Author Topic: God didn't deceive us (Read 555 times)

Matthew · « **on:** June 29, 2025, 02:05:00 PM »

Every piece of evidence from your senses suggests the earth is flat and stationary.

Every mainstream explanation for how we could be living on a globe (e.g., gravity, Theory of Relativity, etc.) is a COPE to salvage the idea of a spinning ball earth.

Why would God go *out of His way* to use copious amounts of His almighty power -- just go deceive us all and make the earth appear both flat and stationary when it is neither? And why would God do everything to convince us there is alien life, when there is none? Globers are suggesting that God is some kind of practical joker -- tricking us all into believing the earth is flat, using countless miracles to achieve this (questionable, dubious) goal. For example, the fact that we can see too far, given a globe with a diameter of 7,926 miles. Science still hasn't figured that one out -- assuming we do indeed live on a globe.

Or that experiment that disproved the earth's motion -- the excuse for that one was downright ludicrous. They claimed it was a cosmic coincidence (I'm not kidding!) That space expanded just enough to make the experiment suggest the earth didn't move. But it totally moves. Insane stuff. Another rescue operation for the globe/heliocentric paradigm was done by Einstein with his Theory of Relativity. Note the (((stein))). He was a plagiarist and NOT the epic genius he is portrayed as.

I'm serious. I'd like to know other examples of this kind of deception. Don't talk about supernatural mysteries, because those are above us. God isn't deceiving us. Some things are above human comprehension, such as the Blessed Sacrament or the Trinity. Our minds simply can't understand the inner life of God. If we could wrap our minds around the infinite, all-holy Trinity, we would have to BE God. As for the Blessed Sacrament, God has a good reason to work a miracle there (to test our Faith in Christ's word, also to make it easier to receive Him sacramentally)

But if God created the world globular with gravity, etc. why would He conspire to constantly hide the curvature at every juncture? He would be hiding the truth. No matter how high you go up, the horizon always rises to eye level, as it would on a plane (flat surface).

And why would God create the suns and galaxies as Science/Scientism describes them, just to make us believe in aliens when there aren't any? Why make everything POSSIBLY self-form from a dust cloud, and orbit like the residual aftermath/inertia post-Big Bang, when there wasn't a Big Bang? Why would God do this?

Why would God go out of His way to create a universe that was best explained and described by a Big Bang followed by various mindless processes and eons of time?

And before you say "Theistic evolution", why would the Scriptures lie about death entering the world because of sin, and the doctrine of the world being fallen due to Original Sin, when death/cancer/suffering was a fact of life for billions of years before Man was "uplifted" from a pair of apes by God's intervention?

And Genesis clearly says the earth and all of creation was created in (6) 24-hour days. If you look into the Hebrew, the proper translation would be "24-hours". "On the second 24-hours," etc. Yom means a 24-hour day, when numbers are used with it, etc. etc. and honest Biblical scholars can only come to one conclusion about Genesis: it meant 24-hour days. Who will dare call the Scriptures a liar? Not to mention Genesis doesn't even get the order of creation "right" if you believe in the Big Bang creation story.

I guess I'm arguing Occam's Razor here. Either God is wasting tons of time & power, working all sorts of miracles constantly, with the goal of trolling us -- or the earth is indeed flat and stationary, just as it seems. And we are the pinnacle of the created world, God created the earth in 6 days as described in Genesis, etc.

Fiorenza · « **Reply #1 on:** June 29, 2025, 02:46:44 PM »

Could it be said that Divino afflante Spiritu of Pius XII developed interpretation of the Bible?

"...finally when they cultivate and seek the aid of profane sciences which are useful for the interpretation of the Scriptures."

As for the debate, I'm happy to be influenced by both sides. They both have their supporters and detractors. If someone has proof of an opposing argument that is more in line with Scripture, then go for it.

IndultCat · « **Reply #2 on:** June 29, 2025, 02:59:47 PM »

Quote from: Fiorenza on June 29, 2025, 02:46:44 PM

Could it be said that Divino afflante Spiritu of Pius XII developed interpretation of the Bible?

Pius XII's 1943 encyclical "Divino Afflante Spiritu" is the first modernist encyclical. It is beloved so much by the Novus Ordo Church that they cite it in the front of every one of their Bibles (e.g. the dreadful New American Bible).

"Divino Afflante Spiritu" contradicts Pope Benedict XV's 1920 encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus" which is a more liberal (albeit not modernist) version of Pope Leo XIII's 1893 encyclial "Providentissimus Deus".

If you read all of the 3 above-mentioned encyclicals in order of their publications, you will easily see the "slow and gradual" liberalism creeping into Catholic Biblical Studies/Biblical Interpretation.

However, it isn't until Pius XII's above 1943 encyclical that "modernism" is completely advocated/recommended when it comes to Biblical studies/interpretation.

Pax Vobis · « **Reply #3 on:** June 29, 2025, 04:03:28 PM »

Great questions, Matthew.

Here’s a great article.

The Flat-Earth Bible

https://www.cantab.net/users/michael.behrend/ebooks/PlaneTruth/pages/Appendix_A.html

Matthew · « **Reply #4 on:** June 29, 2025, 04:26:59 PM »

