Jehanne

Aquinas, in his Summa, quoted the Nicene fathers ad nauseam. If the Medieval Catholic Chruch had regarded Saint John Chrysostom's ideas as being "wacky" or even heretical, why, then, do you think that they would canonize him and later declare him to be a Doctor of the Church?

Jehanne

No one is disputing that. What I am saying is that Paul and the Gospel writers, clearly, believed in a flat-earth, a belief that passed from the first century Church through the writings of the pre-Nicene and Nicene fathers into the Low Middle Ages, where it no doubt persisted among many of the illiterate and uneducated "faithful" until the time of Copernicus.

aa5874

It should be obvious to you that Copernicus addressed the Holy Father, specifically in book 1 chapter 3. It should therefore be as obvious that there must have been some in the Church that thought the world was flat, drum-shaped, bowl-shaped, hollow, cylindrical, or like a cone.

You just cannot grasp that a flat earth with all its variables is a fixed, motionless earth. The Pope and Papal authorities accepted a fixed motionless flat earth, whether in the shape of a drum, cylinder, hollow, cone or bowl. They obviously rejected a completely round earth that moves.

Copernicus, 'On The Revolutions', to the Holy Father....."Those who know that the concensus of many centuries has sanctioned that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens at its centre would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves..."

Now in the fixed motionless earth system, Copernicus never mentioned the completely round earth, or the the globe. There is no globe in the flat earth system. The globe is mentioned exclusively for an earth that revolves and moves.

And to further show that there was impediment by some in the Church to his theories, the Pope and authorities included, Copernicus wrote to the Holy Father....."Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passages of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it.. I desregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded. For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise an illustrious writer, but hardly an astronomer, speaks quite chidishly about the earth's shape when he mocks those who declare that earth has the form as a globe.

So there, it can be clearly seen that there were people in the Church who still adopted the 4th century view of Lactantius, using Scripture to distort and mock his theories on the globe, and this distortion was a problem in the 16th century, in the Church, according to Copernicus.

There is no denying now, based on Copernicus, that elements of the Church, the babblers as he called them, opposed the entirely round earth, the globe. And the babblers, the Papal authorities, did arrest and condemn Galileo for similar theories on the globe, one hundred years later.

Amaleq13

I wondered if that was why the most recent "challenge" cited was from 11 years ago.

Thank you for trying to set a good example by actually reading a source.

Toto

angelo atheist has warned us that he is taking the weekend off to go to a football game.

lee_merrill

What I say is that this is not clear, though to resume the discussion, you would need to reply to my response.

aa5874

The issue is not what astronomers knew or hypothesized about the earth in the Middle Ages. We are dealing specifically with the Medieval Church and what they thought of the shape of the earth and its movement. The Medieval Church is the issue.

Astronomers are always making observations, collecting data, using whatever technology is available to develop their hypotheses, but on the other hand, the Medieval Church were using, as written by Copernicus, ....."babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy, although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passages of Scripture to their purpose..."

And these are some of the 'babblers' who distort passages of Scripture for their purposes, Lactantius, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, Diodorus of Tarsus, Severian, Cosmas and the Papal authorities.

These are the findings of the 'babblers' according to Copernicus, in the trial of Galileo in the 17th century, using Scripture to make judgements on astronomy.

The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move is absurd and false and philosophically and formerly heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture.

The proposition that the earth is not the center of the world and immovable, but that it moves also with a diurnal motion is equally absurd and false philosophically and theologically considered at least erroneous in faith."

See http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...demnation.html

Jehanne

It is clear enough to me that they believed in a flat-Earth. Professor Thomas Sheehan, a professor of New Testament studies at Stanford University, has a free course where he discusses this question:

http://www.learnoutloud.com/Catalog/...al-Jesus/23023

Johnny Skeptic provided a number of Biblical passages that demonstrate, convincingly, that the New (and Old) Testament authors believed in a flat-earth. Here are some additional references:

http://www.infidels.org/library/maga...1/1flat90.html
http://hypertextbook.com/eworld/geocentric.shtml

lee_merrill

Strange, then, that neither he nor you have answered my response. Anyway--I'm bowing out here, for you and others are simply asserting, and claiming victory, and making your conclusion into an argument.

This is rather the norm here, sad to say...

Johnny Skeptic

Suffice it to say that if God had wanted ancient people to know a lot about science, he would have told them a lot about science, and we know that he didn't. Similarly, if God wanted everyone to have enough food to eat, he would have given everyone enough food eat, and we know that he didn't.