How Muslims believed earth was spherical long before anybody mentions it.

[Cato]

Well, let me put it straight to you. Growing up in the middle east makes you see things, that usually you won't see in the west.

Quite right. Something we can agree on. Camel fucking isn't part of sex education here.

[JuliaL]

I wasn't discussing the circumference of earth, or the greek philosophy of viewing earth as "a coin" with ending borders ; mostly referred to as "the end of the world". It's about earth being a sphere ; a ball, is so different than assuming the obvious observation that earth is round.

What an odd argument, that everyone (ancients included) recognize that the earth is round, but nobody until Mohammed specifically connected round to spherical?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of...stic_world

The Indian mathematician Aryabhata (AD 476 - 550) was a pioneer of mathematical astronomy. He describes the earth as being spherical and that it rotates on its axis, among other things in his work Āryabhaṭīya.

http://Muhammad (Arabic: محمد‎; c. 570 – 8 June 632[3])

Muhammad (Arabic: محمد‎; c. 570 – 8 June 632[3])

So a guy who died 20 years before big Mo was born wrote about the earth being spherical, yet a book that Mo dictated, (presumably during his lifetime) later transcribed, which (with some artful choices of translation) can be sort of assumed to say that the earth was a ball (if you squint?)

There are probably people in my own city who don't know that the earth is a sphere, and probably always have been. So what? The scholars who publish first (e.g. Aryabhata vs Mohammed) get the glory.

[GrandizerII]

Yeah, that's assuming Mohammed even said the Earth was spherical. He never did in the Qur'an.

[jesus_wept]

According to the Quran, Allah says you should turn your face towards Mecca when you pray, yet I don't see many Muslims doing handstands when they pray.



Apparently there is a setting place of the sun too, where it sets (presumably every night) in a muddy puddle, which is hardly something you'd expect a god who created the universe and knows the earth is spherical to say...

[robvalue]

Or...

It's a gigantic pile of hogwash hay in which there may be a few needles which vaguely reflect reality. If you dress them up in little needle clothes and give them a backstory.

[Alex K]

According to the Quran, Allah says you should turn your face towards Mecca when you pray, yet I don't see many Muslims doing handstands when they pray.

Or - Prayers follow geodesics and Muhammad invented differential geometry!1!!1

[robvalue]

Right! If Muslims were serious about it, they'd do a bit more detailed calculation and then strap themselves to something at an angle, so they are praying at the floor, through the earth and then on to Mecca. Or are prayers affacted by gravity and so will bend round?

[Alex K]

I don't know, you need to do some general religiosity calculations for that...

[robvalue]

Pointing out the tangential prayer problem highlights how the ritual is based in redundant systems of knowledge. I never thought about that before New ways to mock religion, yay!

[jesus_wept]

Gravity is testable so it can't be that, presumably it must be something indistinguishable from magic instead.