E-books

Appendix A: The Flat-Earth Bible

When I first became interested in the flat-earthers in the early 1970s, I was surprised to learn that flat-earthism in the English-speaking world is and always has been entirely based upon the Bible. I have since assembled and read an extensive collection of flat-earth literature. The Biblical arguments for flat-earthism that follow come mainly from my reading of flat-earth literature, augmented by my own reading of the Bible.
Except among Biblical inerrantists, it is generally agreed that the Bible describes an immovable earth. At the 1984 National Bible-Science Conference in Cleveland, geocentrist James N. Hanson told me there are hundreds of scriptures that suggest the earth is immovable. I suspect some must be a bit vague, but here are a few obvious texts:
1 Chronicles 16:30: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.”
Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm …”
Psalm 96:10: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable …”
Psalm 104:5: “Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.”
Isaiah 45:18: “… who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast …”
Suffice to say that the earth envisioned by flat-earthers is as immovable as any geocentrist could desire. Most (perhaps all) scriptures commonly cited by geocentrists have also been cited by flat-earthers. The flat-earth view is geocentricity with further restrictions.
Like geocentrists, flat-earth advocates often give long lists of texts. Samuel Birley Rowbotham, founder of the modern flat-earth movement, cited 76 scriptures in the last chapter of his monumental second edition of . [ref. A.1] Apostle Anton Darms, assistant to the Reverend Wilbur Glenn Voliva, America’s best known flat-earther, compiled 50 questions about the creation and the shape of the earth, bolstering his answers with up to 20 scriptures each. [ref. A.2] Rather than presenting an exhaustive compendium of flat-earth scriptures, I focus on those which seem to me the strongest. I also comment on some attempts to find the earth’s sphericity in the Bible.
Scriptural quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from the . Hebrew and Greek translations are from . [ref. A.3] The Biblical cosmology is never explicitly stated, so it must be pieced together from scattered passages. The Bible is a composite work, so there is no reason why the cosmology assumed by its various writers should be relatively consistent, but it is. The Bible is, from Genesis to Revelation, a flat-earth book.
This is hardly surprising. As neighbors, the ancient Hebrews had the Egyptians to the southwest and the Babylonians to the northeast. Both civilizations had flat-earth cosmologies. The Biblical cosmology closely parallels the Sumero-Babylonian cosmology, and it may also draw upon Egyptian cosmology.
The Babylonian universe was shaped like a modern domed stadium. The Babylonians considered the earth essentially flat, with a continental mass surrounded by ocean. The vault of the sky was a physical object resting upon the ocean’s waters (and perhaps also upon pillars). Sweet (salt-free) waters below the earth sometimes manifest themselves as springs. The Egyptian universe was also enclosed, but it was rectangular instead of round. Indeed, it was shaped much like an old-fashioned steamer trunk. (The Egyptians pictured the goddess Nut stretched across the sky as the enclosing dome.) What was the Hebrew view of the universe?

The Order of Creation

The Genesis creation story provides the first key to the Hebrew cosmology. The order of creation makes no sense from a conventional perspective but is perfectly logical from a flat-earth viewpoint. The earth was created on the first day, and it was “without form and void” (Genesis 1:2). On the second day, a vault—the “firmament” of the King James version—was created to divide the waters, some being above and some below the vault. Only on the fourth day were the sun, moon, and stars created, and they were placed “in” (not “above”) the vault.

The Vault of Heaven

The vault of heaven is a crucial concept. The word “firmament” appears in the King James version of the Old Testament 17 times, and in each case it is translated from the Hebrew word , which meant the visible vault of the sky. The word  comes from , meaning “beaten out.” In ancient times, brass objects were either cast in the form required or beaten into shape on an anvil. A good craftsman could beat a lump of cast brass into a thin bowl. Thus, Elihu asks Job, “Can you beat out [] the vault of the skies, as he does, hard as a mirror of cast metal?” (Job 37:18)
Elihu’s question shows that the Hebrews considered the vault of heaven a solid, physical object. Such a large dome would be a tremendous feat of engineering. The Hebrews (and supposedly Yahweh Himself) considered it exactly that, and this point is hammered home by five scriptures:
Job 9:8, “… who by himself spread out the heavens [] …”
Psalm 19:1, “The heavens [] tell out the glory of God, the vault of heaven [] reveals his handiwork.”
Psalm 102:25, “… the heavens [] were thy handiwork.”
Isaiah 45:12, “I, with my own hands, stretched out the heavens [] and caused all their host to shine …”
Isaiah 48:13, “… with my right hand I formed the expanse of the sky [] …”
If these verses are about a mere illusion of a vault, they are surely much ado about nothing.   comes from , a root meaning to be lofty. It literally means the sky. Other passages complete the picture of the sky as a lofty, physical dome. God “sits throned on the vaulted roof of earth [], whose inhabitants are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the skies [] like a curtain, he spreads them out like a tent to live in …” (Isaiah 40:22).   literally means “circle” or “encompassed.” By extension, it can mean roundness, as in a rounded dome or vault. Job 22:14 says God “walks to and fro on the vault of heaven [].” In both verses, the use of  implies a physical object, on which one can sit and walk. Likewise, the context in both cases requires elevation. In Isaiah, the elevation causes the people below to look small as grasshoppers. In Job, God’s eyes must penetrate the clouds to view the doings of humans below. Elevation is also implied by Job 22:12: “Surely God is at the zenith of the heavens [] and looks down on all the stars, high as they are.”
This picture of the cosmos is reinforced by Ezekiel’s vision. The Hebrew word  appears five times in Ezekiel: four times in Ezekiel 1:22–26 and once in Ezekiel 10:1. In each case the context requires a literal vault or dome. The vault appears above the “living creatures” and glitters “like a sheet of ice.” Above the vault is a throne of sapphire (or lapis lazuli). Seated on the throne is “a form in human likeness,” which is radiant and “like the appearance of the glory of the Lord.” In short, Ezekiel saw a vision of God sitting throned on the vault of heaven, as described in Isaiah 40:22.

The Shape of the Earth

Disregarding the dome, the essential flatness of the earth’s surface is required by verses like Daniel 4:10–11. In Daniel, the king “saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth … reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth’s farthest bounds.” If the earth were flat, a sufficiently tall tree be visible to “the earth’s farthest bounds,” but this is impossible on a spherical earth. Likewise, in describing the temptation of Jesus by Satan, Matthew 4:8 says, “Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [] in their glory.” Obviously, this would be possible only if the earth were flat. The same is true of Revelation 1:7: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds! Every eye shall see him …”.

