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Author Topic: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash  (Read 10378 times)

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Offline Jaynek

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Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
« Reply #60 on: May 11, 2018, 09:42:45 AM »
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  • I was not talking about the FE's on this forum. I am talking about the people behind this movement. I worded it wrong. I refer to the people on this forum as Dogmatic Flatearthists because they have been duped into thinking it's a Dogma.
    The FE's behind this movement are enemies of the faith. They know the world will look at this opinion as "crazy". The devil knows that to introduce this as being a doctrine, not only will it discredit the faith but it has the added bonus of a schism. There is no doubt that a lot of people on this forum believe this is necessary and that others who believe in GE have no hope of salvation unless they convert to FE, whether they say it like that or not.
    That makes sense when I think of dodgy people like influential flat-earther, Eric Dubay.  I know he is an enemy of the faith. It is plausible that they want to dupe Catholics into accepting flat earth in order to harm the Church.

    I agree that, while few of the FEs here explicitly say that Flat earth is a dogma, many of them seem to constantly imply or suggest it.


    Offline Jaynek

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #61 on: May 11, 2018, 09:44:03 AM »
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  • There's more detail in those views (that's similar in all their models) than can be attributed to naive naked-eye observations.
    Could you give some examples, please?  I can't think of anything that supports this claim.


    Offline happenby

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #62 on: May 11, 2018, 09:47:07 AM »
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  • Fair enough. I just didn't want those undecided who may be reading to be persuaded by the FE movement's exaggeration of FE belief among the Fathers.
    I tend to agree with these opinions, since it hasn't been decided by the Church.

    St. Augustine, The literal meaning of Genesis: "It is also frequently asked what our belief must be about the form and shape of heaven according to Sacred Scripture. Many scholars engage in lengthy discussions on these matters, but the sacred writers with their deeper wisdom have omitted them. Such subjects are of no profit for those who seek beatitude, and, what is worse, they take up very precious time that ought to be given to what is spiritually beneficial."

    St. Basil, Hexaemeron: “Those who have written about the nature of the universe have discussed at length the shape of the earth… It will not lead me to give less importance to the creation of the universe, that the servant of God, Moses, is silent as to shapes…He has passed over in silence, as useless, all that is unimportant for us. Shall I then prefer foolish wisdom to the oracles of the Holy Spirit? Shall I not rather exalt Him who, not wishing to fill our minds with these vanities, has regulated all the economy of Scripture in view of the edification and the making perfect of our souls? It is this which those seem to me not to have understood, who, giving themselves up to the distorted meaning of allegory, have undertaken to give a majesty of their own invention to Scripture. It is to believe themselves wiser than the Holy Spirit, and to bring forth their own ideas under a pretext of exegesis. Let us hear Scripture as it has been written.”

    I would also like to add that if one were to try to draw the flat Earth interpretation from Scripture, one would run into different contradictions. I've mentioned these before in previous threads.

    LEO XIII: “Wherefore, it is clear that that interpretation must be rejected as senseless and false, which either makes inspired authors in some manner quarrel among themselves, or opposes the teaching of the Church. . . .”
    This is an attempt that makes the inspired authors in some manner quarrel among themselves, or oppose the teaching of the Church.  No where do the Fathers teach globe earth.  No where does Scripture describe a globe.   

    Offline happenby

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #63 on: May 11, 2018, 09:49:42 AM »
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  • 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.
    Sorry, tried, but cannot make the font smaller.


    Origen
    called the firmament "without doubt firm and solid" (First Homily on Genesis, FC 71).

    St. Ambrose, commenting on Gen 1:6, said, 'the specific solidity of this exterior firmament is meant' (Hexameron, FC 42.60).

    St. Augustine said the word firmament was used 'to indicate not that it is motionless but that it is solid and that it constitutes an impassable boundary between the waters above and the waters below' (The Literal Meaning of Genesis, ACW 41.1.61)." - p. 236

    Saint Basil: “Now we must say something about the nature of the firmament, and why it received the order to hold the middle place between the waters. Scripture constantly makes use of the word firmament to express extraordinary strength....‘I made firm her pillars [Ps. 75:3].’ ‘Praise ye Him in the firmament of His power [Ps. 150:1].’ It is the custom of Scripture to call firmament all that is strong and unyielding. It even uses the word to denote the condensation of the air. God says, ‘For, behold, I am He that strengthens the thunder [Amos 4:13].’ Scripture means by the strengthening of the thunder, the strength and resistance of the wind, which, enclosed in the hollows of the clouds, produces the noise of thunder when it breaks through with violence. Here then, according to me, is a firm substance, capable of retaining the fluid and unstable element water; and as, according to the common acceptation, it appears that the firmament owes its origin to water, we must not believe that it resembles frozen water or any other matter produced by the filtration of water. For I am taught by Scripture not to allow my imagination to wander too far afield. But do not let us forget to remark that, after these divine words, ‘Let there be a firmament [Gen. 1:6],’ it is not said ‘and the firmament was made’ but, ‘God made the firmament, and God divided between the water that was under the firmament and between the water that was above the firmament [Gen. 1:7].’.  Saint Basil, “Hom. III(9),” Hexaemeron, NPNF, 2nd Ser., Vol. VIII.

