>>Alex, isn't it better to go there and indeed get into science discussions?! The 'flat earth' example is a nice example afterall, isn't it? As to my knowledge, it was Gallileo who said that the earth is round and turning around the sun. For saying so, he has been condemned by the Catholic Church. Obviously the knowledge about the earth wasn't that good at that time. From where did the Christians get their knowledge? From the bible?
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>Maybe you are right on the discussion. But it wasn't Galileo. What he did was use a telescope and see 4 moons of Jupiter. IOW other worlds revolving around another world. Therefore the notion that the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around it was a lie.
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>That the world was round was known for many centuries. In fact since at least Aristotle (4th century BC) who noted that ships receding over the horizon dissapeared slowly, hull-first and the shadow of the earth over the moon during an eclipse was round.
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>Erathostenes even estimated Earth's circumference from Egypt when he noticed that the sun was overhead in one city and an obelisque cast no shadow when at the same time of day onthe say day in another year it cast a show in another city. That could only be explained by a round Earth.
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>When Columbus sailed, the knowledge that the Earth was a sphere was readily available. He even knew that. His failure was in grossly underestimating the circumference.
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>As for religion, thanks to the Church and the dark ages that they created, the knowledge of science went backward or was 'lost' for 1,000 years. Imagine what technological advances we'd have today if we had advanced during those 1,000 years or so. Yes, we do have a lot to thank for religion.

Thank you for your explanation. For the sake of clarity I'd like to stress, however, that at the time of Gallileo most people - particularly those of the church - really believed in a flat earth and that Gallileo's proofs contradicted that belief.