The contention of the conflict thesis was that medieval Europe was gripped with superstition (Christianity) that prevented intellectual advancement, and it was only after man’s reason reasserted itself during the Renaissance that man slowly became unshackled from religious dogma, bringing about the Enlightenment. The conflict thesis holds that religion in general, and Christianity in particular, held back progress. This misconception is easily traced to the writings of two late nineteenth-century skeptics, John William Draper and Andrew Dickson White, who invented the conflict thesis. Given the clear record of history, why is it so commonly believed today that most people, and especially the church, thought that the earth was flat? Given the clear record of history, why is it so commonly believed today that most people, and especially the church, thought that the earth was flat? The works of Aristotle, Eratosthenes, and Ptolemy were all widely available and discussed in the late medieval period, and continued to be through the transition to the Renaissance. While this model was geocentric, it did not promote a flat earth, but instead was based upon a spherical earth. Claudius Ptolemy’s Almagest, from the early second century AD, provided a useful model for calculating the positions of heavenly bodies. In the early second century BC, Eratosthenes accurately measured the circumference of the spherical earth. Writing in the fourth century BC, Aristotle clearly taught that the earth was spherical. Thomas Aquinas introduced Aristotelian thought into medieval church teaching. But before doing so, I must respond to two false assumptions mentioned above-that the church historically taught that the earth is flat and that this changed 500 years ago.Īs the medieval scholar Geoffrey Burton Russell ably demonstrated, 1 contrary to common misconception, the medieval church did not teach that the earth was flat. In this article, I will examine many of the biblical passages that supposedly teach that the earth is flat, and I will show that in fact they do not. Unfortunately, many Christians have fallen prey to this, misled into believing that the Bible teaches the earth is flat and that, until five centuries ago, the church likewise taught that the earth is flat. As I have previously discussed, belief that the earth is flat has rapidly grown of late, largely through dissemination via countless Internet sites and the influence of social media.
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