Right, you don't have to.
I'm saying that there is no rational reason why I need to do that.
It does not teach the earth is a spinning globe propelling through space.
That's right and if anyone attempted to get you to prove biblically that the Earth was a round spinning ball orbiting the Sun, you'd be right to tell them that there is no reason for you to do that.
Why?
Because of the portion of what I said that you didn't quote! The bible is not a science text book! That's why! There are all sorts of things that the bible is silent about and for you to hold me to the standard of "All you gotta do is show me where scripture presents the earths as a spinning globe propelling through space." is not rational!
That's what a lot of science data attempts to prove.
Who cares what they attempt to do?
I'm not talking about the sort of pseudo-proofs that modern science uses to "prove" things like global warming or over population or black holes or dark matter. I'm talking about the sort of proof that is truly and genuinely irrefutable. A proof that even a middle school aged public schooled child can understand and duplicate for himself.
Well geese, Clete, if anything can be PROVEN then why wouldn't anyone believe it?
That would hold true for anything.
Is this you responding to my question in the affirmative or is this you suggesting that nothing can be proven? I can't tell for sure whether you're being sarcastic or not.
I don't say whether the earth is flat or a spinning globe because I, personally, don't know for sure.
My interest is with what the bible says about the earth.
Well, the bible doesn't have a whole lot to say about cosmological issues. It's an interesting topic of discussion and study but you aren't going to find a definite answer about whether the Earth is flat or round by reading a book that doesn't discuss that topic. Just as you wouldn't read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand to learn about how to properly train puppies, the bible is of little value when trying to figure out whether the Earth is flat or not.
I'm not a dishonest person.
I don't mean to suggest that you're a liar. I fully believe that you believe what you say you believe and so you aren't lying in the sense of trying to be deceptive. My point has to do with intellectual honesty in the sense that one is willing to accept the verdict of sound reason even if that verdict falsifies their doctrine. It's simple, plain old honest rationality that I'm looking for.
I just want to view this from what the bible says about it.
I see things the bible says about it that can not be possible on a globe earth.
If all that the bible says about the earth is only to be taken metaphorically, then that is just more of the bible to cast on the pile of not being historical, but metaphorical.
It seems that is the pile most want to cast the bible onto.
(Not saying that is you, just that through the ages many have presented "proof" that it is not to be taken literally.)
Reducing the bible more and more to just being akin to Aesop's fables book. (Has a moral message but is not literal).
Well look, some of the bible is literally true and some of it isn't. There are figures of speech on every single page of the bible. There are whole sections of the bible that are flat out allegorical. Some things are taught as absolutes and others as rules of thumb. The point isn't to turn the bible into anything other than what it is or to take it in any way other than it was intended to be taken. And that sometimes takes some effort to accomplish because we are far removed in time from when the bible was written and some words and concepts don't mean now what they meant 2000+ years ago.
What I'm here to tell you is that there is not one single verse of scripture that requires one to believe that the Earth is flat. The Christian church nor the Jewish tradition that preceded it ever believed or taught that the Earth was flat. Not ever, not even one time for even ten minutes. The idea that it did is a myth. If you believe that the Earth is flat, it isn't because of the bible nor because of any doctrine that the church has ever taught. Rather, the modern day beleif that the Earth is flat eminates from YouTube and nothing else.
Have a good day, Clete.
If you don't want to continue to discuss it with me, I'm ok with that.
I will discuss with those that do.
Sincerely,
Tambora
I'm totally fine discussing anything with anyone so long as they are at least trying to be rational and not being willfully ignorant and ignoring the arguments presented to them.
I'm going to assume that you were not being sarcastic a moment ago. The flavor of the rest of your post would seem to suggest that is most likely and so I want to present the following proof to you that the Earth cannot be flat. I've posted it several times on this thread and I'm sure you've probably already seen it, but look at it again with fresh eyes. I know its sort of long but don't let it glaze your eyes over and really think it through because I'm not exaggerating when I say that it is an utterly irrefutable
proof that the Earth is not flat that you can verify for yourself. If math works (which it does) and the sun sets (which it does) then the Earth is not flat. Here's the proof....
