Atheists/Agnostics/Other: Does man have a soul

Agent Ferris said:

So you think the Greeks thought that the earth was of a donut shape?

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Which prominent Greek scientists thought the earth was a flat sphere?

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Aristotle knew the earth was a sphere due to astronomical observations in which stars in Cyprus could not be seen in Egypt later the Earth's radius was proven by Eratosthenes.

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Many pre-Socratic philosophers considered the world to be flat, at least according to Aristotle.[15] According to Aristotle, pre-Socratic philosophers, including Leucippus (c. 440 BC) and Democritus (c. 460–370 BC) believed in a flat earth.[16] Anaximander believed the Earth to be a short cylinder with a flat, circular top which remained stable because it is the same distance from all things.[17] It has been suggested that seafarers probably provided the first observational evidence that the Earth was not flat.[18]

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Who are you suggesting proved the spherical nature of the earth?

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Agent Ferris said:

For now we can safely assume that it does not exist considering all the evidence tends towards that direction and barring some unforseen new evidence be left wondering why so many people are suffering from the same strange shared delusion.

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Hatuey said:

No. The 'Greeks' theorized that the Earth was flat, round, a square etc.

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There is no such thing. It's called a disk.

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Flat Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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THe first person to see it from outside the boundaries of the horizon. Yuri Gagarin.

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Agent Ferris said:

And the Greeks proved that the earth was a sphere by measuring its circumference using a test which would have only worked on a sphere unless the circle was shaped like a donut in which the measurements happened to be taken directly in the exact center width wise and which the Greeks knew couldn't be the case because it had to be a curved surface due to astronomical observations.

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Lucretius (1st. c. BC) opposed the concept of a spherical Earth, because he considered the idea of antipodes absurd. But by the 1st century AD, Pliny the Elder was in a position to claim that everyone agrees on the spherical shape of Earth,[25] although there continued to be disputes regarding the nature of the antipodes, and how it is possible to keep the ocean in a curved shape. Pliny also considers the possibility of an imperfect sphere, "shaped like a pinecone".[25]

In the second century the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy advanced many arguments for the sphericity of the Earth. Among them was the observation that when sailing towards mountains, they seem to rise from the sea, indicating that they were hidden by the curved surface of the sea. He also gives separate arguments that the Earth is curved north-south and that it is curved east-west.[26] Ptolemy derived his maps from a curved globe and developed the system of latitude, longitude, and climes. His writings remained the basis of European astronomy throughout the Middle Ages, although Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ca. 3rd to 7th centuries) saw occasional arguments in favor of a flat Earth.

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That's what I meant.

Ya and after Aristotle they knew it to be a sphere through astronomical observations.

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So I guess proof can't come through measurements. I suppose the first person to prove the deepest part of the ocean will be the person who directly observes it through its own eyes. :roll:

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Hatuey said:

Again, show us where and when this happened. Proving there is a CIRCUMFERENCE does not prove something is a sphere.

Flat Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A) Proving the circumference does in fact prove that it's a sphere because once again, the test used to determine the circumference would not have worked on a flat circle.

B) Aristotle likewise proved that it was not a flat circle through astronomical observations.

Some people theorized a spherical earth. None proved it.

Again, who are 'they'? There was no 'they'. Some people claimed it was flat, others theorized it was spherical.

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Aristotle and Eratosthenes:

Aristotle (384–322 BC) was Plato's prize student and "the mind of the school." Aristotle observed "there are stars seen in Egypt and [...] Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions." Since this could only happen on a curved surface, he too believed Earth was a sphere "of no great size, for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be quickly apparent." (De caelo, 298a2–10)

Spherical Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The point of that was to explain to you how science works, Yuri Gagary was abviously not the person to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the earth was round. Science works with proof, it's one thing to theorize something. It's another to prove it with experiments. Black holes were theorized until somebody came and proved their existence. Get it? However that is not the argument here. The argument here is whether the Earth was proven to be spherical. It was not an idea embraced by the world's educated was that it a sphere.

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Yes it was, it seems that after Aristotle that Lucretius was a lone hold out.

Some of the brightest at the time thought it was a flat disk, square, a pine cone shaped object etc. The reality is that 'science' did not conclusively prove much until a few centuries ago(3 at the most) because that's when it came into existence. Science comes with experimentation, without it it's for the most part guess work.

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Science comes through empirical evidence either evidence gained from experience, observation, or experimentation. The hypothesis that the earth was round was proven through astronomical observation not experimentation.

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