Role of Religion in Determining the Earths Shape :: Geography

Role of Religion in Determining the Earths ShapeThe Hellenic geographers of the later Roman blockage developedsystematic calculations for the mapping and shaping of the earth. However,what would come to replace these systematic calculations? Why were theideologies of a flat earth recognized and why were those of a sphericalearth ridiculed? The answer to this question is very simple and can beanswered by one clear and concise al-Quran Religion.Thus saith the Lord God This is Jerusalem I have set it in the midst ofthe nations and countries that are round just about her. (Ezekiel 55)This verse from the of take Ezekiel simply states that the city ofJerusalem should be in the center of all maps created. This eliminated theneed for any latitude or longitude. Before hand, there had been more than sextuplet hundred maps created, not one having this holy city as the center.There was nothing new about putting the most sacred place at the centersays Boorstin. The Hindus placed Mount Meru, a mythological 70,000 foothigh mountain at the center of their map. In the Muslim faith, the Kabahin Mecca was the highest point on earth and the polestar showed the cityof 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, eachbased on a different piety.Many years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the Greeks theorizedthat the earth was a globe. But after(prenominal) that, there was a period in historycalled The Great Interruption. This period was categorized by a completesilence where people in general, forgot about the issue of whether theearth was flat or whether it was a globe. Another reason that brought thetheories of a globular world to rest was because the priests told thegeneral public that the earth was flat. Priests such as St. Augustine andothers invented the Antipode theory, which stated that a world shaped likea globe is impossible because objects would be hanging downwards andgrowin g backwards. Once again, religion played a major part in thisargument that would rage on for many years to come.To conclude, much like the theories of the priests in the firstfour hundred years after the birth of Jesus Christ, who said that Jerusalem was thecenter of a flat earth, one might be able to relate this period in time toa much more recent and modern one. Prior to the French Revolution in 1789,