Flat Earth And Christianity

[Lost4words]

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The sun is a convex disk facing the earth 5000 (+or-) miles high. As the sun moves in its circuit, it moves out of a persons visual field. It goes past a person's eye sight vanishing point.

Did you get that answer from a Christmas joke cracker?

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

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The sun is a convex disk facing the earth 5000 (+or-) miles high. As the sun moves in its circuit, it moves out of a persons visual field. It goes past a person's eye sight vanishing point.

Why only half?

 

[HantsUK]

You're about 10 off. 767.269, approximately.

And a knot is indeed speed, not acceleration. It's nautical miles per hour.

At 20 degC, yes. But at 27.7 degC it is 777 mph, which is why I choose a slightly warmer temperature.

And yes - this whole graphic is a pile of nonsense.

 

[Jipsah]

What is quite laughable about these vague associations of physical constants, irrespective of whether they have been accurately defined or not, with the devil's number 666 is that the devil's number may have been in fact 616.

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Better than that, the idea that "666" is "the devil's number" is a crock. First off, it's not just three sixes in succession, it's the number three huindren sixty six, or if you prefer Roman numerals, DCLXVI. Secondly, the Revelator is quite specific that it's "the number of a man", and that those amongst his intended readers would know to whom the number referred. Best bet it's a code number for Nero Caesar, whose name was probably best not mentioned in unflattering terms if you valued either the recipient's, or your own, safety.

 

[The Liturgist]

So old Nick wrote the specs by which God created the earth. Or Nick actually created the earth. Dang, this is worse (as in dumber) than I thought.

I do have to confess I wish we could phase out the phrase “old Nick” vis a vis the devil as it seems contrary to the veneration appropriate to St. Nicholas the Bishop of Myra, who was tortured in the Diocletian persecution and who also famously slapped Arius at the Council of Nicaea. Which has led to an amusing variation on the song “Santa Claus is coming…”

 

[prodromos]

None of those values are actually correct.

 

[The Liturgist]

Better than that, the idea that "666" is "the devil's number" is a crock. First off, it's not just three sixes in succession, it's the number three huindren sixty six, or if you prefer Roman numerals, DCLXVI. Secondly, the Revelator is quite specific that it's "the number of a man", and that those amongst his intended readers would know to whom the number referred. Best bet it's a code number for Nero Caesar, whose name was probably best not mentioned in unflattering terms if you valued either the recipient's, or your own, safety.

Yes, I personally suspect it was a cypher for Nero the last of the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, since of all possible candidates this one seems the most plausible, and St. John seems to strongly indicate that the dilligent reader should be able to work it out, and thus using Jewish numerology in a Greek text intended for a mixed Greco-Roman and Judaic audience strikes me as clever, because it left St. John with plausible deniability. Which was important because I am not sure if Emperor Trajan with his more relaxed attitude to Christianity was already in power by the time St. John was released from his exile to Patmos, and Emperor Trajan’s predecessors, especially Emperor Titus, were among the worst pre-Third Century persecutors of Christianity.

 

[The Liturgist]

None of those values are actually correct.

Indeed, and Orthodox Christianity is not noted for its enthusiastic support or Freemasonry.

 

[Jipsah]

I do have to confess I wish we could phase out the phrase “old Nick” vis a vis the devil as it seems contrary to the veneration appropriate to St. Nicholas the Bishop of Myra, who was tortured in the Diocletian persecution and who also famously slapped Arius at the Council of Nicaea. Which has led to an amusing variation on the song “Santa Claus is coming…”

Never thought of it like that. Here on out I'll call him something else that's more pointedly disparaging.

 

[JSRG]

I do have to confess I wish we could phase out the phrase “old Nick” vis a vis the devil as it seems contrary to the veneration appropriate to St. Nicholas the Bishop of Myra, who was tortured in the Diocletian persecution and who also famously slapped Arius at the Council of Nicaea. Which has led to an amusing variation on the song “Santa Claus is coming…”

I want to mention that him slapping Arius seems to be a historical fiction. Nicholas of Myra actually being at Nicaea to begin with is a bit uncertain--some lists of attendees have him, but some don't. But if he was, the first mention we have of him slapping someone at Nicaea seems to show up a full thousand years after the council happened. And even this story doesn't have him slap Arius, but an Arian (follower of Arius), and it was only in later retellings of this story that it was "upgraded" to him slapping Arius. This link goes into it:

Did St Nicholas of Myra / Santa Claus punch Arius at the Council of Nicaea?

