't he realise that the Bible was meant to be interpreted literally on the question of the shape of the Earth? Did the Papacy and the Inquisition forget to knock on his door while he was alive or ban or burn his books afterwards? Can you explain all this (along with everything else you need to explain and keep dodging)?

Or could it just possibly be that you have totally misunderstood this whole issue, that you are floundering around in a complex field of intellectual history that you know nothing about and that your basic assumptions on this subject are wildly, completely and (to be frank) laughably wrong?

You've been advised to stop humiliating yourself. Surely it's time to listen to that advice and slink away quietly now.

Or not, if you like. I can keep this up for a very, very, very long time.

cajela

Antipope, I think I'm in love with you.