The Celestial Bodies

The Hebrews considered the celestial bodies relatively small. The Genesis creation story indicates the size and importance of the earth relative to the celestial bodies in two ways, first by their order of creation, and second by their positional relationships. They had to be small to fit inside the vault of heaven. Small size is also implied by Joshua 10:12, which says that the sun stood still “in Gibeon” and the moon “in the Vale of Aijalon.”
Further, the Bible frequently presents celestial bodies as exotic living beings. For example, “In them [the heavens], a tent is fixed for the sun, who comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, rejoicing like a strong man to run his race. His rising is at one end of the heavens, his circuit touches their farthest ends; and nothing is hidden from his heat (Psalm 19:4–6).” The stars are anthropomorphic demigods. When the earth’s cornerstone was laid “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted aloud” (Job 38:7). The morning star is censured for trying to set his throne above that of other stars:
You thought in your own mind, I will scale the heavens; I will set my throne high above the stars of God, I will sit on the mountain where the gods meet in the far recesses of the north. I will rise high above the cloud-banks and make myself like the most high (Isaiah 14:13–14).
Deuteronomy 4:15–19 recognizes the god-like status of stars, noting that they were created for other peoples to worship.
Stars can fall from the skies according to Daniel 8:10 and Matthew 24:29. The same idea is found in the following extracts from Revelation 6:13–16:
… the stars in the sky fell to the earth, like figs shaken down by a gale; the sky vanished, as a scroll is rolled up … they called out to the mountains and the crags, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the One who sits on the throne … ”
This is consistent with the Hebrew cosmology previously described, but it is ludicrous in the light of modern astronomy. If one star let alone all the stars in the sky “fell” on the earth, no one would be hollering from any mountain or crag. The writer considered the stars small objects, all of which could fall to the earth without eradicating human life. He also viewed the sky as a physical object. The stars are inside the sky, and they fall before the sky opens. When it is whisked away, it reveals the One throned above (see Isaiah 40:22).

Weaker Arguments

Flat-earthers also offer some scriptural arguments that are (in my view) weak, ambiguous, erroneous, or irrelevant. (Ironically, it is these that apologists for sphericity usually choose to deal with in their rebuttals to the flat-earthers!) The weak and ambiguous arguments can help support a cuмulative picture but are insufficient on their own.
One of the weaker scriptural arguments is that the sky literally has openings (windows) which God can open to let the waters above fall to the surface as rain (see Genesis 7:11, Genesis 8:2, Isaiah 24:18–19, Jeremiah 51:15–16, and Malachi 3:10). While the idea and scriptures are certainly consistent with the flat-earth cosmology, they could (for instance) refer to openings in a spherical shell surrounding a spherical earth. The same applies to the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11:4, often cited as an attempt to literally reach the heavens.
Likewise, flat-earthers frequently cite the numerous Old Testament verses referring to the earth’s foundations (see 2 Samuel 22:16, Job 38:4, Psalm 18:15, Proverbs 8:29, Isaiah 24:18, and numerous others). Foundations are, however, fairly well-covered by geocentricity. No one would argue for a flat earth solely on the basis of “foundations” quotes.
Another less-than-conclusive argument that the Bible is a flat-earth book is its references to the earth’s “corners.” For example, “After this, I saw four angels stationed at the four corners [] of the earth holding back the four winds …” (Revelation 7:1). Spherical apologists are quick to point out that the Greek can refer to regions rather than points. Most translations of the Bible opt for points (the King James version says “on the corners of the earth”), implying that the writer viewed the habitable earth as a four-cornered area. (This was indeed the way many early churchmen interpreted it. [ref. A.4] The modern flat-earth model doesn’t have literal corners.) The corners could, however, be those regions at the ends of the earth referred to by Jeremiah: “[H]e brings up the mist from the ends of the earth, he opens rifts for the rain and brings the wind out of his storehouses” (Jeremiah 51:16). We shall return to the ends of the earth.
The Biblical view of the universe is relatively clear and consistent. Biblical statements bearing on cosmology are (with one possible exception yet to be discussed) consistent with the well-known flat-earth cosmologies of the ancient Near East, but they are often flatly contradicted by modern science. How do spherical apologists reply?

