Is the Earth Flat?

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

"It's a big club and you aint in it".
- George Carlin

 

[The Liturgist]

Early Church Writers / Saint Basil The Great of Caesarea / Saint Athanasius of Alexandria > some random person on the internet's opinion


• Saint Basil The Great of Caesarea : "There are inquirers into nature who with a great display of words give reasons for the immobility of the earth…It is not, they go on, without reason or by chance that The Earth Occupies The Center Of The Universe…Do not then be surprised that the world never falls:
It Occupies The Center Of The Universe, Its Natural Place. By necessity it is obliged to remain in its place, unless a movement contrary to nature should displace it."
(Nine Homilies on the Hexameron, 10)


• Saint Basil The Great of Caesarea : "In the midst of the covering and veil, where the priests were allowed to enter, was situated the altar of incense,
the symbol of The Earth placed in The Middle of this universe; and from it came the fumes of incense."
(The Mystic Meaning of the Tabernacle, Bk V, Ch VI; Clement of Rome, Stromata, Bk V)

• Saint Athanasius of Alexandria: "But The Earth is not supported upon itself, but is set upon the realm of the waters, while this again is kept in its place, being bound fast At The Center Of The Universe."
(Against the Heathen, Book I, Part I)

As an Orthodox Christian, seeing St. Basil and St. Athanasius quoted in a misleading and out of context manner is infuriating, particularly when such a quote is directed towards an atheist.

So I feel obliged to point out a few things:

Orthodox doctrine certainly regards the Earth as the spiritual center of the Universe from an anthropocentric perspective, because that is where humanity is and where God willed us to begin. However, Orthodox doctrine is equally compatible with the scientific fact that the center of the Universe is literally everywhere, which can be discerned from the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation. Eastern Orthodox prayers address God “O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things, Treasury of Blessings and Giver of Life, come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity and save our souls, O Good One.”

Indeed, Eastern Orthodox doctrine in particular is panentheist (not pantheist, but panentheist, meaning that God is present everywhere in creation and is present in everything, albeit He is also distinct from creation, as opposed to the pantheist theology we find in religions such as Hinduism, in which everything is worshipped as God is everything).

What is more, I have never met an Orthodox flat Earther and the movement is viewed with disdain among Orthodox Christians. At the same time, however, there was an interesting article on ancientfaith.org to the extent that in a spiritual, metaphorical way the world could be thought of as flat, even as it is physically quite spherical. And indeed, denying the spherical physicality of the Earth would be sinful in Eastern Orthodoxy in that sin is regarded as missing the mark (the literal meaning of hamartia). Jesus Christ is regarded as Truth and Reason incarnate, and to believe something which is false and unreasonable is therefore sinful. The confusion this may cause to someone lacking an Orthodox phronema (literally, a Greek word meaning forehead, but like so many Greek words meaning formation in the Christian faith) stems from a Western ignorance of the Alexandrian method of scriptural exegesis, in which the Old Testament is interpreted as Christ interpreted it for the Disciples in Luke 24, before His Ascension, revealing to them how the books of the Law and the Prophets spoke of Him. Alexandrian interpretation is based on Christological, typological, metaphorical hermeneutics, and the Orthodox exegesis of Scripture as reflected in the writings of the Fathers, the Ecumenical Councils and the Divine Liturgy, in both the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox traditions, relies on both the Alexandrian exegetical approach and the literal-historical hermeneutics of the rival catechtical school of Antioch.

Thus, the writings of St. Basil and St. Athanasius are to be interpreted as discussing spiritual realities, just as Orthodox iconography consciously rejects the realism of Classical Greco-Roman artwork and Renaissance Western Christian artwork in favor of using an abstract, two dimensional space to explore spiritual realities. Thus the icon seeks to depict the spiritual and noetic reality of the subject matter as opposed to its physical reality and physicality. We have no definite knowledge of the physical appearance of our Lord, only an approximate knowledge of what Jews of the Second Temple era looked like based on anthropology and genetics, but we do have a knowledge of His spiritual appearance through the experience of the Church.

