Reply #35: I can't recall it being used in a literal sense on DU

[muriel_volestrangler]

It's normally used as a metaphor for those who hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible, and who are convinced that their interpretation is correct. For while you can manage to explain away most of the references (who am I to say whether 'sphere' is an accurate translation of the word in Isaiah?), the tendency of the passages in question is to say the earth is flat, with limits (eg the Daniel quotation, for which not explanation is provided in the works you have quoted). And there were, in the period when Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire and its successors, several important churchmen arguing that the Bible did say the earth was flat, and that the Bible's word always had to be taken over our own evidence. See http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/flat_earth_myth_ch5.html

And a few people have taken that view up more or less to the modern era. One of the references on that page is my great great grandfather, David Wardlaw Scott, who wrote a book, in all seriousness, called "Terra Firma: The Earth Not A Planet" published in 1901. He was a Congregational Minister, and the title page says "as proved by Scripture, Reason and Fact", and it's heavy on the scripture, wrong on the reasoning (eg he says he was told as a child that water stays held to the earth in the same way that water stays in a bucket when whirled round quickly in a vertical circle; but since the water is on the inside of the bucket, not the outside, he says this must mean that no-one knows how water stays on the earth - but one person giving an incorrect simile doesn't destroy all the other reasons), and his facts are just plain wrong (eg he says "it is well known that circumnavigating the earth at 50 degrees south is twice as far as at 50 degrees north" - thus proving, to him, that the earth is a circle with the North Pole at the centre. He didn't live long enough to hear about his namesake reaching the South Pole).

Reading it, it's clear his starting point was that the Bible could never be wrong, or even misleading, and he then selects all his 'reason' and 'fact' to back this up (he uses an incorrect formula for how far away the horizon is, just saying it is 'well known', and then says that when he shows the formula is incorrect, this must mean the earth is flat). He completely ignores the hundreds of years of successful navigation of the oceans, all based on assuming that it's a sphere. He proceeds to calculate that the Moon is less than a hundred miles above us, and the Sun not much further beyond that. So being a 'flat earther' is a state of mind - "don't tell me the facts, I know what it says in the Bible".