Some of the leading thinkers of Western civilization over the past two and a half thousand years, and their opinions about the shape of the Earth.
Shaquille O'Neal has a podcast. Apparently it doesn't have a huge following, but all of a sudden it's getting a lot of attention, because someone noticed that back on the 27th of February, on his podcast, Shaq said:
“It’s true. The Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. Yes, it is. Listen, there are three ways to manipulate the mind — what you read, what you see and what you hear. In school, first thing they teach us is, ‘Oh, Columbus discovered America,’ but when he got there, there were some fair-skinned people with the long hair smoking on the peace pipes. So, what does that tell you? Columbus didn’t discover America. So, listen, I drive from coast to coast, and this s*** is flat to me. I’m just saying. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it’s flat to me. I do not go up and down at a 360-degree angle, and all that stuff about gravity, have you looked outside Atlanta lately and seen all these buildings? You mean to tell me that China is under us? China is under us? It’s not. The world is flat.”
Some are assuming he's serious, some wonder whether he's joking. Earlier in February, Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star Kyrie Irving publicly announced that he believes the Earth is flat. As with Shaq, opinion is divided over whether Irving is serious or if he's just messing with people's heads.
Given the magnitude of Shaq's fame and his prominence on TV as a basketball analyst, I'm assuming that either we're going to be hearing a lot more about this or we're going to be seeing a lot less of Shaq. He has a BA from LSU, an MBA from Phoenix University and a Doctorate in Human Resource Development from Barry University. Will any of those 3 institutions have anything to say about this?
[PS, 23. June 2017: Shaq was joking]
Showing posts with label flat earth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flat earth. Show all posts
Sunday, March 19, 2017
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Who Believed the Earth Was Flat and When Did They Believe It?
Responding to Matt J Rossano's latest silliness on Huffington Post, reader Keith Roragen notes that Isidore of Seville (born ca. 560, died 636) described the Earth as a disc, and adds: "Isadore's flat Earth model persisted, at least, into the late 15th century." I have no idea where he's getting the part about Isidore's description of the Earth persisting into the 15th century. At least. I'm quite skeptical about that.
Isidore (AD 560 – 636) wasn't the only medieval Christian who wrote on the subject of the shape of the Earth. Boethius (c. 480 – 524) (possibly not actually a Christian) described it as a sphere. So did the venerable Bede (c.672 – 735) in a treatise on time which circulated widely among the Western monasteries.
And it's not universally agreed that Isidore was talking about a disc and not a sphere. It's also controversial whether Augustine was referring to a sphere or to a disc in his writings.
Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) says that everyone agreed that the Earth was a sphere, but that it was not entirely clear whether it was a perfect sphere, or something more like the shape of a pine cone.
A few of the pre-Christian Graeco-Romans argued that the Earth was flat, perhaps most prominent among them Lucretius (early 1st century BC), beloved among atheists for remarks like "Fear is the mother of all the gods." Christian writers who argued that the Earth is flat include Lactantius (245–325), St. Athanasius (c.293–373), Diodorus of Tarsus (d. 394), Severian, Bishop of Gabala (d. 408), St.John Chrysostom (344–408) and Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th century). So perhaps the general statement could be made that Christianity set science back several centuries on this topic.
The Christian Basil of Caesarea (AD 329–379) was of the opinion that the question of the shape of the Earth was not theologically important.
It must be added, of course, that with all of the writers mentioned above we are talking about educated people, leading intellectual lights of their times, and that when it comes to the masses, especially the overwhelmingly illiterate masses in the medieval Christian West, it is very hard to tell what they believed.
Isidore (AD 560 – 636) wasn't the only medieval Christian who wrote on the subject of the shape of the Earth. Boethius (c. 480 – 524) (possibly not actually a Christian) described it as a sphere. So did the venerable Bede (c.672 – 735) in a treatise on time which circulated widely among the Western monasteries.
And it's not universally agreed that Isidore was talking about a disc and not a sphere. It's also controversial whether Augustine was referring to a sphere or to a disc in his writings.
Pliny the Elder (AD 23-79) says that everyone agreed that the Earth was a sphere, but that it was not entirely clear whether it was a perfect sphere, or something more like the shape of a pine cone.
A few of the pre-Christian Graeco-Romans argued that the Earth was flat, perhaps most prominent among them Lucretius (early 1st century BC), beloved among atheists for remarks like "Fear is the mother of all the gods." Christian writers who argued that the Earth is flat include Lactantius (245–325), St. Athanasius (c.293–373), Diodorus of Tarsus (d. 394), Severian, Bishop of Gabala (d. 408), St.John Chrysostom (344–408) and Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th century). So perhaps the general statement could be made that Christianity set science back several centuries on this topic.
The Christian Basil of Caesarea (AD 329–379) was of the opinion that the question of the shape of the Earth was not theologically important.
It must be added, of course, that with all of the writers mentioned above we are talking about educated people, leading intellectual lights of their times, and that when it comes to the masses, especially the overwhelmingly illiterate masses in the medieval Christian West, it is very hard to tell what they believed.
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