| vlad321 said: No offense man, but it was the religious people who believed the earth was flat and the scientists were burned at stake for debating against them. I think it was one of the ancient Greeks or Egyptians who proved geometrically that the Earth had to be round (or maybe that the Earth revolved around the Sun, not sure on which) by looking at shadows in a well. Whichever it was, it predated the Bible by a decent amount, and people were getting burned at stake for claiming otherwise up until the Reformation.
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I am not sure what the masses believed, but the Church never taught that the earth was flat. I believe that St. Augustine, who was the most important figure in Western theology besides St. Paul, believed that the earth was spherical. The Church readily accepted the Greek belief that the earth was flat. The issue of heliocentrism may have been more contentious, but that had more to do with the reformation and counter-reformation than a theological dispute. I remember reading a paper published by David Lindberg, who is a Professor of History of Science at the University of Wisconsin, that said Copernicus was fearful of publishing his paper because of how other scientists would react and not the Church. I believe Copernicus even dedicated his book to Pope Paul III.