Spherical Apologetics

Those who claim Biblical support for a spherical earth typically ignore this forest of consistency and focus on one or two aberrant trees. Some take refuge in audacity. Henry Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, cites one of the more explicitly flat-earth verses in the Old Testament—Isaiah 40:22, the “grasshopper” verse quoted earlier—as evidence for the sphericity of the earth. Quoting the King James version “he sitteth upon the circle of the earth” Morris ignores the context and the grasshoppers and claims “circle” should read “sphericity” or “roundness”. [ref. A.5]  This divide and conquer strategy is poor scholarship and worse logic.
Heroic efforts have been made by apologists to explain away the firmament, which encloses the celestial bodies, has waters above it, and is a masterpiece proving the Creator’s craftsmanship. The late Harold L. Armstrong argued that it is empty Newtonian space, and that the “waters above” still surround the edges of the universe, though perhaps not in liquid form [ref. A.6] . This simply ignores difficulties and invents evidence. Gerardus Bouw tried to identify the firmament as a mathematical plenum [ref. A.7] . In my view, it is a grave error to reinterpret ancient docuмents to force their authors to speak with modern voices. Gary Zukov [ref. A.8]  and Fritjof Capra, [ref. A.9]  for instance, read modern physics into the teachings of eastern mysticism. I consider all such attempts equally suspect.
Perhaps the scripture most frequently offered as evidence of the earth’s sphericity is the King James version of Job 26:7, “He stretcheth out the north [] over the empty place,  hangeth the earth upon nothing [].” (The New English Bible translates it, “God spreads the canopy of the sky over chaos and suspends earth in the void.”) It is not clear what this means. The Hebrew  literally meant hidden or dark, and it was used in reference to the northern regions.   literally means “nothing.” That would contradict all of the scriptures which say the earth rests on foundations, but that interpretation is not necessary. We will return to Job 26:7 later.
Speaking of foundations, Gerardus Bouw, in an undated paper entitled “The Form of the Earth,” [ref. A.10] cites a barrage of scriptures about the foundations of the earth or world as evidence for sphericity. All (or nearly all) of these verses have traditionally been used by flat-earthers to prove the earth flat. If one views the earth as an architectural structure with floor, curtain walls, and a roof, it is natural to assume it has foundations (and, I might add, a cornerstone). Why a sphere would have foundations escapes me. Bouw’s argument that these scriptures refer to the earth’s core seems strained at best. Also strained is Bouw’s interpretation of “the ends of the earth” as the points most distant from Jerusalem, and his identification of the Chukchi Peninsula of the Soviet Union, Alaska, Cape Horn, and the southeastern tip of Australia as the “four corners” of the earth.
Bouw’s most interesting argument for sphericity is based on the gospel of Luke. He compares the King James version of Luke 17:31 and 17:34. The former says “In that day, he which shall be upon the house top …” and the latter “in that night there shall be two men in one bed…” (italics added). Bouw then cites 1 Corinthians 15:52 to argue that the events are simultaneous, claiming simultaneity is possible only on a spherical earth. First of all, the latter claim is wrong. The modern (though not the ancient) flat-earth model has day and night occurring simultaneously at different points on earth. Second, the Greek  was used much like the English “day.” It could mean the daylight hours, a 24-hour day, or (figuratively) an epoch of unspecified length. Third, Luke appears to have been writing figuratively, and citing Paul to prove otherwise begs the question.
One more spherical argument deserves notice. The 1985 National Creation Conference in Cleveland ended with a formal debate on the relative merits of heliocentricity and geocentricity. Richard Niessen of Christian Heritage College, defending the Copernican view, remarked that the Bible teaches a spherical earth because it treats north and south as absolutes, but east and west as relative. As evidence of the latter, he cited Psalm 103:12 which says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our offences from us.” Again, the modern flat-earth model holds that north and south are absolutes, but east and west are relative. In the ancient flat-earth model, however, east and west were about as far apart as you could get, which seems to be the image Psalm 103:12 was intended to invoke.
In my view, all arguments to prove the Bible teaches a spherical earth are weak if not wrong-headed. On the other hand, the flat-earth cosmology previously described is historically consistent and requires none of the special pleading apparently necessary to harmonize the Bible with sphericity.

The Book of Enoch

The cosmology previously described is derived from the Bible itself, following the 19th century flat-earthers. Some of the evidence is more ambiguous than we would like. Ambiguities in ancient docuмents can often be elucidated by consulting contemporary docuмents. The most important ancient docuмent describing Hebrew cosmology is 1 Enoch (sometimes called the Ethiopic Book of Enoch), one of those long, disjointed, scissors and paste jobs beloved by ancient scribes. For a dozen or so centuries, European scholars knew 1 Enoch only from numerous passages preserved in the patristic literature. In 1773, the Scottish adventurer James Bruce found complete copies in Ethiopia.
Numerous manuscripts of 1 Enoch have since been found in Ethiopian monasteries. Turn of the century scholars concluded that parts of the book are pre-Maccabean, and most (perhaps all) of it was composed by 100 B.C. [ref. A.11] These conclusions were largely vindicated when numerous fragments of 1 Enoch were found among the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. There have been two major English translations of 1 Enoch, the 1913 translation of R. H. Charles and the 1983 translation by E. Isaac. [ref. A.12] All of the quotations that follow come from the newer translation.
The importance of 1 Enoch is poorly appreciated outside the scholarly community. Comparison of its text with New Testament books reveals that many Enochian doctrines were taken over by early Christians. E. Isaac writes:
There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines concerning the nature of the Messiah, the Son of Man, the messianic kingdom, demonology, the future, resurrection, final judgment, the whole eschatological theater, and symbolism. No wonder, therefore, that the book was highly regarded by many of the apostolic and Church Fathers. [ref. A.13]

The cosmos as described in the book of Enoch.

First Enoch influenced Matthew, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and several other New Testament books. The punishment of the fallen angels described in 2 Peter seems to come directly from 1 Enoch, as does much of the imagery (or even wording) in Revelation. The Epistle of Jude contains the most dramatic evidence of its influence when it castigates “enemies of religion” as follows:
It was to them that Enoch, the seventh in descent from Adam, directed his prophecy when he said: “I saw the Lord come with his myriads of angels, to bring all men to judgment and to convict all the godless of all the godless deeds they had committed, and of all the defiant words which godless sinners had spoken against him (Jude 14–15).”
The inner quote, 1 Enoch 1:9, is found in the original Hebrew on a recently-published Qumran fragment. [ref. A.14] By attributing prophecy to Enoch, Jude confers inspired status upon the book.
First Enoch is important for another reason. Unlike the canonical books of the Bible, which (in my view) were never meant to teach science, sections of 1 Enoch were intended to describe the natural world. The narrator sometimes sounds like a 2nd century B.C. Carl Sagan explaining the heavens and earth to the admiring masses. The Enochian cosmology is precisely the flat-earth cosmology previously derived from the canonical books.

