The Church teaches infallibly that heliocentrism, the notion that earth moves and sun is stationary, IS FALSE and contrary to the Faith. The Church also teaches that the sun, moon and stars reside inside a visible firmament that is laid out as a firm boundary, like a tent, between heaven and earth.
The Church teaches no such thing. The Church has for generations taught heliocentrism in Her parish schools. This would not happen if it were against Catholic teaching.
We better not get into this discussion on this thread Bumphy, but you deserve an answer to your post.
The master of U-turn accusations just starts his post off with a U-turn! You should have started another thread.
I observed that you are new on this forum Bumpy and possibly unaware that certain matters are inclined to dominate and take over a thread designed to discuss a different matter. This is a flat-earth discussion and not a geocentric/heliocentric one. The answer I gave you did not ask or seek a reply so that it would not distract from the flat-earth theme or take over the thread with a G/H one as has happened many times before.
But you, being the person you are, were unable to read my effort to explain something FOR you in the spirit it was given and preferrted instead to find something negative you could reply with. If such is the level of your interest in finding truth then what are you doing on this forum?
Not quite. Geocentrism is flat earth. There is no such thing as a globe hanging in space. This fallacy came about when Catholics realized earth was not moving and assumed it was a globe. The earth has a foundation. The globe is not founded, but admittedly dangling.
Lets see what Church Fathers said on the flat geocentric issue:
Methodius:
“Resuming then, let us first lay bare, in speaking of those things according to our power, the imposture of those who boast as though they alone had comprehended from what forms the heaven is arranged, in accordance with the hypothesis of the Chaldeans and Egyptians. For *they* say that the circuмference of the world is likened to the turnings of a well?rounded globe, the earth having a central point. For its outline being spherical, it is necessary, *they* say, since there are the same distances of the parts, that the earth should be the center of the universe, around which as being older, the heaven is whirling. For if a circuмference is described from the central point, which seems to be a circle, ? for it is impossible for a circle to be described without a point, and it is impossible for a circle to be without a point, ? surely the earth consisted before all, they say, in a state of chaos and disorganization. Now certainly the wretched ones were overwhelmed in the chaos of error, “because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God.
The great authority of Augustine, and the cogency of his scriptural argument, held the Church firmly against the doctrine of the antipodes; all schools of interpretation were now agreed--the followers of the allegorical tendencies of Alexandria, the strictly literals exegetes of Syria, the more eclectic theologians of the West. For over a thousand years it was held in the Church, "always, everywhere, and by all," that there could not be human beings on the opposite sides of the earth, even if the earth had opposite sides; and, when attacked by gainsayers the great mass of true believers, from the fourth century to the fifteenth, simply used that opiate which had so soothing an effect on John Henry Newman in the nineteenth century--securus judicat orbis terrarum.
pg 104 War Between Science and Theology…White
Bishop Isidore of Seville (560-636)
taught in his widely read encyclopedia, The etymologies, that the earth was round. While some writers have thought he referred to a spherical Earth, this and other writings make it clear that he considered the earth to be a disk of wheel shaped. Isidore did not admit the possibility of people dwelling at the antipodes, considering them as legendary, and noting that there was no evidence for their existence.
The Esoteric Codex: Dynamics of the Celestial Spheres
St. John Chrysostom (considered a “doctor of the Church”, bishop of Antioch, archbishop of Constantinople in 398) –opposed the earth’s sphericity based on Scripture. Regularly refers to the Earth having four corners as the Bible does in his sermons. For example, the following quotations come from Homilies Against the Jews: “every corner of the earth”, “her action is known in every corner of the earth”, “every corner of the earth seen by the sun” [27] Exerted his influence against a spherical earth. [2] He is quoted by Kosmas (Cosmas) as stating “Where are those who say that the heaven is in motion? Where are those who think it is spherical? For both these opinions are here swept away.”(in commenting on Hebrews 8:1.)Knew that truly ending the ‘heretical’ study of the Greeks meant wiping out Greek writings – happily declared, “Every trace of the old philosophy and literature of the ancient world has vanished from the face of the earth.”
In his“Homily 2, Trinity, Sophists, Philosophers”, Para 5, he takes pleasure in the fact that the Church is successfully silencing the Greeks – “And as for the writings of the Greeks, they are all put out and vanished, but this man’s shine brighter day by day. …since then the (doctrines) of Pythagoras and of Plato, which seemed before to prevail, have ceased to be spoken of, and most men do not know them even by name.” [77], [78] He continues to claim, “Pythagoras… practiced there ten thousand kinds of sorcery…. but by his magic tricks he deceived the foolish. And neglecting to teach men anything useful.” He then calls Pythagoras a “barbarian”!
