No no we cant have this !

Hmm being sick and also tired, but how did heliocentric thought (and the opposite) come into the argument?

I think it became one when some in error insisted that scripture doesn't support those geocentric views .

So the geocentric view was initially stated because the cretinist view is that a fundamentalist literal interpretation of scripture trumps scientific theories in education because the bible can't be wrong .
So if that is true and they believe the earth is only a few thousand years old and was made complete in six days then they must also believe that the earth has foundations and is covered by a bowl (or arch if you go for the greek rather than the hebrew) because thats what the good book says.

[CaptainHaplo]

Neon - it came into question because someone suggested that teaching from a biblical standpoint required the mother to teach a geocentric view of the universe. That is why I tried to steer this back to it. Having attended a private high school, where the teaching was centered on the bible (considering I also had a 1 hr bible class every danged day) - I know that unless your dealing with a wacko fringe group, modern Xtianity does not interpret scripture as such.

To boil it all down, it basically was a troll trying to disparage a belief system in the hopes of stirring up drama, whereas the result was a rather informative discourse that I hope many, myself included, learned a bit from.

I know that unless your dealing with a wacko fringe group, modern Xtianity does not interpret scripture as such.

An accurate perspective , but that wasn't the point .
While you think the point was....

it basically was a troll trying to disparage a belief system in the hopes of stirring up drama,

The point wasn't to disparage anyone apart from those who take a fundamentalist literalist interpretation , not that such an approach is new considering St Augustine a very long time ago said that fundamentalist literalists are muppets with little faith and even less understanding who hold the religion up for ridicule

So is the insistance on teaching fundamentalist literal interpretations of scripture as science in science classes restricted to a wacko fringe group ?
Is using the scriptures to teach against the theory of evolution really any different from using the scriptures to teach against the heliocentric view ?

[Frame57]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Actually that's not true either. Eratosthenes of Cyrene calculated the diameter of the Earth in the second century B.C., and Claudius Ptolemaeus, or Ptolemy, had done further calculations not much after that. Columbus' chief opponent didn't believe the Earth was flat, but that it was much larger than Columbus himself claimed. It turned out that he was right and old Cristoforo Columbo was wrong.

The belief that they thought the Earth was flat is an invention of Washington Irving.

So, you are saying no one thought the earth was flat? It was a common belief back then. Where in hell do you think the idea of "sailing of the edge of the world came from". Of course some obviously did get this by simply placing two sticks apart and calculating the shadow of the sun. But the idea was not mainstream by any stretch...