FET (Flat Earth Theory) claims the Sun is approximately 3000 miles above the Earth and they do not dispute well established distances between points on the surface of the Earth. I'm going to be using these two presuppositions in my calculations and you'll want to refer to the following diagram to keep track of the variables...
View attachment 26417
Side a is the distance from the ground to the Sun (3000 mi).
Side b is the distance from an observer to a point on the Earth where it is high noon (the point at which the Sun is at it's highest point in the sky).
Side c (a.k.a. the hypotenuse) is the distance from the observer to the Sun itself.
Angle A is the height of the Sun above the horizon in degrees as seen from the observer.
Angle C is always 90°
Angle B is not relevant to this discussion.
Note from the start that if the Earth is flat and the Sun is 3000 miles up (or any number of miles up for that matter) that angle A can never ever get to 0°. The Sun would never set because no matter how long you make side b of that triangle, angle A is always a positive number. The only way for the Sun to set on a flat Earth is if the Sun dipped below the plane of the flat Earth. If that were to happen, then it would be night everywhere on Earth at once, which we know does not happen. It's always high noon somewhere on the Earth.
That, by itself, ought to be enough to convince anyone that the Earth cannot be flat but there more. Let's take a look at some of these photos we took last week...
So, since we're assuming a flat Earth, I'm going to focus on just a couple of photos that both show the position of the Sun in degrees above the horizon. I should point out that you don't have to trust the numbers generated by the app on the phones used to take these photos. The numbers can be confirmed by anyone by simply fashioning a simple sextant from a cheap plastic protractor.
I'll use these two photos...
View attachment 26418 View attachment 26419
On the left is the Sun's position as seen from my house on May 8th at 01:00 UCT (8:00:01pm central time)
On the right is the Sun's position as seen from Knight's house on the same day just 38 seconds later (7:00:39pm mountain time).
The position of the Sun at my house is just .1° above the horizon while at Knight's it was 10.2° (This information is displayed just to the right of the Sun position indicator. It shows the Sun's heading and then it's elevation in degrees. On Knight's photo it's sort of hidden a little by the NW direction indicator but it reads "Sun 284.0 W 10.2°" The 10.2 is the elevation above the horizon in degrees)
So, let's look at Knight's first...
How far West would you have to go from Knight's house (where sides b and c meet) to get to a place on a flat Earth where it was high noon (where sides a and b meet)?
It turns out that when dealing with right triangles if you have the length of any one side and either angle A or B, you can know everything about the whole triangle!
The math is boring and so I'm not going to show all that. Just go
HERE and plug in the numbers for side b (3000) and angle A (10.2).
You get the following results...
Someone 16,700 miles (length of side b) to his west would see the Sun at it's highest point in the sky for that day.
There is no point on Earth 16,700 miles from Denver Colorado.
Still not convinced? Well just wait till you plug in the numbers from my house!
At my house the Sun was only .1 degrees above the horizon. So plugging in the numbers from my house (side b = 3000 and angle A = .1) we get the following results...
You have to go 1,720,000 miles to my West to find high noon beneath a Sun that was 3000 miles above the surface of a flat Earth.
That's One MILLION seven hundred twenty THOUSAND miles!
(That's more that 7 times the real distance to the Moon!)
Now seriously folks! What more proof could you possibly need? How are you going to possibly refute this?
Are you going to deny that the Sun is about 10° further above the horizon in Denver than it is in Houston? Even if you did that, the distance to noon calculations aren't dependent on that!
Are you going to challenge the validity of the
Pythagorean Theorem?
It seems that's your only option! It's either refute the Pythagorean Theorem or you must reject the notion that the Earth is flat based on the mere fact that the Sun gets to within .1° of the horizon at one point on the Earth while at the same time being directly over head at another.
Clete