Send CathInfo's owner Matthew a gift from his Amazon wish list:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/25M2B8RERL1UO

Author Topic: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash  (Read 101777 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
« Reply #50 on: May 11, 2018, 07:37:36 AM »
Like I just pointed out to Aryzia, she holds it to be a necessary article of faith, even though she tried to shroud it in ambiguity. Since there is no Church teaching which defines or even mentions FE, to say someone will not be saved or is not Catholic for not believing in it, is Schismatic.
Wrong.

Offline Ladislaus

  • Supporter
Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
« Reply #51 on: May 11, 2018, 07:45:28 AM »
It only has Biblical roots if you don't understand allegory and you are trying to distort Scripture.

That's debatable.  Quite a few Church Fathers read the Bible as promoting a flat earth world view.  They cannot be dismissed as being ignorant.

I could see either case being made, but I also would not rule out the Flat Earth view.  Scripture is to be taken literally unless it's obvious that a passage is metaphorical or allegorical.

But the Church has never officially taught flat earth OR globe earth, so this is a disputed question.


Offline Ladislaus

  • Supporter
Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
« Reply #52 on: May 11, 2018, 07:50:29 AM »
In the same article you quote above, you will find:  

The Greeks and Stoics adopted a model of celestial spheres after the discovery of the spherical Earthin the 4th to 3rd centuries BCE. The Medieval Scholastics adopted a cosmology that fused the ideas of the Greek philosophers Aristotle and Ptolemy.[14] This cosmology involved celestial orbs, nested concentrically inside one another, with the earth at the center. The outermost orb contained the stars and the term firmament was then transferred to this orb.

Note the last phrase:  "the term firmament was then transferred to this orb".  The word "firmament" changed its meaning to fit in with the traditional (spherical earth) geocentrism that was the consensus of Catholics for over a thousand years.  The use of the word "firmament" in the 16th century refers to this traditional Catholic sense.  It does not mean that anybody then believed the earth was flat with a dome over it.

While your partial quotes give an impression that the article disagrees with me, it is clear enough when one reads the whole thing that it supports what I have said.

Firmament is an interpretive translation of a Hebrew word that means "expanse".

Greeks came up with the spherical earth notion, but ancient peoples before that all held a flat earth world view.  I do not dismiss it lightly when lots of ancient cultures scattered around the world and having little contact with one another happen to come up with a nearly-identical world view.  No, it's not proof of anything, but something to be weighed in the discussion as being of some significance.

Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
« Reply #53 on: May 11, 2018, 08:38:14 AM »
The only reason it's debatable is because the FE's are trying to destroy all credibility of the Church, so they try to tie it into the Catholic Faith. 
I don't think this is a fair way to express it, although I agree with your overall analysis of the situation. The way you put sounds like they intend to harm the Church.  It is unlikely that the Flat Earthers on this forum deliberately intend this, no matter how obvious this is to us as the consequence of their actions.  

These people seem to have convinced themselves that somehow they are defending the Church from her enemies.  You and I think they are completely wrong about this, but I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt in regards to their motives.  

Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
« Reply #54 on: May 11, 2018, 08:55:20 AM »
Greeks came up with the spherical earth notion, but ancient peoples before that all held a flat earth world view.  I do not dismiss it lightly when lots of ancient cultures scattered around the world and having little contact with one another happen to come up with a nearly-identical world view.  No, it's not proof of anything, but something to be weighed in the discussion as being of some significance.
The "significance" of the views of ancient pagans is that they are evidence that people's immediate perceptions seem to show the earth is flat.  One needs to reason from observed phenomena to deduce that it is a sphere.  One may debate the observations or the reasoning, but even the most ardent supporter of spherical earth knows that it is not immediately perceived by the senses.  All you are doing is finding evidence for a point that nobody would disagree with.