In many places online we can find the statement that St Nicholas of Myra – the basis for Santa Claus – was present at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, where he punched Arius in th…

www.roger-pearse.com

 

[prodromos]

I want to mention that him slapping Arius seems to be a historical fiction. Nicholas of Myra actually being at Nicaea to begin with is a bit uncertain--some lists of attendees have him, but some don't. But if he was, the first mention we have of him slapping someone at Nicaea seems to show up a full thousand years after the council happened. And even this story doesn't have him slap Arius, but an Arian (follower of Arius), and it was only in later retellings of this story that it was "upgraded" to him slapping Arius. This link goes into it:

Did St Nicholas of Myra / Santa Claus punch Arius at the Council of Nicaea?

In many places online we can find the statement that St Nicholas of Myra – the basis for Santa Claus – was present at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, where he punched Arius in th…

www.roger-pearse.com

If the story just appeared in late antiquity, I sincerely doubt it would have been without controversy if it was not already part of the mind of the Church. You may have noticed that Eastern Orthodox are very resistant to change of any kind.

 

[The Liturgist]

If the story just appeared in late antiquity, I sincerely doubt it would have been without controversy if it was not already part of the mind of the Church. You may have noticed that Eastern Orthodox are very resistant to change of any kind.

Also there is the fact that despite a few iconographers celebrating the incident, on the whole the incident does not actually benefit the hagiography of St. Nicholas, since slugging people is not conducive to an image of holiness, which to me indicates this story is genuine.

 

[Astrophile]

Gene2memE has already posted arguing that the numbers in question are not accurate (while you could maybe get the first two by rounding, the last one seems completely wrong) and several rely on using a measurement system the majority of the world does not use.

The Earth's average speed in its orbit is 66,627 mph, so the range of orbital speeds between perihelion and aphelion includes 66,600 mph. The Earth's present rotational obliquity is 23.4363°, so the latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic circles are ±66.5637°. However, when the book of Revelation was written (ca. 90 AD), the Earth's obliquity was larger (about 23.725°), so the latitudes of the Arctic and Antarctic circles were then about ± 66.275°.

 

[BeyondET]

At 20 degC, yes. But at 27.7 degC it is 777 mph, which is why I choose a slightly warmer temperature.

And yes - this whole graphic is a pile of nonsense.

Where the extreme cold is moving at 0.00005mph doesn't sound pleasant.

 

[prodromos]

And a knot is indeed speed, not acceleration. It's nautical miles per hour.

Yes, I thought nautical miles per hour per second was a bit of nonsense. Whoever put that graphic together was an idiot.

 

[The Liturgist]

Yes, I thought nautical miles per hour per second was a bit of nonsense. Whoever put that graphic together was an idiot.

Indeed, why measure the rotation of the Earth in MPH when NASA and Roscosmos and China use the Metric system for measuring the velocity and acceleration of spacecraft? It’s absurd. Now I myself do not mind people using customary units on Earth, indeed, the aviation industry depends on them, for legacy reasons; it would be extremely difficult to change the aerospace industry outside of the former Soviet Union, which alone used the metric system completely, to get rid of knotts and feet and also another non-SI measurement, the Flight Level, as standards. Indeed, incorrect metrication of aviation and the mixing of the metric system and customary units caused Air Canada’s “Gimli Glider” incident, as well as an embarrassing mistake NASA had with the Mars Climate Orbiter. Fortunately no one was killed in either instance, but as a software engineer I have become extremely wary of using non-standard systems of measurement, whether these are customary or SI, or of changing from one to another, or of situations where one must be converted to the other, due to the propensity for disaster.

By the way, here is a fun fact: the US was one of the first countries to adopt the metric system in the 1860s via treaty, and after doing so redefined all US customary units to be based on metric units, so in a sense US customary units are an abstraction on top of the metric system, unlike their British Imperial equivalents. And for casual use I think this is fine; I really don’t think people should be forced to use systems they are unfamiliar with, for example, when it comes to temperature, and changing our road signage such as speed limits, or those in the UK, to metric, could be very problematic. Actually when it comes to Metrication, your country of Australia and that of New Zealand are ahead of the US, the UK and even Canada, where the railroad industry, for example, uses non-metric units to maximize compatibility with the US railways, because the two Canadian railroads always operated in the US to some extent, for instance, the Grand Trunk Western was owned by the Canadian National, and the SOO Line was closely associated with and later owned by the Canadian Pacific and since deregulation, the CN and CP purchased other major railroads such as the Illinois Central and most recently the Kansas City Southern, which also extends deep into Mexico. Basically, the railroads of Canada, the US and Mexico function as a unified system, with only the Alaska Railroad being isolated from the rest of the network, but it still follows all of the same standards. The narrow gauge railroads in Newfoundland were abandoned, the systems in Central America have disintegrated, except for the former broad gauge Panama Canal Railroad which was converted to standard gauge and operates like the American railroads, and also the Cuban railroads follow the North American style of operation.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Indeed, why measure the rotation of the Earth in MPH when NASA and Roscosmos and China use the Metric system for measuring the velocity and acceleration of spacecraft? It’s absurd.