The Ends of the Earth

The angel Uriel guided Enoch in most of his travels. They made several trips to the ends of the earth, where the dome of heaven came down to the surface. For instance, Enoch says
I went to the extreme ends of the earth and saw there huge beasts, each different from the other and different birds (also) differing from one another in appearance, beauty, and voice. And to the east of those beasts, I saw the ultimate ends of the earth which rests on the heaven. And the gates of heaven were open, and I saw how the stars of heaven come out … (1 Enoch 33:1–2).
(The sharp-eyed reader will note what I suspect is an editing error in the Isaac translation. The earth resting on the heaven makes no sense. R. H. Charles has “whereon the heaven rests.”)
Again, Enoch says, “I went in the direction of the north, to the extreme ends of the earth, and there at the extreme end of the whole world I saw a great and glorious seat. There (also) I saw three open gates of heaven; when it blows cold, hail, frost, snow, dew, and rain, through each one of the (gates) the winds proceed in the northwesterly direction” (1 Enoch 34:1–2). This accords well with Jeremiah 51:16 which says, “he brings up the mist from the ends of the earth, he opens rifts for the rain and brings the wind out of his storehouses.” In subsequent chapters, Enoch journeys “to the extreme ends of the earth” in the west, south, and east. In each place he saw three more “open gates of heaven.”
There were other things to be seen at the ends of the earth. Earlier, we deferred discussion of the King James version of Job 26:7, “He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, hangeth the earth upon nothing.” On several occasions when Enoch and the angel are out beyond the dome of heaven, Enoch comments that there is nothing above or below. For instance, “And I came to an empty place. And I saw (there) neither a heaven above nor an earth below, but a chaotic and terrible place” (1 Enoch 21:1–2). Could this be the kind of nothingness referred to in Job?
An angel also showed Enoch the storerooms of the winds (18:1) and the cornerstone of the earth (18:2).

The Sun and Moon

And what of the sun and moon? Psalm 19:4–6 (quoted earlier) suggests that the sun holes up at the ends of the earth until it is time to rise. Enoch expands upon this idea. In 1 Enoch 41:5, he “saw the storerooms of the sun and the moon, from what place they go out and to which place they return …”. Further, “they keep faith one with another: in accordance with an oath they set and they rise.”
Enoch discusses the solar and lunar motions at length, explaining why the apparent azimuths of their rising and setting vary with the season. The explanation, found in the section called “The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries,” begins thus:
This is the first commandment of the luminaries: The sun is a luminary whose egress is an opening of heaven, which is (located) in the direction of the east, and whose ingress is (another) opening of heaven, (located) in the west. I saw six openings through which the sun rises and six openings through which it sets. The moon also rises and sets through the same openings, and they are guided by the stars; together with those whom they lead, they are six in the east and six in the west heaven. All of them (are arranged) one after another in a constant order. There are many windows (both) to the right and the left of these openings. First there goes out the great light whose name is the sun; its roundness is like the roundness of the sky; and it is totally filled with light and heat. The chariot in which it ascends is (driven by) the blowing wind. The sun sets in the sky (in the west) and returns by the northeast in order to go to the east; it is guided so that it shall reach the eastern gate and shine in the face of the sky (1 Enoch 72:2–5).
The openings in the vault of heaven in the east and west are matched to the seasons. On the longest day of the year, the sun rises and sets through the northernmost pair. On the shortest day, it rises and sets through the southernmost pair. The return routes of the sun and moon are outside the dome. Perhaps they rest in their “storerooms” during their time off.

The Stars

Like the Bible, 1 Enoch typically depicts stars as living, anthropomorphic beings. The Sons of the Gods are also dealt with in 1 Enoch, and they are associated with stars. This is consistent with Job 38:7, which says that when the earth’s cornerstone was laid “the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted aloud.”
As mentioned earlier, Matthew 24:29 and Revelation 6:13 deal with stars that fall to earth. The image comes from Enoch, but Matthew and John omit some details. In 1 Enoch 88:1, a star that fell from the sky is seized, bound hand and foot, and thrown into an abyss. A few verses later, other stars “whose sɛҳuąƖ organs were like the organs of horses” are likewise bound hand and foot and cast “into the pits of the earth” (1 Enoch 88:3).
Most stars just go through their motions night after night. Some stars never set, and Enoch was shown their chariots (1 Enoch 75:8). Stars that do rise and set do so through openings in dome, just like the sun and moon. God, according to 1 Enoch, runs a tight universe, and stars that do not rise on time are thrown into the celestial slammer. Showing Enoch a hellish scene, the angel Uriel explains:
This place is the (ultimate) end of heaven and earth: it is the prison house for the stars and the powers of heaven. And the stars which roll over upon the fire, they are the ones which have transgressed the commandments of God from the beginning of their rising because they did not arrive punctually (1 Enoch 18:14–15).
Enoch was not told the sentence for tardy rising, but Uriel later shows him other stars “which have transgressed the commandments of the Lord,” for which they were doing ten million years of hard time (1 Enoch 21:6). Enoch also was shown an even more terrible place, a fiery prison house where fallen angels were detained forever (1 Enoch 21:10).
1 Enoch deserves study for its cosmology, but there is much more of interest. It profoundly influenced Christian eschatology, and it is necessary reading for anyone trying to understand Hebrew religious thought at the dawn of the Christian era.

Conclusion

From their geographical and historical context, one would expect the ancient Hebrews to have a flat-earth cosmology. Indeed, from the very beginning, ultra-orthodox Christians have been flat-earthers, arguing that to believe otherwise is to deny the literal truth of the Bible. The flat-earth implications of the Bible were rediscovered and popularized by English-speaking Christians in the mid-19th century. Liberal scriptural scholars later derived the same view. Thus, students with remarkably disparate points of view independently concluded that the ancient Hebrews had a flat-earth cosmology, often deriving this view from scripture alone. Their conclusions were dramatically confirmed by the rediscovery of 1 Enoch.

E-books

St Giles · « **Reply #5 on:** July 01, 2025, 12:37:04 PM »

Quote from: Matthew on June 29, 2025, 02:05:00 PM

Every piece of evidence from your senses suggests the earth is flat and stationary.

...

Why would God go *out of His way* to use copious amounts of His almighty power -- just go deceive us all and make the earth appear both flat and stationary when it is neither?

The first statement is false and partially subjective.

As to the second, how can God's thoughts and ways be as far above ours as the heavens are above the earth if we so easily understand everything and see right through all illusions? If there were no mysteries, and we could easily arrive at all knowledge by ourselves, we'd be nearly equal to God, and that may cause some to have a lesser opinion of Him.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #6 on:** July 01, 2025, 12:43:47 PM »

I just saw this posted.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #7 on:** July 01, 2025, 12:55:21 PM »

Quote from: St Giles on July 01, 2025, 12:37:04 PM

The first statement is false and partially subjective.

