the myth of flat earth debunked again

Ophiolite said:

It has always struck me as weird. Metaphor is at the heart of language. To my knowledge this has been so for millenia. We tell tales using all kinds of rhetorical devices and images and comparisons and analogies, in order to tell a greater truth and yet all of the power and richness and diversity is discarded and denied in place of a dry, empty literal desert. How sad.

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I am just awakening to "Communication" and Rhetorical studies. All the way back to Romans and Greeks. So much.

It's like arguing over whether a turtle really raced a hare and missing the point.

prodromos said:

Excuse me? What do you mean by "your version of Christianity" in reference to @Aussie Pete who identifies as Non Denom?

Also, you are responding to the beginning of a thread that is now over 1000 posts. You are a bit late to the party and I doubt you've taken the time to read all the responses. Do you honestly think you are bringing something new to the discussion?

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I apologise for taking so long to respond to the thread; I was uncertain about the issues under discussion, and whether I could contribute anything useful. However, I now think that I can say something new.

As I see it, this is an epistemic matter. Aussie Pete began by citing the observations by Colonel Williams (a committed Christian) in support of the hypothesis that the Earth is spherical. This implies that Aussie Pete believes that valid scientific conclusions can be drawn from empirical evidence. However, Isaiah 11:3 says that Jews and Christians must not base conclusions on what they can see and hear, and the articles of faith of creationist organisations say that scientific evidence can never take precedence over the teaching of the Bible. In other threads, Aussie Pete himself has rejected the overwhelming evidence for evolution in favour of the Biblical teaching of a six-day creation, so he appears to have been inconsistent.

Later Aussie Pete (post 9) said that the Bible does not teach that the Earth is flat. He did not say what he would believe about the shape of the Earth if the Bible did teach that it was flat. D Taylor and contratodo (post 17) contradicted this, and contratodo cited Biblical verses in support of the hypotheses that the Earth is flat and the sky (or firmament) is a solid vault. If D Taylor and contratodo are correct and the Bible does teach that the Earth is flat, will Aussie Pete accept this Biblical teaching or will he continue to accept the empirical evidence presented by Colonel Williams?