7
   

A Discussion with Atheists

 
 
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Wed 21 Dec, 2011 12:10 pm
@siglawoo,
siglawoo wrote:
my 3rd question is.
when did we come to know that the earth we live on is spherical ? you will say it was 1597 when sir francis sailed around the earth and proved that the earth is spherical. but 1400 years ago its mentioned in Quran." and thereafter we made the earth egg shape, the arabic word " dahaha " means egg, egg of an ostrich. so is the world we live on is in the shape of an ostrich egg, not completely round (Chapter 79 - Verse 30 )


Long before the Koran was written the ancient Greeks worked out that the world was round. It's all to do with distance to the event horizon. They worked it out pretty accurately. When Columbus tried to sail to China he argued the Greeks were wrong, the planet was a lot smaller, so there was no vast Ocean to traverse. Of course he didn't know about the Americas.
Lustig Andrei
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2011 12:01 am
@izzythepush,
The Greeks not only worked out that the earth is spherical but sometime around 350 b.c.e. a Greek mathematican named Eritosthenes (Sp.?) actually calculated the circumference* by the simple method of measuring the angles of shadows at different locations at a given time. He was off by only about one-half of one percent. Sir Francis Drake? Whoever said that has got to be kidding. It's fine to be Anglo-centered and all, but Magellan's crew had already circumnavigated the globe long befoe Drake. And hardly any person of Columbus' time, except perhaps the most woefully ignorant, thought that the earth was anything but a sphere. This knowledge is quite ancient.

*another Greek whose name I can't recall offhand but who was working at about the same time as Eratosthenes calculated the distance between the Earth and the Moon and he was off by only about one-third of one percent!
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2011 12:30 am
@izzythepush,
Quote:
When Columbus tried to sail to China he argued the Greeks were wrong, the planet was a lot smaller, so there was no vast Ocean to traverse. Of course he didn't know about the Americas.


Invincible ignorance--he continued to believe he was near China, which is why the West Indies are called the West Indies.

Eratosthenes' measurement was not entirely accurate because Syrene is not directly south of Alexandria , it is slightly north of the tropic of Cancer, and people were rather vague about the distance to Syrene (modern Aswan). Under the circumstances, his measurement was amazingly accurate.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2011 03:34 am
@Lustig Andrei,
I've not mentioned Drake, I don't know where you got that from.
izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2011 03:37 am
@Setanta,
With regard to Alexandria, the Moslems had captured the library there, and in so doing preserved the writings of the ancient Greeks for the rest of the world. The library probably included the works of Eratosthenes.
Setanta
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2011 12:03 pm
@izzythepush,
Yeah, what was left after the Christians had trashed the city's libraries and the Museion . . .
0 Replies
 
Lustig Andrei
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2011 02:10 pm
@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
I've not mentioned Drake, I don't know where you got that from.


Sorry. That wasn't meant to be addressed to you, izzy. I meant the poster above your post.

izzythepush
 
  1  
Reply Thu 22 Dec, 2011 02:39 pm
@Lustig Andrei,
That's alright mate, no offence taken.
0 Replies
 
Eorl
 
  2  
Reply Fri 23 Dec, 2011 06:41 pm
@siglawoo,
siglawoo wrote:

Hi,
you do agree to the fact that even the smallest industry or organization needs a manager, right ? with out a manager things won't go the way they are wanted to. so how the hell can such a huge universe, with all the laws and species, solar system and weather, the worm inside a black stone and every little damn atom is operating and organizing it self own its own ? i pity you atheists. when i tell you that last night i run outta gas and suddenly tyres came down rolling, a huge engine fell from the sky and formed a brand new car own its own, but you would laugh at me that i am some crazy lunatic and yet you believe that all this universe which is infinity times more complicated than building a car is all by it self ? Why ? how can you reject such an undeniable truth ?


I pity you theists. I was out in my farm last night caring for my corn crop, which has been carefully and gradually bred for thousands of years from a humble almost inedible grass, and then suddenly, a magical being appeared and said, "let there be a new food!" And in the field next to me, there was a brand new food source!

There is such irony in accusing those who understand how evolution works as indulging in magical thinking. It's the most astoundingly dumb ignorance.

To summarize your argument then:
"If I can't understand it, the only answer is: (insert culturally appropriate magical answer)"
0 Replies
 
 

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