Hardly. So you're telling me that you feel the motion of the earth and can tell that it's moving at hundreds of miles per hour? ... with the earth hurtling through space at tens of thousands of miles per hour, Polaris has sat there for centuries without budging an inch. Neil de Grasse Tyson stated that at about 120,000 feet above the earth everything still seems flat, that you can't see curvature. Nor does the horizon line drop as your altitude increases. Numerous government flight and missile dynamics manuals assume a flat non-rotating earth. Oh, and then there was Airy's experiment, which proved that the earth does not move ... as did the Michelson-Morley experiment. There are countless examples of being able to "see too far", examples of radio waves going thounsands of miles ... where evidently God created the ionosphere to just give us the false impression that we live on a flat plane.

Name one thing that you observe in your daily life that suggests that the earth is moving at hundreds of miles per hour (rotation) and thousands of miles per hour (revolution, around sun) and tens of thousands though space. And it's 100% certain that we'd feel the changes in the earth's rotation ... since the rotation is multidirectional and therefore changes. Sometimes we're rotating in the same direction as the revolution of the earth, and at other times we're rotating in the opposite direction, resulting in change of direction and acceleration across different vectors. Many people would require dramamine just to live on earth.

There's maybe ONE thing you could try pointing to, the phenomenon of sunset, but even there you're just reading your own prior belief that we're on a ball into the phenomenon. If I didn't have prior belief in a globe, I'd just think that it's getting farther and farther away until I can't see it anymore and/or it gets blocked by clouds, mountains, atmosphere, etc.

So why did nearly all ancient cultures conclude that the earth is flat and motionless ... unless Matthew's statement is true (and yours false) that everything about our senses indicates flat stationary earth. Those cultures were far more attuned to nature and far more observant of natural phenomena than we are ... and they weren't idiots. In fact, the only likely explanation for how so many cultures developed a similar cosmology is that they received the knowledge handed down ultimately from Adam, who had perfect knowledge of God's creation ... not unlike how a unanimous consensus of the Curch Fathers can established handed-down (aka revealed) doctrine.

cassini · « **Reply #8 on:** July 02, 2025, 06:23:28 AM »

‘Saint Hippolytus (170-235AD) [a martyred Christian theologian], ridiculed the doctrine of infinitely many suns, moons and worlds, some inhabited.’ ‘Around 260CE Pope Dionysius of Alexandria wrote a tract against the Epicureans mainly to criticize their theory that all things were composed of atoms without divine Providence.’ Pope Dionysus (259-268AD) wrote a booklet directed against the theory that atoms clash and combine by chance ‘and thus gradually form this world and all objects in it; and more, that they construct infinite worlds.’ Many Church Fathers condemned the claim that there are many worlds like ours. ‘In 384CE’ Philaster, Bishop of Brescia condemned the ‘heresy that says worlds are infinite and innumerable…whereas Scripture teaches us that it is one.’ In 402 St Jerome complained that one of the most heretical claims of all was that ‘worlds are innumerable. St. Augustine even composed a list of 88 such heresies; the 77th was innumerable worlds.’
In 1588, Bruno wrote the following in his fifth dialogue of On the Cause, Principle, and Unity:

‘I can imagine an infinite number of worlds like the Earth, with Garden of Eden on each one. In all these gardens of Eden, half the [alien] Adams and Eves will not eat the fruit of knowledge, but half will. But half of infinity is infinity, so an infinite number of worlds will fall from grace and there will be an infinite number of crucifixions.’

‘In 1595, theologians of the Inquisition began to inspect Bruno’s books to find propositions to censure. They only had some of his books, but by late 1596 the censures were ready…. The list survives in “The Summary of the Trial” discovered by Angelo Mercati in 1940. It consists of ten propositions.’

These propositions included (1) the generation of things and the eternity of the world, (2) the nature of God is finite if in fact it does not produce infinity, (3) the mode of creation of the human soul, (4) in this world nothing is generated or corrupted in substance, (5) the motion of the Earth and immobility of the firmament, (6) the stars are Angels, animated rational bodies, (7) the Earth is alive, not only with a sensitive soul, but also rational, similar to what animates animals etc., (8) that the intelligent soul does not form (animate) the body, (9) he denies the individuals’ true being what they are, is but vanity, (10) many worlds, many suns, necessarily containing similar things in kind and in species as in this world, and even men.’-- A. Martinez: Pythagoras or Christ, pp.160-1.

‘The Fifth Ecuмenical Council [553AD] stated: “If anyone said that the heaven, the sun, the moon, the stars and the waters that are above the heavens, are animated,” then that person is a heretic. It is rooted in heresies. First, it was a consequence of his belief that the stars (heavenly bodies) are worlds. Since the Earth is one such star [planet], and all the stars move, then the Earth moves too. Second, it’s based on the idea that the Earth is a living being, a kind of animal, which has a soul and therefore it moves. In 1277, this kind of belief had been indirectly denounced as a heresy... by Bishop Etienne Tempier...’ But more importantly, Bruno believed that the Earth and the universe are animated by a universal soul, the anima mundi. This was a heresy if the accused claimed that the soul of the world is the Holy Spirit, and Bruno did tell the Inquisition exactly that in Venice and in Rome.’---Prof. Martinez: Pythagoras or Christ, Saltshadow Castle, Cambridge, Mass, 2022.

The Church never once condemned the belief that the Earth Is a globe.

On now to Pope Leo XIV:

ADDRESS OF THE HOLY FATHER

TO THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE SUMMER SCHOOL OF ASTROPHYSICS
PROMOTED BY THE VATICAN OBSERVATORY
Consistory Hall
Monday, 16 June 2025

Good morning, and welcome!

