Flat Earth Causing Issues

[walla299]

Only thing you can really do for them is point them to the Bible and pray. Only Jesus can change a heart. It might also help to point out that the Bible is about God's plan of salvation, not about whether the earth is flat or spherical. That kind of argument just seems to be a useless one to me, and I normally won't bother with it because in the larger picture does it really matter if earth is flat if you die without Christ?

 

[Scott Free]

14 hours ago, turtletwo said:

Flat Earth beliefs

Do you realize over half of Christians do not take the Creationist theories seriously. The Genesis creation stories tend to be seen as allegories and not first hand accounts.  

[Scott Free]

18 minutes ago, Sojourner414 said:

do not take Scripture seriously

HI Sojourner414, I hope you are doing well. What are you trying to say? The dragon in Revelation is real and some kind of Godzilla. Or, the after life is some kind of Grand Canyon we stand on either side of. Or in Babylon there once stood a colossal statue of a man. Or, demons are really the black birds we see in the park. Or, the ox should not be muzzled while threshing. Should I continue?

Edited September 22, 2018 by Scott Free

[Scott Free]

28 minutes ago, Sojourner414 said:

first hand accounts,

"And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know." 1 Corinthians 8:2

"Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!" I Corinthians

"Let no one deceive himself. If any of you thinks he is wise in this age, he should become a fool, so that he may become wise." 1 Corinthians 3:18

"Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly--as infants in Christ." 1 Corinthians 3:1

[Scott Free]

Sojourner414 my dear brother, my the loving kindness of God be yours.

[RockyMidnight]

10 hours ago, Scott Free said:

Do you realize over half of Christians do not take the Creationist theories seriously. The Genesis creation stories tend to be seen as allegories and not first hand accounts.  

Hi Scott Free! Where did you find that "over half of Christians do not take the Creationist theories seriously"? Not looking to argue, but I find it extremely hard to believe this. Was it just an exaggeration or do you have a resource that has surveyed Christians on this topic? Very interested to know.

Thank you Brother.

Cheers!!! 

[Retrobyter]

On 9/21/2018 at 3:01 PM, turtletwo said:

So what if somebody you care about deeply is getting mixed up by this via YouTube?  What do you do to help them? I'm very concerned. I tried discussing it calmly but things got heated.

Does anyone know how to discount their many scripture references they claim they base it on? (Not to mention the science stuff. I'm no help there as I never was any good with science.)

Shalom, turtletwo.

Mathematics is the key. The timing of the planets is not a new thing, but it should not have been set aside when the truth was discovered in the 1500s. The amount of time that Mercury takes to move back and forth in the heavens near the sun is less time than that of Venus' travels back and forth in proximity to the sun.

See, before they realized that these were orbits around the sun, they used the concept of "epicycles," defined thus:

Quote

In the Hipparchian and Ptolemaic systems of astronomy, the epicycle (from Ancient Greek: ἐπίκυκλος, literally upon the circle, meaning circle moving on another circle[1]) was a geometric model used to explain the variations in speed and direction of the apparent motion of the Moon, Sun, and planets. In particular it explained the apparent retrograde motion of the five planets known at the time. Secondarily, it also explained changes in the apparent distances of the planets from the Earth.

By using the maximum distances in the angles formed by the travels of the planets in relationship to the sun as well as the frequency of the cycles of the movements, the calculations could be formed to suggest that we were seeing circular paths of these planets around the sun from an oblique perspective, that is, from the edge of the circle, instead of the complex epicycle system. That was true at least for the "planets" (a word meaning "wanderers") called Mercury and Venus. 

The other three planets, called "Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn," had paths that circled the earth at various times, but always came back to the sun from our perspective. Their patterns had cycles in the years instead of days. These, too, were described by complex epicycles at first, but were explained in time to be nearly circular orbits revolving about the sun as the sun revolved about the earth. It was discovered by Copernicus that the earth could be described to be moving about the sun as easily as it is described to be the sun moving about the earth, and that placed our planet on a nearly circular orbit between the inner planets and the known outer planets. Thus, the heliocentric solar system was theorized. This heliocentric model described the movement of the planets much easier than all the complex epicycles once used for the geocentric model.

And, I haven't even mentioned retrograde motion or varying magnitudes of the planets as they changed positions among the backdrop of the stars. However, this gives one a beginning point for the investigation.

(See Rochester.edu's Coperincan9 page.)

As far as their Scripture verses are concerned, the Scriptures are NOT written either to support or to deny scientific theory or evidence. They are written from the perspective of human beings on the (sur)face of the earth. For all the interpretations of Genesis 1 and 2, the truth is that the account of Creation is about the formation of the biosphere of this planet and the inhabitants of this planet. If one will notice, the Days of Creation are arranged in this way:

Day 1 = Creation of light and darkness,
Day 2 = Creation of the atmosphere among the waters,
Day 3 = Creation of the land and vegetation for food,

Day 4 = Creation of the "inhabitants" of the light and darkness - the lights from the sun, moon, and stars
Day 5 = Creation of the inhabitants of the atmosphere and waters - the birds and the sea creatures
Day 6 = Creation of the inhabitants of the land - the cattle (ALL domesticated herds and flocks), the beasts of the field, and everything that creepeth upon the land. Ironically, I should have also included mankind.

