[geocentrism] Re: flat earth?
- From: "Dr. Neville Jones" <ntj005@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: geocentrism@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2004 10:25:20 +0100 (BST)
Gary,
You said, "But Dr. Jones, you must give pause to the inconsistency of this."
However, it is you who would need to show me where the Bible teaches a "flat
earth." I maintain that the Bible does not state that the World is flat, but
that people have interpreted "corners" as only referring to a finite,
rectangular plane.
Philip, too, has made a similar point regarding the main verse in this respect;
namely, that the World "is a circle and hangs on nothing." (From the book of
Job.)
Neville.
"Gary L. Shelton" <GaryLShelton@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
But Dr. Jones, you must give pause to the inconsistency of this. On your
web page you state that the creationists claim divine 7 day creation for man
and all critters, but for the creation/evolution of the earth they draw some
line beyond which they call it "phenomenological".
Is this not what you are doing, albeit with a more literal place for your
line? If the Bible says "corners", I don't see how we as geocentrists can
do the same kind of picking and choosing that we accuse the creationists of.
How can we say, to quote your words:
"flat Earth," which was based upon the Biblical teaching of "corners" and
the inability to perceive your surrounding area as anything other than
"flat."?
This seems like flat-out (pun intended) falling back to the phenomenological
argument.
Since doing so automatically weakens any Biblical argument we could make for
geocentrism (because all the Bible could be said to be "phenomenological"
then), it seems to me we must do one of the following:
1) accept the plain faced interpretation of what we read in the Bible and
concur that it teaches a flat earth, or,
2) we must determine what the wordings of the Biblical writers were on a
deeper level, possibly to uncover that they actually, in fact, did
not teach a flat earth, or,
3) we must resign ourselves to the fact it is a mysterious conundrum we
cannot figure out, or,
4) we must toss out "infallibilty" of the Bible.
Dr. Bouw, to his credit, has presented a bona fide version per #2 above, and
it makes for plausible, interesting reading. It is in his book,
Geocentricity.
Personally, although I like to lean to Biblical infallibility, and do give
the Bible what I think is due credence, I do not feel bound by it. I use
the KJV first and foremost, but I do not rule out that a different version
could aid in interpretating a verse here and there. If we have visual proof
of a spherical earth, I would accept that. If we have satellites flying
around up there, it seems to me we should be able to make or break this
"flat earth" argument quite quickly and with finality.
Although we may not have sent astronauts to the moon, we most certainly have
placed some into low earth orbit (LEO). These astronauts would, it seems to
me, be easily able to confirm the sphericity of the earth. As a matter of
fact there is this astronaut who lives in the next county over from me here
in Indiana who has been on more space shuttle flights than anyone, and who,
by a quirk of fate, missed going on Columbia's fated mission. He spoke to
so kids at the local "Challenger Space Center" in Hammond, Indiana last
year. I wonder if he could say without hesitation that the earth is a
sphere? He did say that he saw 16 sunrises in one day during one mission.
So he undoubtedly would know if the earth was flat, I'd say.
This is my two cents' worth.
Sincerely,
Gary Shelton
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