    Offline happenby

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #64 on: May 11, 2018, 09:57:27 AM »
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  • There are few that one can point to it being their opinion. Lactantius is the only one which claims it's a matter of faith. St. Basil and St. Augustine explicitly say this topic is not in Scripture and is not worthy of serious thought. No one's saying they were ignorant. The ones who did hold the FE opinion seemed to hold it not as a matter of faith, but as the common opinion where they were. Like I said though, there weren't that many who wrote about it.
    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. They get Catholics to believe in it by exaggerating the importance among the Fathers and twisting Scripture to attempt to make it a religious matter. There's a reason why this subject was not brought up for about 1500 years.
    Augustine says many things about the flat earth, including the quotes provided above about the firmament.  The intended purpose of bringing flat earth up time and again is to get people to take seriously the subject and dig up docuмents for full evaluation, do experiments, study the subject with an open mind.  There is a trend in the Church and it doesn't favor the globe pretty much ever.  For those who insist on calling me and others "dogmatic flat earthers", your attempts to discourage discussion, thwart the words and intentions of the Fathers, and otherwise use categorical commentary to denounce people shows contempt for no reason. 


    Online Ladislaus

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #65 on: May 11, 2018, 10:01:26 AM »
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  • Equally true is that Scripture CANNOT be credibly interpreted as describing earth is a globe.

    But it can be credibly interpreted as describing neither one, i.e. not attempting to describe the shape of the earth at all.


    Offline happenby

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #66 on: May 11, 2018, 10:05:28 AM »
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  • There are few that one can point to it being their opinion. Lactantius is the only one which claims it's a matter of faith. St. Basil and St. Augustine explicitly say this topic is not in Scripture and is not worthy of serious thought. No one's saying they were ignorant. The ones who did hold the FE opinion seemed to hold it not as a matter of faith, but as the common opinion where they were. Like I said though, there weren't that many who wrote about it.
    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. They get Catholics to believe in it by exaggerating the importance among the Fathers and twisting Scripture to attempt to make it a religious matter. There's a reason why this subject was not brought up for about 1500 years.
    By the way, the second paragraph reveals your problem.  How could FE destroy the credibility of the Church except for fear of being called stupid for believing it?  It's a popular notion that anyone who thinks the world is flat, must be stupid, a very clever and effective game the propagandists would love to continue. It shows human respect.  FE is beautiful and sensible.  Many elements of the Church, the tabernacle and the liturgy, are tied to it, according to the Fathers. 

    Offline Jaynek

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #67 on: May 11, 2018, 10:06:30 AM »
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  • You are spreading false information in suggesting that Scripture is allegorical as if the literal sense does not take precedence.  
    Scripture must always be interpreted in the literal unless proven otherwise. 
    There is a bit of confusion here, possibly due to terminology.  When one speaks of allegory that means things like a spiritualized meaning.  For example, we are required to believe there was a literal, historical Adam and Eve.  We cannot say that Adam and Eve are merely a symbol representing the human condition.  It is permitted to say that there are multiple levels of meaning.  So, in the example of Adam and Eve, they both really existed in history and are spiritual symbols.

    This is a different issue from figures of speech.  When we see a phrase like "God saved the people with a mighty arm" we should not take that literally and claim that God has a physical body. There is no requirement to take figures of speech literally and it can be an error to do so. In traditional Catholic (spherical earth) geocentrism and more recent understandings of spherical earth, Catholics understood Scripture that uses flat earth imagery to be using figures of speech.

    There is usually no requirement to prove that something is a figure of speech.  Normally it is something that is obvious to reason.  The majority of Catholics throughout history, including Saints and Doctors of the Church, thought that it was obvious to reason that flat earth language in Scripture was a figure of speech.


    Online Ladislaus

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #68 on: May 11, 2018, 10:08:07 AM »
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  • I won't be surprised if Ladislaus conveniently ignores this question.

    Stop acting like a baby, would you?

    I looked at the video.  It's simply trying to show that the math of sun direction looks cleaner on a globe model vs. flat earth.  It's the same reasoning used to promote heliocentrism, that geocentric math is ugly compared to heliocentric.  In the video, the beams are shown as crossing over one another, but if you cut them off sooner, they generally converge into a triangle at some point.  So the way it's represented in the video makes it look uglier and nearly impossible, since once they converge at the triangle, then they take off in opposite directions, which would make a single light source impossible.  So cut off the arrows as soon as they converge, at a closer distance to the earth, and it's not quite as ugly as this video makes it out to be.  And this falls short of "proof" also.  Where's the hard proof?  Flat earthers could take this video as proof that the sun is much closer to the earth than science tells us.