Because this whole business is numerology. In this case trying to get 3 consecutive 6s to appear in a number to claim it is the sign of the devil or whatever. To that end they pick whatever quantities and units fit their needs. (Note how the "examples" don't make a coherent group and if you can find a group they are part of the set of values is quite incomplete.)

 

[The Liturgist]

Because this whole business is numerology. In this case trying to get 3 consecutive 6s to appear in a number to claim it is the sign of the devil or whatever. To that end they pick whatever quantities and units fit their needs. (Note how the "examples" don't make a coherent group and if you can find a group they are part of the set of values is quite incomplete.)

Indeed. By the way, as mentioned earlier it seems highly likely that St. John was referring to Nero using 666 as a cypher, since the text of Revelation implies that it refers to a real person whom the reader ought to be able to discern, and I think the chap who started the horrific murderous and even genocidal (in that some predominantly Christian ethnic groups like Bohairic and Sahidic speaking Copts, and the Syriac/Assyrian Christians of the Levant were targeted) persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire generally qualifies as “the Beast.”

Of course the Beast is also typological, so we can regard Nero as the prototype of the genocidal murderer of Christians, the likes of Emperors Commodus and Diocletian and Constantius, Julian “the Apostate” (which I find amusing since his predecessors were already arguably apostate by virtue of their Arianism), and others, and later, the likes of Tamerlane, who killed off most of the Church of the East, and various Ottoman Sultans, and in the 20th century, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and in a way especially pernicious, Enver Hoxha, who persecuted a higher ratio of Christians than anyone else in his zeal to obliterate religion in Albania, which of course failed completely. All of these evil men have a prototype in Emperor Nero, who falsely accused the Christians of starting a fire which did great damage to Rome.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Indeed. By the way, as mentioned earlier it seems highly likely that St. John was referring to Nero using 666 as a cypher, since the text of Revelation implies that it refers to a real person whom the reader ought to be able to discern,

That's certainly possible, but

and I think the chap who started the horrific murderous and even genocidal (in that some predominantly Christian ethnic groups like Bohairic and Sahidic speaking Copts, and the Syriac/Assyrian Christians of the Levant were targeted) persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire generally qualifies as “the Beast.”

Of course the Beast is also typological, so we can regard Nero as the prototype of the genocidal murderer of Christians, the likes of Emperors Commodus and Diocletian and Constantius, Julian “the Apostate” (which I find amusing since his predecessors were already arguably apostate by virtue of their Arianism), and others, and later, the likes of Tamerlane, who killed off most of the Church of the East, and various Ottoman Sultans, and in the 20th century, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and in a way especially pernicious, Enver Hoxha, who persecuted a higher ratio of Christians than anyone else in his zeal to obliterate religion in Albania, which of course failed completely. All of these evil men have a prototype in Emperor Nero, who falsely accused the Christians of starting a fire which did great damage to Rome.

I think the evidence for Nero as a persecutor is rather thin.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think the evidence for Nero as a persecutor is rather thin.

Oh really? Then who do you think started the persecution of Christians that began during his reign and grew in intensity before subsiding greatly from the reign of Trajan, until the reign of Commodus, when it resumed at a level of extreme horror?

I would also note the evidence for most events in antiquity is thin, but the evidence for Nero as a persecutor is thicker than most. Consider the tragedy of Socrates, in that whatever he taught is at the mercy of Plato, and to a much lesser extent Xenophon, but on the account of those two witnesses we can conclude he likely existed, he was a philosopher and he was executed, beyond that, it is impossible to ascertain what really happened with anything near the level of confidence that we can discuss most aspects of ecclesiastical history.

Thus I propose there exists an epistemological hierarchy, with repeatable experimental results (if not necessarily their correct interpretation) at the top, events of the past in the middle, and unobservable phenomena at the bottom.

Ergo we can positively assert that the world is round because repeatable experiments demonstrate this is the case; we can assert with reasonable confidence that Socrates was a Greek philosopher who was executed, and Plato and Xenophon were probably among his disciples, and yet what exactly happened we don’t know for sure because the accounts of Plato and Xenophon disagree on some details.

In the case of the persecution under Nero we have more evidence, and indeed the fact you can use Hebrew numerology to extract his name from 666 is evidence. Not proof, of course, but it is evidence, although of course there is an admitted circularity in using it as such, but fortunately, there are multiple independent historical records that indicate a severe persecution occurred between the reign of Nero and Trajan, which likely peaked under Emperor Titus.