I am pleased to have this opportunity to greet all of you, students and scholars from various part of the world who are taking part in the Vatican Observatory Summer School. I offer you my prayerful good wishes that this experience of living and studying together will not only be academically and personally enriching, but also help to develop friendships and forms of collaboration that can only contribute to the progress of science in the service of our one human family.
This year’s Summer School - I am told - is devoted to the theme, Exploring the Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope. Surely, this must be an exciting time to be an astronomer! Thanks to that truly remarkable instrument, for the first time we are able to peer deeply into the atmosphere of exoplanets where life may be developing and study the nebulae where planetary systems themselves are forming. With Webb, we can even trace the ancient light of distant galaxies, which speaks of the very beginning of our universe.

A well, since 1820 when Pope Pius VII decreed the Bible really meant a fixed-sun not a moving-sun, all these old heresies were forgotten

cassini · « **Reply #9 on:** July 02, 2025, 07:10:35 AM »

Quote from: IndultCat on June 29, 2025, 02:59:47 PM

Pius XII's 1943 encyclical "Divino Afflante Spiritu" is the first modernist encyclical. It is beloved so much by the Novus Ordo Church that they cite it in the front of every one of their Bibles (e.g. the dreadful New American Bible).

"Divino Afflante Spiritu" contradicts Pope Benedict XV's 1920 encyclical "Spiritus Paraclitus" which is a more liberal (albeit not modernist) version of Pope Leo XIII's 1893 encyclial "Providentissimus Deus".

If you read all of the 3 above-mentioned encyclicals in order of their publications, you will easily see the "slow and gradual" liberalism creeping into Catholic Biblical Studies/Biblical Interpretation.

However, it isn't until Pius XII's above 1943 encyclical that "modernism" is completely advocated/recommended when it comes to Biblical studies/interpretation.

'Pius XII's 1943 encyclical "Divino Afflante Spiritu" is the first modernist encyclical.' No its not IndultCat, it was in fact Pope Leo XIII's Providentissimus Deus. In it he writes:

‘18: To understand how just is the rule here formulated we must remember, first, that the sacred writers, or to speak more accurately, the Holy Ghost “Who spoke by them, did not intend to teach men these things (that is to say, the essential nature of the things of the visible universe), things in no way profitable unto salvation” (St Augustine). Hence, they did not seek to penetrate the secrets of nature, but rather described and dealt with things in more or less figurative language, or in terms which were commonly used at the time, and which in many instances are in daily use at this day, even by the most eminent men of science. Ordinary speech primarily and properly describes what comes under the senses; and somewhat in the same way the sacred writers, as the Angelic Doctor also reminds us, “went by what sensibly appeared,” or put down what God, speaking to men, signified, in the way men could understand and were accustomed to.’--- Providentissimus Deus.

Here the Pope makes Galileo's way to heretical meanings of Scripture 'Catholic teaching.'

‘Since Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Providentissimus Deus (1893), Catholic exegetes have abandoned the idea that the Bible is meant to teach science, adding this principle to the age-old Catholic principle that the Bible must be reconciled with science, at least with settled science. Pope Leo explicitly states that Sacred Scripture speaks in a popular language that describes physical things as they appear to the senses, and so does not describe them with scientific exactitude. The Fathers of the Church were mistaken in some of their opinions about questions of science. Catholics are only obliged to follow the opinion of the Fathers when they were unanimous on questions of faith and morals, where they did not err, and not on questions of science, where they sometimes erred.’--- Fr Paul Robinson.

Is that a fact now Fr Paul? Didn't Bellarmine and Pope Paul V decree the moving-sun was a matter of faith because Scripture said it was. As for matters of nature, doesn't Scripture recorded the ‘vapours’ coming from the sun, a phenomenon not discovered until the 20th century. Then there is the shape of the Earth (Is.40:21-22), its floodwater-caused geology, its water cycle (Eccles.1:7), its fixity of kinds, diversity of species, assessments of nutrition, methods of generation, its sanitation laws (Deut. 23:12-14), its rules for quarantining (Lev.13:1-5) and other references:

The second encyclical on the correct way to read Scripture was Pope Benedict XV’s Spiritus Paraclitus who also had to follow Pope Pius VII's decree. He wrote:

‘Those, too, who hold that the historical portions of Scripture do not rest on the absolute truth of the facts but merely upon what they are pleased to term their relative truth, namely, what people then commonly thought, are - no less than are the aforementioned critics -- out of harmony with the Church’s teaching, which is endorsed by the testimony of Jerome and other Fathers. Yet they are not afraid to deduce such views from the words of Leo XIII on the ground that he allowed that the principles he had laid down touching the things of nature could be applied to historical things as well. Hence, they maintain that precisely as the sacred writers spoke of physical things according to appearance, so, too, while ignorant of the facts, they narrated them in accordance with general opinion or even on baseless evidence; neither do they tell us the sources whence they derived their knowledge, nor do they make other peoples’ narrative their own. Such views are clearly false, and constitute a calumny on our predecessor. After all, what analogy is there between physics and history? For whereas physics is concerned with “sensible appearances” and must consequently square with phenomena, history on the contrary, must square with the facts, since history is the written account of events as they actually occurred. If we were to accept such views, how could we maintain the truth insisted on throughout Leo XIII’s Encyclical -- viz. that the sacred narrative is absolutely free from error?’

Here are a few examples of the fact that Pope Leo XIII had to obey the modernist Scriptural U-turn of Pope Pious VII and every other pope after that.

‘Anyone who will compare this [Galileo’s] wonderful letter with the encyclical Providentissimus Deus of Pope Leo XIII on the study of Holy Scripture will see how near in many places Galileo came to the very words of the Holy Father.’---Fr James Brodrick, SJ: The life of Cardinal Bellarmine, Burns Oats, 1928, p.351.

‘A century ago (1893), Pope Leo XIII echoed this [Galileo’s] advice in his encyclical Providentissimus Deus.’--- Pope John Paul II: Address to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences when presenting the findings of the 1981-1992 Galileo Commission.

