Oh snap! Obama disses Rutherford B. Hayes!

[Sallow]

I guess you don't sail. Every sailor who ever put out to sea knew the Earth is round, no matter what idiots who lived inland thought. Or did you learn from one of those history books that insisted that no one ever sailed out of sight of land?

I learned from one of those history books that said most of Europe would punish people for going against religious dogma.

Do you know who led the charge against Galileo? The scientists who thought Aristotle was right when he said that the Earth was the center of the universe. They had more political power than Galileo, even though the Pope was a personal friend, and they managed to force the Pope to allow the trial, despite the fact that there were actually Cardinals that thought there shouldn't be one. If there hadn't been a trial the Church would have torn itself apart over the internal schism from Catholics fighting Catholics over science and faith. While it is completely true that the Aristotelians won that particular battle, not one of them thought the Earth was flat because Aristotle knew better.

All of that is just to prove you are actually reading the wrong history books. Everyone who studied science, and every sailor, knew the Earth was round. The educated people even knew how big it is. For some reason Columbus thought it was significantly smaller, and wanted to prove it by sailing west to get to the east. The kings he talked to didn't want to give him money because they thought his math was bad, not because they thought the Earth is flat. Turns out they were right.

Sometimes the claim is made that those who opposed Columbus thought the Earth was flat, but that wasn't the case at all. Even in ancient times sailors knew that the Earth was round and scientists not only suspected it was a sphere, but even estimated its size.
If you stand on the seashore and watch a ship sailing away, it will gradually disappear from view. But the reason cannot be the distance: if a hill or tower are nearby, and you climb to the top after the ship has completely disappeared, it becomes visible again. Furthermore, if on the shore you watch carefully the way the ship disappears from view, you will notice that the hull vanishes first, while the masts and sails (or the bridge and smokestack) disappear last. It is as if the ship was dropping behind a hill, which in a way is exactly the case, the "hill" being the curve of the Earth's surface.
To find out how the distance to the horizon is calculated, click here Eratosthenes, Posidonius and El Mamun

The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) argued in his writings that the Earth was spherical, because of the circular shadow it cast on the Moon, during a lunar eclipse. Another reason was that some stars visible from Egypt are not seen further north The full quotation can be found here.

The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus

Go read some accurate books about history before you dismiss the Catholic Church as a bunch of idiots who thought the Earth was flat.

Originally the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages, or roughly the 6th to 13th centuries, as a period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the "light of Rome" after the end of Late Antiquity, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.[5] [3] This definition is still found in popular usage,[1][2][6] but increased recognition of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages since the 19th century has led to the label being restricted in application. Since the 20th century, it is frequently applied only to the earlier part of the era, the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century).[7][8] However, many modern scholars who study the era tend to avoid the term altogether for its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages.[9][10][11]

The concept of a Dark Age originated with the Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s, and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature.[3][12] Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the light of classical antiquity. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Roman times and the High Middle Ages (c. 11th–13th century), including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general. Later historians and writers picked up the concept, and popular culture has further expanded on it as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)

Oh..lookie..here come the Republicans!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs]Monty Python-Bring out your dead! - YouTube[/ame]

Republican..health care..gotta love it.

 

[Sallow]

Ronnie? The guy who is famous for saying that 90% of all pollution comes from plants? What does it say about Obama that he used him as a source?

By the way, he wasn't the first.

Doesn't matter. Ronnie, although he committed treason, lied, broke the law and funded terrorists that raped and killed American nuns in South America, and funded terrorists that would eventually commit 9/11 in Afghanistan..along with bailing out banks and financials who collapsed because of his deregulation bonanza while presiding over one of the biggest tax hikes in American history..

Is the absolute Hero of conservatives.

Hook..
Line..
Sinker.

Yep, Ronnie snared Barry.

Hookay.

Point out where FOX attributed the quote to Reagan?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I learned from one of those history books that said most of Europe would punish people for going against religious dogma.

Do you know who led the charge against Galileo? The scientists who thought Aristotle was right when he said that the Earth was the center of the universe. They had more political power than Galileo, even though the Pope was a personal friend, and they managed to force the Pope to allow the trial, despite the fact that there were actually Cardinals that thought there shouldn't be one. If there hadn't been a trial the Church would have torn itself apart over the internal schism from Catholics fighting Catholics over science and faith. While it is completely true that the Aristotelians won that particular battle, not one of them thought the Earth was flat because Aristotle knew better.

