How in the world did this thread on geocentrism morph to a great degree into one about a supposed flat earth? Can't the flat earth discussion move to a different thread of their own? Puleeeez!
Several geocentrist here on CI seem to take the position that the two concepts are inseparable--to the point that I, being unfamiliar with the material, took them as synonymous. After some contemplation, it is "flat-earth" that I have the major major hang-up with.
Is this at all consistent with your view of the subject?
There is a considerable difference between geocentrism and the theory of a flat earth. The subject of geocentrism had a profound effect on the Catholic Church whereas the shape of the earth has not had the same effect.
Educated in The Holy Ghost Fathers Blackrock College as an evolutionist and heliocentrist, it was not until I was 50 that I first encountered creationist material. It took me about ten minutes to realise I had been educated as a FOOL. I was very angry and determined to let the Catholics of this world they were all duped with this nonsense. Then Pope John Paul II came out with his 'evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis.' So here I was trying to convince Catholics that evolution was an intellectual insult and the Pope was saying the opposite. It was then I knew it would take more than a few creationists to convince Catholics and I kind of gave up on that one. Anyway, a Catholic friend Ger Keane took over a wrote his book on creation/evolution followed by the Kolbe creation group.
Paul Ellwanger then told me evolution was not the real problem, but the heliocentrism of Galileo. Given the history of the Galileo story is a never ending attack on the credibility of the Church, whereas evolution never was, I began what is now a 20-year study of the matter concerning both faith and science. Paul was right, but what I saw the Holy Office do I knew not even traditional Catholics would believe.
Now I read about a flat-earth. As others laughed and threw science at my belief in direct creation, and more so with my geocentrism, I have had to consider the flat-earth assertion in case I could have been wrong here too.
But there is one HUGE difference, The flat earth subject was never defined as revealed in Scripture, and so remains
ex parte objecti, that is confined only to the subject matter. Now popes have ruled that unless such subjects were unanimously believed by ALL the Fathers, differences of opinion are allowed among Catholics. Therefore the two are NOT linked theologically or otherwise.
My own research on a flat-earth found that there is a secular and Catholic history of its rejection.
In fact it was Cosmas Indicopleustes, a 6th century Alexandrian merchant who last seriously propagated that the earth is flat.
‘He was scornful of Ptolemy and others who held that the world was spherical. Cosmas aimed to prove that pre-Christian geographers had been wrong in asserting that the earth was spherical and that it was in fact modelled on the tabernacle, the house of worship described to Moses by God during the Jєωιѕн Exodus from Egypt. However, his idea that the earth is flat has been a minority view among educated Western opinion since the 3rd century BC. His view has never been influential even in religious circles; a near-contemporary Christian, John Philoponus, disagreed with him as did many Christian philosophers of the era’ --- Wikipedia.
“All educated persons of Columbus’ day, very much including the Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (c. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74). All four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy, written by the English scholastic John of Sacrobosco (c. 1200-1256). It informed that not only the earth but all heavenly bodies are spherical.’--- Rodney Stark: Catholicism and Science, Stark, 9/2004
Here is another indication that the earth is a globe that accommodates other bodies circling it.
‘“The earth stands in relation to the heaven as the centre of a circle to its circuмference. But as one centre may have many circuмferences, so, though there be but one earth, there may be many heavens.” St. Thomas (I, Q 68,a 4, ad l) here establishes two principles: (1) Earth is the centre of creation, and (2) there may be many heavenly bodies revolving along many pathways, thus producing many circuмferences around the Earth, and these may be referred to as “heavens.” Thus the Moon revolves around Earth in a lunar heaven; the sun in a fiery heaven, and so for the planets and stars. Likewise, the divisions or layers of Earth’s atmosphere are “heavens” of a corporeal nature.' --- Miss Paula Haigh: From the Beginning
Of interest on this matter is the statue of the Child of Prague. ‘Devotion to this statue began in the year 1556 when Maria Manriquez de Lara brought the image of the infant Jesus, a family heirloom, to Czechoslovakia from Spain on her marriage to Vratislav of Pernstyn. It is housed now in the church of Our Lady of Victory in Prague and is an object of veneration in many other countries.’ It is a globe (the earth) that is held steady in the hands of child Jesus.
It seems some individuals in the long past did claim the Bible teaches the earth is flat, while others claimed it revealed the earth is a spheroid. (‘
It is he who sitteth upon the globe of the earth…’ (Isaias 40:22) Douay Challoner Catholic Bible, approved by Cardinal Stritch 1956.
That the earth is a globe was the conclusion of ancient reasoning. They knew the shape of the earth as seen on the moon during an eclipse is always a full sphere. That would not be the case if the earth were a flat disc. The shifting position of stars as man moved north or south also indicated the earth as a sphere and the fact that ships appear and disappear over the horizon demonstrated to them without doubt the curved nature of the earth.
For me, knowing my own history of evolution and heliocentrism, I have no problem with discussion on a flat earth. I am not convinced, for my study of Domenico Cassini's geodesy (Earth measurement on a large scale.) shows it has been recorded as curved based on a partial measurement that would confirm a probable shape of the earth. There are other aspects of a flat-earth theory that seem to me to be against human reasoning. But fire away lads and if belief in it enhances your Catholic faith then more power to you. That said, please do not suggest non-belief in it is in any way anti-Catholic.
Finally, klasG4e is correct, this thread is a poll on geocentrism and the Catholic faith. Where the flat-earth theory comes into this poll I do not see. furthermore, it is a pity that one cannot change their mind (once polled no change is possible). The debate may well have convinced some no voters to change their mind, but they cannot show this.
Topic: Poll: Is Geocentrism Necessary to the Faith (Read 21395 times)