how does that change how you view the world? i'm a product of my own North American education which ... well ... it's ethnocentric. i had to look around to get used to the idea that there is absolutely nothing wrong with this picture.
i was reading some other links that stated that maps used to have East at the top until navigators started keying on the North Star. most maps put North at the top of the map now because of that.
this look is different though. it forces one to look at places that you don't think about. if Asia, South America and Africa are prominent then how can we ignore the billions who live there in poverty. no more of this hiding faces behind the tilt of the globe, no more of this hiding in plain sight.
what if the majority also had the most money? where's that put me?
what if the ancient Asian cultures had explored the world the way the Europeans later did? how's that change how we view our maps? how's that change how we view our culture? how's that change how we view our economies?
i'm still ethnocentric. help me learn to throw more things on its head and look at it all from a completely different angle.
there are more versions of maps that you can find here and again here (thanks to Joel Stainer for the 2nd link).
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Another map that sets everything out according to actual size rather then stretching out the poles like on typical maps can be found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gall-peters2.jpg
It's actually crazy to get an idea of how big some places 'actually' are compared to other spots.
wow, that is a shift. from a theological perspective, i have learned a lot from reading theologians from other countries, especially from Africa and South America. Our North American theologies are also very ethnocentric, and we can have similar shifts in thinking when we see the Scriptures from another perspective.
Thanks for sharing this. A big jolt to my Britishness, finding the British Isles and especially Northern Ireland away at the bottom right corner, when I'm used to us being top and centre with the Greenwich Meridian running through London.
Gives us all a corrected perspective on God's big world.
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