‘Galileo’s principle has apparently become the official hermeneutic criterion of the Catholic Church. It is alluded to in the Encyclical Providentissimus Deus by Pope Leo XIII (1893), referred to in Guadium et Spes of the Vatican Council II (1965).’---The Cambridge Companion to Galileo, 1998, p.367

‘The Society of Saint Pius X holds no such position [Biblical geocentrism]. The Church’s magisterium teaches that Catholics should not use Sacred Scripture to assert explanations about natural science, but may in good conscience hold to any particular cosmic theory. Providentissimus Deus also states that Scripture does not give scientific explanations and many of its texts use “figurative language” or expressions “commonly used at the time”, still used today “even by the most eminent men of science” (like the word “sunrise”)’--- SSPX press release, 30/8/2011.

‘When Pope Leo XIII wrote on the importance of science and reason, he essentially embraced the philosophical principles put forth by Galileo, and many statements by Popes and the Church over the years have expressed admiration for Galileo. For example, Galileo was specifically singled out for praise by Pope Pius XII in his address to the International Astronomical Union in 1952.’---Vatican Observatory website 2013.

Matthew · « **Reply #10 on:** July 02, 2025, 12:02:38 PM »

Quote from: Ladislaus on July 01, 2025, 12:55:21 PM

So why did nearly all ancient cultures conclude that the earth is flat and motionless ... unless Matthew's statement is true (and yours false) that everything about our senses indicates flat stationary earth. Those cultures were far more attuned to nature and far more observant of natural phenomena than we are ... and they weren't idiots. In fact, the only likely explanation for how so many cultures developed a similar cosmology is that they received the knowledge handed down ultimately from Adam, who had perfect knowledge of God's creation ... not unlike how a unanimous consensus of the Curch Fathers can established handed-down (aka revealed) doctrine.

That's an important point, that is easily overlooked: past cultures weren't idiots.

Oh, but "muh iPhone"

Yes, we have some impressive technology, but A) that technology came from TRUE SCIENCE and not from belief in outer space, aliens, heliocentrism, evolution, the Big Bang, or any other nonsense. And B) aside from those who build/understand said technology, the average person USING it (i.e., the average iPhone user, tiktok personality, onlyfans model) is far BELOW the average person of centuries past, in terms of what they can do, what they understand, how clearly they think, etc.

When you have a materialist, evolutionist mindset, you believe mankind is getting better and better, ever onward and upward. And that whatever past cultures believed or did was inherently inferior, because they were less intelligent and less evolved. But the opposite is the case. We are DE-volving, if anything. We are actually rushing headlong into a dystopian future like Wall-E or Idiocracy.

Believing past cultures were ignorant/stupid is halfway to full atheism and believing in godless, materialist "molecules to man" macro-evolution. It's also extremely anti-Catholic. The middle ages were the highest point of the Age of Faith.
But you do you, bro.

Matthew · « **Reply #11 on:** July 02, 2025, 12:10:21 PM »

I also want to clarify my point:

I'm not saying there shouldn't be any MYSTERY in God's creation. There are matters that are above us. Mystery is one thing. For example, even in Flat Earth we don't know exactly what the sun is made of, how it works, etc. Mystery is healthy and good, I agree. God never promised us full and complete knowledge of the physical world.

But does God ever go out of His way to trick us, lie to us, force us into a false conclusion? No.

Knowing if the ground is moving or not -- that's not "above us". That's something human beings can grasp. And if everything in the physical world says "the earth isn't moving", but God conspired to make the opposite be true -- why would He do that?
And seeing things with our eyes -- God gave us eyes, the power of sight. The power of vision is NOT "above us" as human beings. Our eyes should not deceive us about something so fundamental and basic, something we, as imperfect humans, should be able to grasp correctly.

There are things, like "perspective", that man can achieve COMPLETE understanding over, completely wrap our brains around. And perspective proves the earth is flat.

Why would God create A, B, C, D, E, and F, including several miracles, just so that we'd have the wrong impression (=be deceived) about the fundamental nature and shape of the earth?

God doesn't deceive for fun. In fact, I'd go so far as to say God has not and does not EVER deceive anyone.

cassini · « **Reply #12 on:** July 02, 2025, 01:16:25 PM »

Why is it among some Catholics on CIF, and indeed on every other Catholic forum that when you explain Modernism began with the 1820 U-turn by Pope Pius VII they immediately reject this truth, as the thumbs downer gave my post above? The object of a forum is to state your opinion why you disagree. Is the thumbs down because the truth should be kept a secret so that the pre-Vatican II popes can be hidden from any such evidence of going along with the first step to Modernism, the 'Synthesis of all Heresies' that caused the loss of millions of souls? What is more important for Catholicism today, to restore the truth or to carry on eliminating the supernatural and promoting a natural version of the dogma of Creation? Having studied the history of Modernism as it gets worse and worse from the mouths of popes, some even considered saints, I can see how one could question some teachings of the Catholic Church itself. Pope Pius VII began the rot that got worse and worse with changes to Scripture brought about by scientific illusions. This necessitated two encyclicals having to be written to try to stop the rot but because they both promoted the exegesis and hermeneutics of Galileo as Catholic teaching they made things worse. Imagine Vatican II in its Gaudium et spes #36 actually inferred all the Fathers and churchmen of Trent were wrong in their meaning of Scripture and caused great harm to the Church. Pius VII's promotion of heliocentrism based on the lies of a Fr Olivieri caused all the early Church condemnations against natural evolution, heliocentrism and aliens to be hidden away in a Catholic heresy waste basket, so that popes from Pius XII at least could try to make these unknown heresies look Catholic. Gone are all homilies on Creation as no pope now believes in a six-day Creation anymore. After that Ratzinger said Original Sin was absurd, and now the Vatican are looking for aliens, one of the heresies Bruno was burned for promoting.

Author Topic: God didn't deceive us (Read 555 times)

Matthew

God didn't deceive us

Fiorenza

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IndultCat

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Pax Vobis

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Matthew

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St Giles

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Ladislaus

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Ladislaus

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cassini

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cassini

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Matthew

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Matthew

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cassini

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