    Offline Jaynek

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #69 on: May 11, 2018, 10:08:18 AM »
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  • But it can be credibly interpreted as describing neither one, i.e. not attempting to describe the shape of the earth at all.
    This interpretation is the one supported in magisterial teaching, so I think it is more than credible.  

    Offline happenby

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #70 on: May 11, 2018, 10:13:33 AM »
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  • But it can be credibly interpreted as describing neither one, i.e. not attempting to describe the shape of the earth at all.
    Just the Fathers' comments on the firmament say otherwise.  If all their commentary on the firmament was the only place Scripture described the earth, that would almost be enough to eliminate globe earth because the Fathers talk quite a bit about it being a vault-like structure above earth, a dome, a tent, an expanse, and that it divides the water above from the water below.  How does a dome/tent/vault apply to a globe?  The division of water is pretty telling as well. Now, since some might stretch these things to accommodate the globe, there are other aspects of what the Fathers have expounded on that help close the gaps.  Beyond that, the Fathers' silence on the globe is deafening.           


    Offline Jaynek

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #71 on: May 11, 2018, 10:25:50 AM »
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  • Augustine says many things about the flat earth, including the quotes provided above about the firmament.  The intended purpose of bringing flat earth up time and again is to get people to take seriously the subject and dig up docuмents for full evaluation, do experiments, study the subject with an open mind.  There is a trend in the Church and it doesn't favor the globe pretty much ever.  For those who insist on calling me and others "dogmatic flat earthers", your attempts to discourage discussion, thwart the words and intentions of the Fathers, and otherwise use categorical commentary to denounce people shows contempt for no reason.
    The use of the word "firmament" does not necessary imply that the author believes the earth is flat with a dome.  The term was co-opted by Catholics who accepted traditional geocentrism to describe a sphere surrounding the spherical earth.  Neither does rejection of antipodes imply belief in flat earth.  You keep seeing support for flat earth is passages that do not actually support it, giving you an exaggerated sense of just how much of this existed.

    The "trend in the Church" is that belief in flat earth disappeared for over a thousand years.  There is no reason to take it seriously based on appeals to Catholic belief.  If you have good science arguments for flat earth, go ahead and make them.  Pretending that it is backed by the Church just destroys your credibility.

    Offline happenby

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #72 on: May 11, 2018, 10:28:55 AM »
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  • The use of the word "firmament" does not necessary imply that the author believes the earth is flat with a dome.  The term was co-opted by Catholics who accepted traditional geocentrism to describe a sphere surrounding the spherical earth.  Neither does rejection of antipodes imply belief in flat earth.  You keep seeing support for flat earth is passages that do not actually support it, giving you an exaggerated sense of just how much of this existed.

    The "trend in the Church" is that belief in flat earth disappeared for over a thousand years.  There is no reason to take it seriously based on appeals to Catholic belief.  If you have good science arguments for flat earth, go ahead and make them.  Pretending that it is backed by the Church just destroys your credibility.
    If my credibility is destroyed for helping people to understand Catholic opinion unsullied by spinners, let it be so. 

    Offline Jaynek

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #73 on: May 11, 2018, 10:35:30 AM »
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  • If my credibility is destroyed for helping people to understand Catholic opinion unsullied by spinners, let it be so.
    Can you give an opinion from a Catholic authority (Saints, Doctors, magisterial sources) any time after 700 that suggests that the earth is flat?

    Genuine Catholic opinions persist throughout time.  They do not disappear for a thousand years and then get revived by heretics and promoted by pagans.  Pointing that out is not spin.  

    Offline Meg

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    Re: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash
    « Reply #74 on: May 11, 2018, 10:41:32 AM »
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  • Can you give an opinion from a Catholic authority (Saints, Doctors, magisterial sources) any time after 700 that suggests that the earth is flat?

    Genuine Catholic opinions persist throughout time.  They do not disappear for a thousand years and then get revived by heretics and promoted by pagans.  That is not spin.  

    So genuine Catholic opinion still exists in the church as it is today?

    Has it really persisted through today? You don't believe that Truth has been eclipsed or distorted by modernism?
    "It is licit to resist a Sovereign Pontiff who is trying to destroy the Church. I say it is licit to resist him in not following his orders and in preventing the execution of his will. It is not licit to Judge him, to punish him, or to depose him, for these are acts proper to a superior."

    ~St. Robert Bellarmine
    De Romano Pontifice, Lib.II, c.29