Mar 11, 2012 -- 12:11PM, caduceus wrote:

Yes I'm still AL
Translations of ancient Hindu texts have been around for some time,
Rig Veda translated by Ralph Griffith 1896.

The Rig Veda does not describe a spherical earth. The aforementioned Hindu chauvinists deliberately misinterpret references to a circular earth as references to a spherical earth. Biblical inerrantists like to do the same thing. They don't (or shouldn't) fool anybody.

Hindu texts consistently describe the earth as a disk until the early centuries CE, when the Greek concept of a spherical earth was introduced.

The Epic of Etana (Sumerian) describes a flight above a spherical Earth.

The Epic of Etana is not Hindu. It isn't Sumerian either. Etana was a legendary Sumerian king, but the story about him is Babylonian. It nowhere describes the earth as a sphere. You haven't read it, have you? I have.

Mar 11, 2012 -- 3:19PM, caduceus wrote:

Classical Sumer ends with the rise of the Akkadian Empire in the 23rd century BC. The Sumerians were eventually absorbed into the Akkadian (Assyro-Babylonian) population.
Its the same place different time and you are hair splitting.

You are screwing around. The important thing is that the Epic of Etana doesn't mention a spherical earth.

Mar 11, 2012 -- 3:19PM, caduceus wrote:

It's not so much New Age nonsense as a recent type of Hindu chauvinism according to which all the major scientific discoveries of the West were originally made centuries or millennia earlier in ancient India.

Translations of ancient Hindu texts have been around for some time,
Rig Veda translated by Ralph Griffith 1896.They are not "a recent type of Hindu chauvinism". not recent anything.

What have English translations of Hindu texts got to do with anything? I didn't say they were a recent type of Hindu chauvinism. I said that there is a recent type of Hindu chauvinism according to which all the major scientific discoveries of the West were originally made centuries or millennia earlier in ancient India. Weren't you aware of this?

Then why did you mention it? Have you forgotten what you're trying to prove?

I got a virus once while I was connected to Beliefnet.  It tried to sell Viagra to everybody in my address book.  And then did it again every few months.  It was an old computer and I juked it.