Flat Earth Debate

I injected myself into an on-line discussion recently, and decided I'd post the pertinent parts of that discussion here, mainly for posterity, but also for hilarity.

The discussion centered around the question of whether the Bible's authors thought the Earth was flat or not. The outstanding statement on the table was the following:

My Opponent: "the Bible actually states the Earth is round not flat"

So, I responded with the following:

Me: "Round doesn't mean not flat, whereas sphere or ball does. The Ancient Hebrews had a word for sphere, which is equivalent to our word for ball. They didn't use that word to describe the Earth though, choosing instead to use the Hebrew word for round. This usage by itself suggests they were referring to a flat Earth. But in addition to that, there are also biblical references to events taking place at the center of the Earth, which can only mean a flat Earth, since a spherical object has no center on its surface. So, unless you're willing to accept that these events took place literlly in the middle of our spherical Earth, you'll have to concede that the authors were referring to a flat Earth."

This comment should have technically ended the discussion, unless my opponent could show that I was wrong, that ancient Hebrew actually used the same word for round and sphere or something like that, but he had a different, more nonsensical angle:

My Opponent: "something round CANNOT be flat too"

Wow. The word CANNOT really jumps out doesn't it? Obviously his way of puffing out his chest with confidence. Clearly he felt he was making a point that should be pretty obvious, but, as you'll soon see, he couldn't have been farther from the mark. In fact, his response reminded me of another debate.

Some years ago, I heard of a now infamous debate, where a creationist tried to argue that evolution couldn't be true, because if it were, it would violate the second law of thermodynamics. This is of course false, but that's not what makes the story interesting. The creationist in that debate made this argument:

One of the most basic laws in the universe is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. This states that as time goes by, entropy in an environment will increase. Evolution argues differently against a law that is accepted EVERYWHERE BY EVERYONE. Evolution says that we started out simple, and over time became more complex. That just isn't possible: UNLESS there is a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy. If there were such a source, scientists would certainly know about it.

The money quote of course is the reference by the creationist to a "a giant outside source of energy supplying the Earth with huge amounts of energy". I can only imagine how foolish he must have felt when it was explained to him that this giant energy source exists, and has a very familiar name.

It's called the SUN!! [tremendous howls of laughter ensue]

Anyway, I got to have my "it's called the Sun" moment when I responded this way:

Me: "Ever heard of pizza?"

I thought it was a pretty funny response, and figured that after such a humiliating defeat, he'd concede the point and we could go on with our lives. But no, this guy wasn't giving up, he'd lost the battle, but he was still wanting to win the war. His confidence was fading though, he no longer seemed as confident about his initial claim:

My Opponent: "The Bible meant the center of the known world, they didn't know about the rest of the world yet."

So, in a matter of minutes, his argument goes from a confident "they knew what shape the Earth was!", to a timid "umm, they had no idea."

Well, Okee Dokee.

So, I responded with the following, which turned out to be the debate killer. There was no further response:

Me: "Don't you find it odd that people who were supposedly guided by the divine inspiration of an all knowing super entity, were restricted in their knowledge to the same things we would expect of people who weren't guided by the divine inspiration of an all knowing super entity? Hmmm."

I hope that one didn't make him cry.