All of that is just to prove you are actually reading the wrong history books. Everyone who studied science, and every sailor, knew the Earth was round. The educated people even knew how big it is. For some reason Columbus thought it was significantly smaller, and wanted to prove it by sailing west to get to the east. The kings he talked to didn't want to give him money because they thought his math was bad, not because they thought the Earth is flat. Turns out they were right.



The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus

Go read some accurate books about history before you dismiss the Catholic Church as a bunch of idiots who thought the Earth was flat.

Originally the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages, or roughly the 6th to 13th centuries, as a period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the "light of Rome" after the end of Late Antiquity, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.[5] [3] This definition is still found in popular usage,[1][2][6] but increased recognition of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages since the 19th century has led to the label being restricted in application. Since the 20th century, it is frequently applied only to the earlier part of the era, the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century).[7][8] However, many modern scholars who study the era tend to avoid the term altogether for its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages.[9][10][11]

The concept of a Dark Age originated with the Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s, and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature.[3][12] Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the light of classical antiquity. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Roman times and the High Middle Ages (c. 11th–13th century), including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general. Later historians and writers picked up the concept, and popular culture has further expanded on it as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)

Oh..lookie..here come the Republicans!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs"]Monty Python-Bring out your dead! - YouTube[/ame]

Republican..health care..gotta love it.

Can't admit you were wrong, can you?

FYI, Columbis lived in the Renaissance, not the Dark Ages, which were only dark if you lived in Europe because the Middle East was busy learning astronomy and medicine. You would know that if you weren't a bigot.

Renaissance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Sallow]

Do you know who led the charge against Galileo? The scientists who thought Aristotle was right when he said that the Earth was the center of the universe. They had more political power than Galileo, even though the Pope was a personal friend, and they managed to force the Pope to allow the trial, despite the fact that there were actually Cardinals that thought there shouldn't be one. If there hadn't been a trial the Church would have torn itself apart over the internal schism from Catholics fighting Catholics over science and faith. While it is completely true that the Aristotelians won that particular battle, not one of them thought the Earth was flat because Aristotle knew better.

All of that is just to prove you are actually reading the wrong history books. Everyone who studied science, and every sailor, knew the Earth was round. The educated people even knew how big it is. For some reason Columbus thought it was significantly smaller, and wanted to prove it by sailing west to get to the east. The kings he talked to didn't want to give him money because they thought his math was bad, not because they thought the Earth is flat. Turns out they were right.



The Round Earth and Christopher Columbus

Go read some accurate books about history before you dismiss the Catholic Church as a bunch of idiots who thought the Earth was flat.

Originally the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages, or roughly the 6th to 13th centuries, as a period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the "light of Rome" after the end of Late Antiquity, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.[5] [3] This definition is still found in popular usage,[1][2][6] but increased recognition of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages since the 19th century has led to the label being restricted in application. Since the 20th century, it is frequently applied only to the earlier part of the era, the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century).[7][8] However, many modern scholars who study the era tend to avoid the term altogether for its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages.[9][10][11]

The concept of a Dark Age originated with the Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s, and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature.[3][12] Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the light of classical antiquity. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Roman times and the High Middle Ages (c. 11th–13th century), including not only the lack of Latin literature, but also a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general. Later historians and writers picked up the concept, and popular culture has further expanded on it as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope.[13]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)

Oh..lookie..here come the Republicans!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs"]Monty Python-Bring out your dead! - YouTube[/ame]

Republican..health care..gotta love it.

Can't admit you were wrong, can you?

FYI, Columbis lived in the Renaissance, not the Dark Ages, which were only dark if you lived in Europe because the Middle East was busy learning astronomy and medicine. You would know that if you weren't a bigot.

Renaissance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Admit I'm wrong about what?

Your denying the Middle Ages.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The middle ages occurred after the decline of the Roman Empire. That's when the church had all the power. It took quite some time for Europe to unshackle itself from that into the Renaissance.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

Oh..lookie..here come the Republicans!

Monty Python-Bring out your dead! - YouTube

Republican..health care..gotta love it.

Can't admit you were wrong, can you?

FYI, Columbis lived in the Renaissance, not the Dark Ages, which were only dark if you lived in Europe because the Middle East was busy learning astronomy and medicine. You would know that if you weren't a bigot.

Renaissance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Admit I'm wrong about what?

