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- Ancient History
- The evolution of the world
-
- The Greek geographers of the later Roman period developed systematic
- calculations for the mapping and shaping of the earth. However, what
- would come to replace these systematic calculations? Why were the
- ideologies of a flat earth accepted and why were those of a spherical
- earth ridiculed? The answer to this question is very simple and can be
- answered by one clear and concise word: Religion.
-
- "Thus saith the Lord God; This is Jerusalem: I have set it in the midst
- of the nations and countries
- that are round about her." (Ezekiel 5:5)
-
- This verse from the of book Ezekiel simply states that the city of
- Jerusalem should be in the center of all maps created. This eliminated
- the need for any latitude or longitude. Before hand, there had been more
- than six hundred maps created, not one having this holy city as the
- center. There was nothing new about putting "the most sacred place at
- the center" says Boorstin. The Hindus placed Mount Meru, a mythological
- 70,000 foot high mountain at the center of their map. In the Muslim
- faith, the KaÆbah in Mecca was the highest point on earth and the
- polestar showed the city of Mecca to be opposite the center of the sky.
- As one can clearly see, many maps, had different centers. Each map had a
- different center, each based on a different religion.
-
- Many years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the Greeks theorized that
- the earth was a globe. But after that, there was a period in history
- called "The Great Interruption." This period was categorized by a
- complete silence where people in general, forgot about the issue of
- whether the earth was flat or whether it was a globe. Another reason
- that brought the theories of a globular world to rest was because the
- priests told the general public that the earth was flat. Priests such as
- St. Augustine and others invented the Antipode theory, which stated that
- a world shaped like a globe is impossible because objects would be
- hanging downwards and growing backwards. Once again, religion played a
- major part in this argument that would rage on for many years to come.
-
- To conclude, much like the theories of the priests in the first 400
- years after the birth of Jesus Christ, who said that Jerusalem was the
- center of a flat earth, one might be able to relate this period in time
- to a much more recent and modern one. Prior to the French Revolution in
- 1789, France was ruled by an absolute divine right monarchy. The
- institution that had the most power at the time was the Catholic church.
- No one in France would ever dare question the word of the Church.
- Everything the Church said had to be true and that was that. This is
- further reinforced by the churchÆs persecution of Copernicus who later
- again theorized that the earth was not the center of the solar system.
- This illustrates that 1000 years later, religion remained the backbone
- of society, and to a lesser extent, the same still holds true today in
- certain societies.