Chrysostom was “definitely a strong fundamentalist if not an absolute Biblical literalist and he certainly seems to have believed the earth was flat. Like Tertullian, he was skeptical of any ‘pagan’ knowledge which seemed to cast doubt on any aspect of the Bible.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem
He followed Basil’s teaching and was a flat earther, using quotes from the Bible portraying earth with firmament floating on water using Gen. i. 6. He wrote in his Catechetical Lectures: Lecture IX: “Him who reared the sky as a dome, who out of the fluid nature of the waters formed the stable substance of the heaven. For God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the water. God spake once for all, and it stands fast, and falls not. The heaven is water, and the orbs therein, sun, moon, and stars are of fire: and how do the orbs of fire run their course in the water? But if any one disputes this because of the opposite natures of fire and water, let him remember the fire which in the time of Moses in Egypt flamed amid the hail…”
This passage shows St. Cyril was under the pagan impression the sun, moon and stars were balls of fire showing that the electric nature of the universe had been seriously buried by the mid 4th century. Yet he insisted we could not argue with scripture about the firmament and waters above.
Cosmas
Moses, likewise, in describing the table in the Tabernacle, which is an image of the earth, ordered its length to be of two cubits, and its breadth of one cubit. So then in the same way as Isaiah spoke, so do we also speak of the figure of the first heaven made on the first day, made along with the earth, and comprising along with the earth the universe, and say that its figure is vaultlike… and God [130] having then stretched it out extended it throughout the whole space in the direction of its breadth, like an intermediate roof, and bound together the firmament with the highest heaven, separating and disparting the remainder of the waters, leaving some above the firmament, and others on the earth below the firmament, as the divine Moses explains to us, and so makes the one area or house two houses----an upper and a lower story.
St. Jerome
"Greek gýros turns up in its transliterated form gyrus--present in Roman literature as early as Lucretius (mid-first century BC)--in the Latin versions of the Bible as well.27 St. Jerome (c. 340-420), the early Latin Church's master linguist and Bible translator, began his work on the Old Testament by creating a standard version from the several unreliable Old Latin recensions then in existence, using as a valuable aid Origen's fair copy of the Hexapla which he consulted in the library at Caesarea around 386 AD.28 The Old Latin recensions were based on the LXX and commonly rendered this same portion of Isa. 40:22a as "qui tenet gyrum terrae."29 Later, when he prepared a new version from the Hebrew that would become part of the Vulgate, he kept the Old Latin reading, changing only the verb tenet, "dwells," to sedet, "sits."30 And in his Commentary on Isaiah, Jerome, who is regarded by critics today as a competent and careful scholar,31 specifically rejected the notion that in this verse the prophet is referring to a spherical earth." 32
Severian, Bishop of Gabala
Depended upon Scriptures for view of the earth saying, “The earth is flat and the sun does not pass under it in the night, but travels through the northern parts as if hidden by a wall” 1.
[15] He shared John Chrysostom’s fundamentalism and opposition to pagan learning. SEVERIAN OF GABALA ON THE CREATION OF THE WORLD
He made the upper heavens about which David sang: "The heaven of the heavens is the Lord's."6 This heaven forms in a certain way the upper stage of the firmament. As in any two-story house, there is an intermediate stage; well in this building which is the world, the Creator has prepared the sky as an intermediate level, and he has put it over the waters; from where this passage of David: "It is you who covered with water its upper part.“7
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/severian_of_gabala_genesis_01.htmSt. Augustine
Noted St. Augustine scholar Leo Ferrari, concluded that Augustine was familiar with the Greek theory of a spherical earth, nevertheless, (following in the footsteps of his fellow North African, Lactantius), he was firmly convinced that the earth was flat and was one of the two biggest bodies in existence and that it lay at the bottom of the universe. Apparently Augustine saw this picture as more useful for scriptural exegesis than the global earth at the centre of an immense universe.
Scripture
Gen 1. 6 And God said: Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters: and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Gen 1.7 And God made a firmament, and divided the waters that were under the firmament, from those that were above the firmament, and it was so.
The Church condemned heliocentrism because it was contrary to scripture. Same with round earth, which is merely a component of heliocentrism.
Topic: 50 Plus Reasons The Earth Is Not Flat (Read 220134 times)