Edited September 23, 2018 by Retrobyter
for an omission on Day 6

[Retrobyter]

Shalom, again, turtletwo.

I should also mention that I, as a lover of mathematics, find it fascinating that the ellipse (which is what an orbit truly is) can be explained by epicycles.

The formula for an ellipse that is wider than it is tall is ((x - h)^2) / (a^2) + ((y - k)^2) / (b^2) = 1.

(This was written in old "computerese," like for the computer languages BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, or C, so that the whole formula could be written on a single line. Simply solve for the variable for which you are looking, forcing all the other variables to be known values, and make it into an assignment formula to find unknown values. I also added spaces for clarity. Some computer languages would have rejected the spaces. The caret ["^"] means "raised to the power of"; thus, "^2" means "raised to the power of 2" or "raised to the second power" or "squared.")

The formula for an ellipse that is taller than it is wide is ((x - h)^2) / (b^2) + ((y - k)^2) / (a^2) = 1.

The formula for a circle is ((x - h)^2) + ((y - k)^2) = r^2.

In all three cases, the center of the figure is at (h, k) on the Cartesian coordinate sytem in two-space, where "h" is the x-value of the center and "k" is the y-value of the center described from some fixed source called the "origin" at (0,0).

"a" describes the distance from the center to the major vertex of the ellipse,
"b" describes the distance from the center to the minor vertex of the ellipse, and
"r" describes the length of the radius of that circle.

In an epicycle, the center of the inner circle is tracing out the outer circle, and the path of the object is traveling in some fashion around the path of the inner circle. To mesh the two formulae together would be to let the x-and y-values of the outer circle describe the h- and k-values of the inner circle. Thus, the x- and y-values of the inner circle would provide the coordinates of the observed object at some point in time on the plane through the earth called the "ecliptic." With the values picked carefully and correctly, it will describe the path of the ellipse!

Later, it was discovered that an ellipse around a single object, such as the sun, would have to have the object at one of the foci (plural of "focus" point) at one time of the trace of the ellipse and at the other one of the foci at the opposite time of the trace. This meant that the object, acting as the focus point, was ALSO MOVING from one focus point to the other focus point! Thus, the mere fact that an object was traveling in the path of an ellipse around another object proved that the more central object was also moving.

Of course, NONE of this math - not of the heliocentric model with its ellipses and not of the geocentric model with its epicycles - tells WHY the objects would be so moving. It wasn't until Sir Isaac Newton proposed the laws of gravitation and motion that we now had a force to explain why one object would be moving about another - gravity.

Edited September 23, 2018 by Retrobyter
misspellings

[JTC]

The truth of God never changes because He says He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, but scientific truth changes often, as new discoveries are made. Unfortunately I remember little about algebra, geometry and trigonometry and I never even studied calculus. So I'm at a loss with this FE stuff but isn't the proof of science found in whether or not it works. I say yes. If the earth was flat ships should fall off the end, and airplanes shouldn't be able to get back to where they started from by staying true to either East or West. Then we have the fact that people in space say the earth looks roundish. It takes a lot of conspiracy theories to deny all this. I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next man but at the end of the day I believe what works. A round earth works. I'm not sure when this FE idea started or why. Is there a real reason to think the earth is flat? Will it get us to China quicker, can it help us to mine for oil or other needed commodities better? I don't understand why anyone wants to believe this? But this now is what I see.

This FE theory is throwing more doubt on both God and the Bible which we don't need. Saying the earth is flat is like scientific retardation because that's what people believed before any modern scientific advancements were made. I find it strange that FE'ers actually call themselves Christians and try to use the Bible to prove their point until I think in terms of the devil is always looking for new ways to discredit God. Personally, I never expected this FE theory to get this far. But it did.

Suppose the scientists of the last 500 years were wrong and the earth is flat. First of all, let's leave God out of this. What advantages can be realized by accepting the earth is flat? (I have a hunch there aren't any) Can we transport goods faster and more efficiently? This is just one example of what I mean. Why should we even consider that the earth is flat? And please leave God out of this. 

[turtletwo]

@JTC Thanks. Interesting perspectives & thought-provoking questions.

On 9/23/2018 at 2:33 PM, JTC said:

This FE theory is throwing more doubt on both God and the Bible which we don't need. Saying the earth is flat is like scientific retardation because that's what people believed before any modern scientific advancements were made. I find it strange that FE'ers actually call themselves Christians and try to use the Bible to prove their point until I think in terms of the devil is always looking for new ways to discredit God. Personally, I never expected this FE theory to get this far. But it did.

I agree. I think discrediting God is definitely a part of it. The lost will always find their reasons to mock Christianity. But that is no excuse for Christians to put another one right smack into their arsenal.