Is The Earth Flat Or Round?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

Is The Earth Flat Or Round?


  • Total voters
    103
Jul 2, 2022
33
18
8
There is an inspirational new demonstration of the Earth and other planets moving around our parent central and stationary star. I would like to hear from other Christians, whether they enjoy it and if the explanation can be improved as a community effort.

https://www.theplanetstoday.com/

Mercury is presently moving behind the Sun from left to right as seen from a slower moving Earth that is further away from the Sun than the fastest moving inner planet. Just scroll the dates forward to get the perspective.

In real time, a satellite tracking with the Earth around the Sun captures Mercury moving from right to left behind the Sun-

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/

The reason the stars appear to change position from left to right is due to the Earth's orbital motion just as a car on a traffic circle sees objects move from left to right around the central roundabout as they continue their journey..

To be spiritual is the ability to be inspired and inspiring and that goes for loving the connection between ourselves and the physical Universe as a gorgeous 'Behold' of God.
 

Dirtman

Well-known member
Jul 19, 2022
1,151
441
83
Its a polygon with an infinite number of sides. Or maybe a mobius.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
37,843
13,558
113
Only if you first assume ball-Earth theory to be true, which is circular reasoning. If the sun or moon is blocked by the atmosphere (as some Flat Earthers theorise), this adequately explains the sun/moon rise/set. Note that if the reason for the sun/moon rise/set is that the sun or moon is blocked by the Earth (ball-Earth theory), this does not adequately explain the occurrences of sun/moon rise/set that can occur above the horizon.
Um, clearly if clouds are in the way they obscure the sun.
But sunrise is impossible in a flat earth geometry.
Take the simple case of a cloudless sky over the ocean.
Flat people say it gets dark out because the sun gets further away and appears smaller, and light rays are just too tired to go any further, and that it never actually gets any lower in the sky.
But we don't see that. We see the sun actually slightly larger as it approaches the horizon, and then we see it dip below it little by little.
 
Jul 2, 2022
33
18
8
Mercury moves from right to left when it passes behind the Sun as seen from a satellite tracking with the slower moving Earth as it is presently-

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/

When it passes between the central/station Sun and the slower moving Earth it moves from left to right as Venus is seen to do in the time lapse footage from the same satellite-


* Sorry for misstating Mercury's motion in the previous post
 

Lucy-Pevensie

Senior Member
Dec 20, 2017
9,386
5,725
113
This is a common fallacy attributed to Flat Earth. In reality, the Antarctic ice-wall (or the firmament) would stop people falling off the edge of the map.

However, as Flat Earth is just an observation (note that no one observes a ball-Earth), the burden of proof is on those postulating ball-Earth theory, not on those simply relying on observation.
Lines of longitude run parallel to each other converging at North & South poles.
Mariners have been using that geometry successfully for hundreds of years because the earth is a sphere.
To prove them all wrong, you would need to discover how that would be possible on a flat disc.
You'll probably need a new maths. The burden of proof is yours.


Start here:

 
Jul 2, 2022
33
18
8
Lines of longitude run parallel to each other converging at North & South poles.
Mariners have been using that geometry successfully for hundreds of years because the earth is a sphere.
To prove them all wrong, you would need to discover how that would be possible on a flat disc.
You'll probably need a new maths. The burden of proof is yours.


Start here:


Thank you.

There is a problem with contemporary science in this matter and it all stems from their inability to trace the history of timekeeping back to its roots and how the 24 hour system and Lat/Long system emerged together where clocks measure distance based on 1 degree of rotation for every 4 minutes and therefore one 360 degree rotation in 24 hours. The full history of timekeepers and John Harrison are found here-

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Memo...acter_of_George_III._of_these_United_Kingdoms

I would like to demonstrate how we inherit this system, including today as the GPS system, but few people want to know or none at all. There is even a wonderful expression of the original system in the Book of Job as distinct from the Ptolemaic system.
 
Dec 15, 2021
1,494
218
63
I haven't been keeping up and was just wondering if anyone has shown a picture of the earth from the side profile yet?
 

Lucy-Pevensie

Senior Member
Dec 20, 2017
9,386
5,725
113
Thank you.

There is a problem with contemporary science in this matter and it all stems from their inability to trace the history of timekeeping back to its roots and how the 24 hour system and Lat/Long system emerged together where clocks measure distance based on 1 degree of rotation for every 4 minutes and therefore one 360 degree rotation in 24 hours. The full history of timekeepers and John Harrison are found here-

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Memo...acter_of_George_III._of_these_United_Kingdoms

I would like to demonstrate how we inherit this system, including today as the GPS system, but few people want to know or none at all. There is even a wonderful expression of the original system in the Book of Job as distinct from the Ptolemaic system.

I would have thought we inherited the system first via marine chronometers, yes?

GPS is is a solid argument for the shape of the earth, tell us about it if you understand it in detail. It's interesting to me.
Flat earthers seem to be denying anything involving satellites or orbits of the planet though so it may fall on deaf ears
as far as they are concerned.

Please tell me about the Job reference.
 

GaryA

Truth, Honesty, Love, Courage
Aug 10, 2019
9,830
4,315
113
mywebsite.us
There is a navigation technique known as great circle.
No-doubt you are familiar with the term 'geodesic line' as well...