This takes us to my final point, and that is that since a belief that the world is flat is not only not required for salvation, by any Christian denomination that I am aware of (indeed I have never personally encountered anyone who argued that a rejection of Evolution and a belief in the specific timeline proposed by Protestant adherents of Young Earth Creationism is required for salvation), it is absurd to make such an argument to an atheist, for indeed many people become atheists because of the false narrative pushed by some elements in the media, but thankfully not all (the BBC, for example, thanks to a requirement akin to the Fairness Doctrine the FCC once enforced, has people who make both arguments, so someone watching BBC Two in 2009 might see Torchwood whose writers clearly did not believe Christianity was compatible with science, or in any respect desirable, and then see the excellent documentary series Extreme Pilgrim or Around the World in Eighty Faiths with the Anglican vicar Fr. Peter Owen-Jones, who clearly and thankfully did take the view that faith and science are compatible.

It is a matter of Scriptural doctrine that Jesus Christ is the Logos, literally the Truth and Reason, and therefore in worshipping Him as our Lord, God and Savior, we are worshipping Truth and Reason. Thus St. Paul commands us to seek all that is True, and in the case of the physical geometry of the planet Earth the spherical nature of it has been proven sofar as to be rationally incontrovertible.

Interestingly however there are many Muslims who believe in a Flat Earth, because while Christ never described the Earth as such, Muhammed taught that the world is flat, that the horizon effect whereby ships appear to sink on the horizon due to the curvature of the Earth was actually an optical illusion, and furthermore, that Alexander the Great, who Muhammed counted as a prophet (called Dhuul al-Khain if I recall correctly) did travel to a pool in the far West where at night the Sun would rest before somehow travelling imperceptibly back to its starting point in the East (underground I think, like the Ancient Egyptian belief in the Underground River, and their provision of Solar Boats for the use of the Pharoah to travel with the gods during the day before sailing back at night through the aforementioned river in the Pharoahnic tombs).

Of course most Muslims reject a belief in a flat Earth, but in the case of Islam such a rejection is not doctrinally warranted, whereas in all Christian denominations I am aware of, including some small and obscure denominations and some cults, such a rejection is at a minimum not an impediment to salvation.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Early Church Writers / Saint Basil The Great of Caesarea / Saint Athanasius of Alexandria > some random person on the internet's opinion

I really don't care about those ancient ignoramuses. You and I both live in a world where we send robotic space craft through the solar system. The information is available to us, even if it wasn't to them. So, yes, take my opinion above theirs, unlike them I know what I am talking about.

 

[JohnEmmett]

unlike them I know what I am talking about.

yet they had faith in god…

 

[Yttrium]

The true debate is not "flat earth"

The true debate is Geocentrism vs Heliocentrism :

Oooh, a geocentrist? Cool!

How do you deal with geosynchronous satellites?
(They orbit over the same spot on the Earth, so if the Earth is stationary, they would just fall down.)
Just wondering. I think it's an interesting thought problem.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

Oooh, a geocentrist? Cool!

How do you deal with geosynchronous satellites?
(They orbit over the same spot on the Earth, so if the Earth is stationary, they would just fall down.)
Just wondering. I think it's an interesting thought problem.

 

[Edwin Wright]

The true debate is not "flat earth"

The true debate is Geocentrism vs Heliocentrism :

Geocentric Early Church Writer Quotes

(Please Be Kind even if you don't agree so the thread stays open) • Ambrose: Worthy surely was he to stand forth as a man who might stay the course of the river, and who might say: “Sun, stand still,” and delay the night and lengthen the day, as though to witness his victory. Why? a blessing...

www.christianforums.com

Yes, the essential debate is geocentrism vs. heliocentrism, the shape of the earth being a subsumption of the cosmogony in question; a heliocentric cosmogony subsumes a spherical (actually spheroidal) earth whereas a geocentric cosmogony subsumes a planar or flat earth for many reasons, some of which I have detailed in the following pages from my site: Geocentrism, Heliocentrism in the Early Modern Period, Science vs. Scientism, and SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS’ COMMENT ON A STATIONARY EARTH BEING NECESSARILY PLANAR.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Yes, the essential debate is geocentrism vs. heliocentrism, the shape of the earth being a subsumption of the cosmogony in question; a heliocentric cosmogony subsumes a spherical (actually spheroidal) earth whereas a geocentric cosmogony subsumes a planar or flat earth for many reasons, some of which I have detailed in the following pages from my site: Geocentrism, Heliocentrism in the Early Modern Period, Science vs. Scientism, and SAINT THOMAS AQUINAS’ COMMENT ON A STATIONARY EARTH BEING NECESSARILY PLANAR.

The volume of wrong produced does not make right.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

How would a partial sun be possible if the Earth were flat?

