RE: [asa] Flat Earth in earlier Christendom

Thanks Ted, I have now ordered that book.

George stated: "Since Coope's correspondent holds the views he does, it may
help to point him also to Gould's discussion of the falt earth myth in Rocks
of Ages, pp.111-118. (Gould relied heavily here on Russell's book, which he
called "excellent.")"

Yes, thanks George, my astrophysicist friend will be far more receptive to
hearing it form someone that is less suspect of favorable bias, like Gould.
My friend is indeed skeptical and he's not all that thorough in researching
the basis for his claims against Christianity. For instance, he suggests
the reason for no European records for the extremely bright supernova of
1054 is due to Christianity suppression of any recordings since no
variations in the crystalline spheres were allowed due to the influence of
Aristotle/Ptolemy. He is, however, now reconsidering this claim since I
pointed out that Aristotle was not woven into the Church's philosophy until
about 200 years later at the time of Aquinas. Also, Europeans did record
the supernova of 1006, contrary to his thinking. So he is not completely
incorrigible in all areas, but seems to be on the Flat Earth issue.

I will also use a quote from the ASA review of Russell's book:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/history/1997Russell.html

Coope

-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Davis [mailto:TDavis@messiah.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 9:27 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu; George Cooper
Subject: Re: [asa] Flat Earth in earlier Christendom

This is one of those uncommon cases, Coope, in which the widely received
view is not only almost entirely wrong (there were in fact a very small
number of Christian authors who endorsed the flat earth, but no more than
half a dozen of any significance in 2000 years), but completely backwards
from the truth--at least in terms of the Columbus stories that circulate
widely. In that case, it was the Christian university professors in Spain
who were right about the earth's shape and size, whereas Columbus was right
only about its shape (on which there was no disagreement whatsoever).

This particular issue is as close as one can get to a "slam dunk,"
historically. Your friend has nothing on which to stand. For a highly
reliable and very short summary of the real history, including an account of
how the false stories become part of our modern "knowledge," see Jeffrey
Burton Russell's book, "Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern
Historians." Internet summaries of his work are poor substitutes: go take a
look at the book!

Ted

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Received on Wed Nov 12 15:49:23 2008