On earth, the shortest distance between two points is a curve, not a straight line.
Now - just think about this statement for a while... :geek:

I will explain in a later post what makes it true and what makes it false.

Since time and money are involved, where possible, vessels use the great circle course.
Which, on a Flat Earth map, is an actual straight line.

It may be helpful if you think about this for a while, too...

Even when you look down from heaven and see the spherical earth, you will find a way to rationalise the truth away.
What will your rationale be when you look down from above the earth and see a flat plane under a dome?
 
Jun 28, 2022
1,258
383
83
"silly" ... said the man who believes the earth is flat. :LOL:


Flatties should take their own measurements without using established knowlege that they reject .
Oh come now. If not for FlatE's we'd have to take life seriously all the time. While encountering one of them from time to time is a refreshing humor break.

FlatE's have been around for awhile. However,I think the population explosion of their kind began when someone got the bright idea to print a world map.

Once that went public FlatE's were inevitable.



Pay no attention to eclipses. They're a myth invented to test the faith of the FlatE's.

 

Gideon300

Well-known member
Mar 18, 2021
5,347
3,150
113
No-doubt you are familiar with the term 'geodesic line' as well...


Now - just think about this statement for a while... :geek:

I will explain in a later post what makes it true and what makes it false.


Which, on a Flat Earth map, is an actual straight line.

It may be helpful if you think about this for a while, too...


What will your rationale be when you look down from above the earth and see a flat plane under a dome?
I will say that I was wrong. I'll also go watch the ice skating in hell.
 
Jul 2, 2022
33
18
8
I would have thought we inherited the system first via marine chronometers, yes?

GPS is is a solid argument for the shape of the earth, tell us about it if you understand it in detail. It's interesting to me.
Flat earthers seem to be denying anything involving satellites or orbits of the planet though so it may fall on deaf ears
as far as they are concerned.


Please tell me about the Job reference.
" Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?" Book of Job

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job 38&version=KJV

We are accustomed to the more recent framework of the Greeks (Ptolemy) where the Sun was seen to move through the 12 constellations over the course of the year and therefore gives you your birth sign. It was also the framework by which the first Sun-centred astronomers, like Copernicus, used to conclude that the Earth moves and runs a circuit of the Sun.

The older framework of the Egyptians and possibly older societies is more accurate as it uses the first annual appearance of a grouping of stars every 10 days (the Egyptians called them the Decans) with 5 days bridging the end of the old year and the beginning of the new year. It is this framework which gives us our present calendar system-

".. on account of the procession of the rising of Sirius by one day in the course of 4 years,.. therefore it shall be, that the year of 360 days and the 5 days added to their end, so one day shall be from this day after every 4 years added to the 5 epagomenae before the new year" Canopus Decree 238 BC

The Book of Job talks of bringing ' Mazzaroth in his season' and this is what it refers to. As the Earth orbits the Sun, stars lying close to the orbital plane are lost to the glare of the Sun for a number of weeks. When they are far enough to one side of the Sun, they are seen as a first morning appearance-

https://sol24.net/data/html/SOHO/C3/96H/VIDEO/

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap181123.html

You can see Mazzaroth/Sirius/Sothis beneath the image of the meteor as the bright star.

Hope you enjoy the perspective.
 

Lucy-Pevensie

Senior Member
Dec 20, 2017
9,386
5,725
113
Oh come now. If not for FlatE's we'd have to take life seriously all the time. While encountering one of them from time to time is a refreshing humor break.

FlatE's have been around for awhile. However,I think the population explosion of their kind began when someone got the bright idea to print a world map.

Once that went public FlatE's were inevitable.



Pay no attention to eclipses. They're a myth invented to test the faith of the FlatE's.


Hey! this isn't funny. All telescopes and binoculars have been secretly calibrated by Satan to reveal only globular objects
in the sky.
 
Sep 15, 2019
9,991
5,546
113
Lines of longitude run parallel to each other converging at North & South poles.
Did you know that in mathematics, parallel lines never converge? :)


Mariners have been using that geometry successfully for hundreds of years because the earth is a sphere.
This argument is essentially the bandwagon logical fallacy (it assumes something is true (or right or good) because others agree with it). It could be mixed with the Appeal to Authority logical fallacy.


To prove them all wrong, you would need to discover how that would be possible on a flat disc.
I could just as easily argue the fact that because all these mariners were using flat maps, it proves the Earth is flat.


You'll probably need a new maths. The burden of proof is yours.
This argument is the fallacy of the Burden of Proof, which occurs when someone who is making a claim puts the burden of proof on another party to disprove what he is claiming. You are the one claiming the Earth is ball-shaped, despite our observations to the contrary. Therefore, the burden of proof must remain yours.
 
Sep 15, 2019
9,991
5,546
113
GPS is is a solid argument for the shape of the earth, tell us about it if you understand it in detail. It's interesting to me.
Flat earthers seem to be denying anything involving satellites or orbits of the planet though so it may fall on deaf ears
as far as they are concerned.
I worked with surveying once, over several kilometers, some years before I learned that everything taught about the shape of the Earth in schools is wrong. At the time, we could never understand why when we assumed a flat Earth (i.e. no curvature), our errors were significantly less than when we assumed a ball-shaped Earth (no matter how we placed the curve). Now I know.

At the time, we just stopped assuming the Earth was curved for the sake of our work.