aa5874

It has been demonstrated without contradiction that the Church was the most destructive hindrance to astronomers who proagated the spherical or moving earth .

After Ptolemy wrote on his geo-centric system, Saints, bishops and writers affiliated with the Church ridiculed the hypotheses, while some declared, using scripture, that the earth is flat. These men were anti-Ptolemic. 1000 years later, nothing has really changed, the Church was anti-Copernican, and they continued to show their disdain for any astronomer who proposes the non-fixed -spherical earth by condemning Galileo twice in less than 20 years.

Copernicus had to secretly share his hypothesis for fear of ridicule by the Church, Galileo had to do the same, as noted in his letter to Kepler. And as soon as Galileo went public, officials of the Church came down on him like a ton of bricks.

It is recorded and documented. The Church stagnated and tried to destroy the development of astronomy with respect to the shape of the Earth and it's movement. They were anti-Pythagorean, anti-Ptolemic, anti-Copernican and condemned Galileo. And they were happy.

Johnny Skeptic

May I ask what difference it makes whether or not Medieval Christians believed in a flat earth?

Jehanne

And, did Paul III support him? How about Paul III's successors? Clearly, not.

Jehanne

It doesn't!

lpetrich

So they were not supposed to try to preserve "the gold of the Egyptians"? This seems like desperate defense-lawyer tactics. "Your Honor, my client didn't kill anyone. It was an accident. It was self-defense. The victim deserved it. My client is mentally ill." Etc. etc. etc.

(Archimedes's work recycled...)
More and more excuses, complete with conceding that medieval Arabs and Persians did at least as good a job as medieval Europeans and Byzantines.

Still more excuses.

(Aristotle as ille philosophus...)
Yet more excuses.

Let's face it -- medieval Europeans weren't exactly very good at preserving the Greco-Roman philosophical and cultural legacy until after 1200 or so. And they wen't as open-minded or as rationalistic as one might want -- consider what would happen if you departed from the Church's official position on the Trinity, for instance.

Toto

There's a little game going on, a study in myth making.

A lot of people believe that Columbus had to overcome the idea that the earth was flat in order to get sponsorship for his voyage to the New World. This makes Columbus a visionary.

In fact, everyone in the royal courts of the 15th century knew that the world was round and he wasn't going to fall of the edge. The resistance to his voyage was from people who actually had made a better calculation of the size of the earth. So Columbus was not a visionary. But like many modern software entrepreneurs, he forged ahead and made progress because he didn't know about the real difficulties ahead.

Centuries later, some American Christians invented fundamentalism, and rejected the theory of evolution because it went against the literal reading of the Bible. Their scientific opponents pointed out that the Bible also says that the earth is flat, and that Columbus would never have discovered America, where those fundamentalists lived, if he had believed in the literal truth of the Bible. Robert Ingersoll made some humorous speeches about the idea.

So the flat earth idea is a way of poking fun at fundamentalists. But then we have serious historians who come along a try to spoil the story by pointing out that nobody really believed in a flat earth. But that's okay, we can move on to pointing out that the Bible says that pi = 3, and other absurdities.

And then we have people like aa who are sure that all Christians must have been fundamentalists at all times, and won't give up the idea -- showing once again the power of myth.

Amaleq13

I beg to differ. I managed by simply reading the page.

Amaleq13

So? If you have nothing relevant to add to the thread, please stop wasting space.

aa5874

I never said such a thing at all. Why do you do this? Please, Please, Please.

Amaleq13

It has been demonstrated that you will continue to falsely identify evidence about a moving earth as evidence about a flat earth regardless of how foolish and unsubstantiated the claim is shown to be.

Never. Whether incapable of or unwilling to comprehend, the response will never change. I suggest you stop wasting your time on this. We're pounding on a corpse that simply doesn't want to live.