Why do we call our planet "THE" earth?

Question

Stars form the same way, everywhere. There is always left over material in the star formation that makes the rocky planets, like earth. Astronomers estimate that about 5% of the stars in our galaxy, are Earthlike planets, which is about 10 BILLION planets!

Why do we call it THE earth, when there are more than likely billions of other earths. Is that another arrogance brought to you by religion?

Answer 1

no religion only mentions one earth

science is the culprit for the many earth's theory

However, there is no signs of life as we know it anywhere in the know universe .... so I guess until someone from one of those other earths comes here to challenge us to the title fight for the coveted "THE EARTH" ... we will continue to reign supreme with our arrogant selves

Answer 2

Carl Sagan posed this very same question, in Glasgow in 1985. I have it here in "The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal Search for God". I'll give you my view on it before I look it up:

We don't realize that we are not at the center of everything. It was proven long ago that our galaxy isn't even at the center of everything. We didn't name it "The Earth", we named it "Earth".

It's just egocentrism. This is just one of many planets like ours, in one of many galaxies like ours. There is nothing special about it, but there was a time when nobody knew that, and it was believed that our Earth was all there was and that everything revolved around our Earth. The early church did everything it could to keep astronomers from spreading the word that this was not true.

OK, now let's see what Sagan says...here it is:

"You know the phrase -- another linguistic artifact -- *the* world, or *the* Earth. What is the definite article saying? It's saying there is only one. And that also goes straight back to pre-Copernican times, as does the phrase, natural as it is, of the Sun rising and the Sun setting." (p. 36)

Answer 3

The other planets were named after Roman gods. In Greek Earth is called Gaia. Earth is merely the word that developed in the English language as an equivalent of the Latin word Terra or the Greek Gaia. The suns proper name is Sol and the word galaxy is actually derived from the Latin for Milky Way. Romans basically worshipped the same or similar gods as the Greeks but changed their names. Mercury=Hermes Venus=Aphrodite Mars=Ares Jupiter=Zeus Saturn=Cronus Uranus??? Neptune=Posideon Pluto=Hades Also the Latin word for moon is Luna. In some ways I think that the Latin names sound better.

Answer 4

Is your assumption another assumption brought to you by stupid assumptions.

Have astronomers found such a planet? Have any of the planets they have found been the size one would expect from looking at our solar system? Haven't they all been as close to their parent star as the inner planets, but have been gas giant larger than Jupiter? Isn't it true their gravitational pull, being that size and that close would have disrupted the formation of any rocky planets in those solar systems?

Aren't you stupid for using poor knowledge of science to mock religion when all observations so far point that your assumptions are not true? Do you realize trying to use science to mock others when you don't know the science you are using makes you look 60 times more stupid than the people you are trying to mock?

Answer 5

Normally I'll tolerate any amount of stupidity in a question, but this is just over the top.

Grammatically, it's correct. From within the United States, it's correct to say, "I am in THE United States." If you were in England, it would be grammatically correct to say, "I am in England", not, "I am in THE England."

Standing on this particular planet, I can say, "I am on Earth", or "I am on THE Earth." Either way is correct. If I were standing on the moon, it would be, "I am on THE moon." Saying, "I am on Moon" would be wrong. Standing on Mars, however, it would be correct to say, "I am on Mars", not "THE Mars."

Essentially, the "THE" in "The Earth" connotes that our Earth is the one and only earth, which it is. Planets around other stars, however similar to Earth/The Earth, would have different names, either given to those planets by us, or their inhabitants.

Now, if we ever discover another planet with intelligent life, and the residents call that planet Earth, THEN we have a problem.

(long sigh)

Answer 6

Even if there are other worlds and earthlike planets, they would not be called Earth. Earth is a name unique to only this planet. If we found another planet with life, we would not call it Earth. We would give it another name.

Answer 7

By RELIGION??!! Huh? Where did that come from?
"Earth" isn't just the name of the planet. It's also what it's made of. Until Galileo came along, we didn't understand that those lights that moved among the stars were made of anything other than light. So of course Earth and dirt would be synonymous. We live on the dirt. We do not live on Planet Dirt. It's just semantics.

Answer 8

no it's arrogance brought on by living on this planet.

of course it's THE earth! we've been living here for millions of years before we even knew there were other planets.

it's just part of our human-centric view of the universe. religion comes from that, not the other way around.

Answer 9

but all the other planets like ours would be named something different. Earth is just a name

Answer 10

Actually, the correct appellation is simply "Earth." Just as most people put unnecessary . . . ah . . . words into their verbal communication, writers put unnecessary "the"s into written communication. If you don't believe me, run through an average newspaper sometime and see how many "the"s you can eliminate from a page without changing a bit of meaning!