Your denying the Middle Ages.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The middle ages occurred after the decline of the Roman Empire. That's when the church had all the power. It took quite some time for Europe to unshackle itself from that into the Renaissance.

Wrong about what? Just about everything.

The church supposedly thought the Earth was flat, and fought to keep it that way. They were supposedly so successful at this that no one wanted to give Columbus money because they thought he would fall off the edge of the world. Then you compound your idiocy by saying that no one was allowed to learn science, even though science was blossoming under Muslim rule. Do you even understand that, even shortly after the period you refer to, the Middle Ages was considered an aberration? The church always supported a classical education, even during the Dark Ages. The problem was not that the church was trying to keep people ignorant, it was that, as a result of the collapse of the Roman Empire, it did not have enough power to spread knowledge the same way it did. Europe did take a millennia to recover from that, and when it did the church was right there supporting people like Michelangelo.

The Middle Ages (adjectival form: medieval, mediaeval or mediæval) is a periodization of European history, encompassing the period from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classical, Medieval and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in the 15th century and reflects the view that this period was a deviation from the path of classical learning, a path that was later reconnected by Renaissance scholarship.

In the Early Middle Ages the trends of the Late Antiquity (depopulation, deurbanization, and increased barbarian invasion) continued. North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire, became Islamic. Later in the period, the establishment of the feudal system allowed a move away from subsistence agriculture. There was sustained urbanization in Northern and Western Europe.

During the High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1300), Christian-oriented art and architecture flourished and Crusades were mounted to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. The influence of the emerging nation-state was tempered by the ideal of an international Christendom. The codes of chivalry and courtly love set rules for proper behavior, while the Scholastic philosophers attempted to reconcile faith and reason. Outstanding achievement in this period includes the Code of Justinian, the mathematics of Fibonacci and Oresme, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, and the architecture of Gothic cathedrals such as Chartres.

Middle Ages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't deny the Middle Ages, or the Dark Ages, I just know history a little bit better than you do.

 

[Sallow]

Can't admit you were wrong, can you?

FYI, Columbis lived in the Renaissance, not the Dark Ages, which were only dark if you lived in Europe because the Middle East was busy learning astronomy and medicine. You would know that if you weren't a bigot.

Renaissance - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Admit I'm wrong about what?

Your denying the Middle Ages.

You couldn't be more wrong.

The middle ages occurred after the decline of the Roman Empire. That's when the church had all the power. It took quite some time for Europe to unshackle itself from that into the Renaissance.

Wrong about what? Just about everything.

The church supposedly thought the Earth was flat, and fought to keep it that way. They were supposedly so successful at this that no one wanted to give Columbus money because they thought he would fall off the edge of the world. Then you compound your idiocy by saying that no one was allowed to learn science, even though science was blossoming under Muslim rule. Do you even understand that, even shortly after the period you refer to, the Middle Ages was considered an aberration? The church always supported a classical education, even during the Dark Ages. The problem was not that the church was trying to keep people ignorant, it was that, as a result of the collapse of the Roman Empire, it did not have enough power to spread knowledge the same way it did. Europe did take a millennia to recover from that, and when it did the church was right there supporting people like Michelangelo.

The Middle Ages (adjectival form: medieval, mediaeval or mediæval) is a periodization of European history, encompassing the period from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classical, Medieval and Modern. The term "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in the 15th century and reflects the view that this period was a deviation from the path of classical learning, a path that was later reconnected by Renaissance scholarship.

In the Early Middle Ages the trends of the Late Antiquity (depopulation, deurbanization, and increased barbarian invasion) continued. North Africa and the Middle East, once part of the Eastern Roman Empire, became Islamic. Later in the period, the establishment of the feudal system allowed a move away from subsistence agriculture. There was sustained urbanization in Northern and Western Europe.

During the High Middle Ages (c. 1000–1300), Christian-oriented art and architecture flourished and Crusades were mounted to recapture the Holy Land from Muslim control. The influence of the emerging nation-state was tempered by the ideal of an international Christendom. The codes of chivalry and courtly love set rules for proper behavior, while the Scholastic philosophers attempted to reconcile faith and reason. Outstanding achievement in this period includes the Code of Justinian, the mathematics of Fibonacci and Oresme, the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, and the architecture of Gothic cathedrals such as Chartres.

Middle Ages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't deny the Middle Ages, or the Dark Ages, I just know history a little bit better than you do.

George Orwell would have loved this.