 

[d taylor]

I really don't care about those ancient ignoramuses. You and I both live in a world where we send robotic space craft through the solar system. The information is available to us, even if it wasn't to them. So, yes, take my opinion above theirs, unlike them I know what I am talking about.

So what is your proof that these craft are actually going to where you say they are. Have you actually been on one.

 

[atpollard]

How do you deal with geosynchronous satellites?
(They orbit over the same spot on the Earth, so if the Earth is stationary, they would just fall down.)
Just wondering. I think it's an interesting thought problem.

The EARTH would need to still rotate on its axis (or the universe orbits the Earth in 24 hours ... an improbable velocity for distant galaxies or even distant planets and stars). So the Earth's rotation and Geostationary Satellites are in sync. It is the Larger Orbits that are more complex geometries.

[I am not a Geocentrist ... but it WAS an interesting thought problem.]

 

[atpollard]

So what is your proof that these craft are actually going to where you say they are. Have you actually been on one.

So all the people who can answer "yes" (like Niel Armstrong and Alan Shepherd) are "liars" and all the people that must answer "no" ... they have no proof! Quite a little racket you set up for yourself. Mind if I borrow that same DOUBLE STANDARD?

Have you, personally, stood at the edge of the world and climbed down into space?​

[YES]: Then "You are part of a conspiracy to spread lies."
[NO]: Then "You have no proof that the Earth is flat."

 

[d taylor]

So all the people who can answer "yes" (like Niel Armstrong and Alan Shepherd) are "liars" and all the people that must answer "no" ... they have no proof! Quite a little racket you set up for yourself. Mind if I borrow that same DOUBLE STANDARD?

Have you, personally, stood at the edge of the world and climbed down into space?​

[YES]: Then "You are part of a conspiracy to spread lies."
[NO]: Then "You have no proof that the Earth is flat."

So you and the other person and many others have faith in man and science. I have faith in God's given testimony in The Bible.

So we will see who is correct eventually.

 

[Edwin Wright]

So all the people who can answer "yes" (like Niel Armstrong and Alan Shepherd) are "liars" and all the people that must answer "no" ... they have no proof! Quite a little racket you set up for yourself. Mind if I borrow that same DOUBLE STANDARD?

Have you, personally, stood at the edge of the world and climbed down into space?​

[YES]: Then "You are part of a conspiracy to spread lies."
[NO]: Then "You have no proof that the Earth is flat."

The [NO] answer does not logically follow. See THE ANTARCTIC TREATY: VEILING REALITY and Heliocentrism Refuted: Experimental Proof of a Stationary Earth.

 

[atpollard]

The [NO] answer does not logically follow. See THE ANTARCTIC TREATY: VEILING REALITY and Heliocentrism Refuted: Experimental Proof of a Stationary Earth.

What is your opinion of the "NO" in post #1190?

I objected to the 'un-Christian' DOUBLE STANDARD more than cared one iota about a Flat Earth Theory.

 

[d taylor]

-​

Man's way always lead to the for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.

The broad way, a good description how the world worship's at the feet of science. Science/man/government says it so we believe it without question

 

[Lost4words]

So you and the other person and many others have faith in man and science. I have faith in God's given testimony in The Bible.

So we will see who is correct eventually.

Yet you use the products of science every day in your life!!

 

[JohnEmmett]

Yet you use the products of science every day in your life!!

You live on God’s Earth every day of your life


… it’s not flat

 

[atpollard]

Man's way always lead to the for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.

The broad way, a good description how the world worship's at the feet of science. Science/man/government says it so we believe it without question

Not "without question", but certainly since Magellan proved it by actually circumnavigating the globe, and then planes flew around the globe, and then satellites orbited the globe, and then men in spacecraft orbited the globe.

It was lack of evidence that caused most to reject the shell of a turtle on the back of 4 elephants model of the Earth ... not a lack of Faith.

 

[Jude1:3Contendforthefaith]

So all the people who can answer "yes" (like Niel Armstrong and Alan Shepherd) are "liars" and all the people that must answer "no" ... they have no proof! Quite a little racket you set up for yourself. Mind if I borrow that same DOUBLE STANDARD?

Have you, personally, stood at the edge of the world and climbed down into space?​

[YES]: Then "You are part of a conspiracy to spread lies."
[NO]: Then "You have no proof that the Earth is flat."

"It's a big club, and you ain't in it"
- George Carlin