Orthodox and geocentrism, flat-earthism, etc.

[Dionysios]

Very interesting. But isn't it significant that certain Fathers, such as St John Damascene, were willing to accommodate new scientific discoveries about the world, such as a round earth? My impression is that the Fathers did not object to an evolving understanding of the material world, but only to false understanding of spiritual realities.

I want to sincerely thank you for your kind words. While I agree with Maria that this should not constitute the central focus of our lives, the reception which most agnostics have given to my scientific beliefs has been distinctly more hostile.

[jgress]

Very interesting. But isn't it significant that certain Fathers, such as St John Damascene, were willing to accommodate new scientific discoveries about the world, such as a round earth? My impression is that the Fathers did not object to an evolving understanding of the material world, but only to false understanding of spiritual realities.

I want to sincerely thank you for your kind words. While I agree with Maria that this should not constitute the central focus of our lives, the reception which most agnostics have given to my scientific beliefs has been distinctly more hostile.

Thank you. I don't agree with your views on the moon landings and so forth, but as long as we don't call each other heretics I don't see a big problem. I think it's only healthy that we should be able to distinguish between doctrines that are necessary for salvation, and hypotheses about the world that we are free to believe or reject based on our understanding of the evidence.

[joasia]

Dionysios wrote:

The consensus of the early Church endorsed the flat earth cosmology even before Constantine came to power. It was the pagan scholars who argued for a globular geocentric earth. Christians writers like Lactantius wrote emphatically in favor of a flat earth.

But, this is based on personal opinion?

What unambiguously unified the Church Fathers was the concept of antipodes which they were against. The existence of antipodes refers to feet on the opposite side of a globe where it rains upwards and men are upside down and plants and trees grow downwards as Lactantius wrote.

I have never read anything, by the saints, that talked about this. But, it is interesting that there is a movie coming out about antipodes. I thought it was just another freakish fantasy movie, but now I see that it is based on an ancient belief. I can't remember the name. It's about a young man and woman that live upside down from each other and they decide to break the barrier. This is beyond the concept of another dimension.

About flat and round earth...

1. Are the images of a round hemisphere false?
2. What constitutes a flat or round earth?
3. And why would Baumgartner perpetrate such an elaborate hoax? What is his goal?
4. I am an idiot when it comes to trying to understand cosmological explanations. Please explain, in simple terms, why the world powers that be want us to believe in a round earth, if you say, the holy fathers knew it was flat?
5. If all the bodies of water were removed and all you had was the land, what would it look like?
6. Man can't really know the whole reality of this planet because he doesn't have the ability to observe it all. So is it really that important to prove it is one or the other?
   I think a bigger problem is helping people understand that the evolution of man theory is a complete lie because that affects people's faith. And it is a big impact on the way we interpret theology. The Holy Fathers never accepted it.

[jgress]

Dionysios is no longer a member of this site, but others may feel free to respond.

[Matthew]

Well, I think it is very important to take all this Globular vs Flat with a large dose of salt and a good sense of humour. I also know of one quote in the Holy Fathers where they draw a spiritual lesson from the phoenix which renews itself in the fire as a kind of resurrection, and speaks of it as though it is a real creature, because it was a widely held report that such a bird was actually in existence and had been seen in far off lands. There are many things that the fathers said according to the knowledge or beliefs that reflect the standard physical scientific beliefs of the time. For myself, I am sure the earth is not flat, I am also sure (though I would not argue about it too seriously) that the moon landings were entirely faked. I also place myself on the geocentric universe side of cosmology of the universe rather than the heliocentric model of the solar system and the big bang version of the universe's cosmology. I have the text that satisfies my questions quite solidly on that last part, and believe that the earth is located centrally in the universe and that God created the Earth and set it in the centre of the universe and that this little ball of rock soil and water is where the Second Person of the HOly Trinity entered into time, space and matter materially by His incarnation and lived and died as a man and rose again for our salvation and justification. I think that is totally consistent with the idea that the Lord's focus is on humanity not spread equally on possible life on other worlds in the billions of galaxies we know to be spread out across the heavens. I believe we are IT in the Universe. Modern man thinks this is hubris, proud and self-serving a view in the extreme, but it is the Gospel and the faith of the Church and the martyrs. (that Christ God the Creator of all things in the physical universe was born of the Virgin and died for us--is the gospel and faith not geocentrism as a cosmology I mean--though as I say, it physically is more reflective of the Gospel teachings and Faith of the Church than the humanist, Earth, the solar system and man is just an ordinary insignificant speck of dust in an unbelievably huge universe and that we are off is some backwards off the beaten path part of it). Hence, we are not special. And the universe shows this -- so would the humanists that overthrew patristic geocentric cosmology. But, like I say, I would not get in a tiff over any of this or say anyone was a heretic on any of this if they held to the modern views of the largely atheistic scientific community, the mainstream beliefs of whom were formed by atheists and were by no means Christians. Yes, maybe I am wrong and backwards by going back to the geocentrist view, but I can live with that if such turns out to be the case. But I think having read the truth and details of just who formed modern theories, why they taught it according to their own confessions, and the many outrageous and egregious things they said and even some of the confessions they have made in print in publications never meant for the public, I am convinced that I am no worse off in going back to the old model than I would be by continuing on in my previous views that I was taught in today's public school system.

Symeon

[jgress]

I'm not sure how much it would matter if, say, intelligent, material life were discovered elsewhere in the universe. Would that force us to deny any doctrines? I don't see how this would be so.

I think on these topics both sides seem to read a lot of ideological motives into the opposing side that aren't necessarily there. Perhaps geocentrism is hubristic, but perhaps it is simply the most reasonable explanation for our observations of heavenly movements. Before Copernicus, it was the most reasonable according to most experts in astronomy, but they turned out to be wrong. That's all there is to it. The fact that the earth is not the center of the solar system does not mean, for example, that we don't have free will or that God doesn't exist. Most of these "contradictions" between faith and science seem to suggest a failure of intellectual endeavor, rather than dogmatic error.

[Matthew]

Very good points Jonathan. I would only respond by saying that I am greatly amazed at how little the heliocentric model has going for it (if one is talking about one model having the greater weight of evidence in its favour) having read the many, many revealing admissions that the top modern scientists that advocate the copernican models (heliocentrism) and having read how they admit there is actually no observable cosmological phenomena that is not just as easily accounted for by geocentrism as helio centrism, it is simply a matter of preference which is invariably based on one's philosophical assumptions about our place and origins in the universe. And since, the holy fathers do all advocate the geocentric model--I have opted to stick with that.