Anyone would say that there is enough evidence that the Earth is
spherical. However, and against all logic, there are more people who assert
that our planet is in fact flat.
For example,
the image known as “Earthrise” in which we can see our planet being a globe is
one of the most popular images of Earth from outer space. In that image, we can
clearly see that our planet is in fact a GLOBE. This is just one of the many
images photographed by satellites ever since, proving that in fact, our planet
is not flat.
Christine
Garwood, author of “Flat Earth: The Story of an Infamous Idea” claims that it
is “a fallacy of history” that everyone from Antiquity to Darkness believed
that Earth was flat and that they were only disillusioned with that “crazy idea
“when Christopher Columbus succeeded in reaching America” without falling on
the edge of the world. ”
“With extraordinary few exceptions, no educated person in the history of Western civilization from the third century onwards believed that the Earth was flat,” said historian Jeffrey Burton Russell in 1997.
The eminent
scientist Stephen Jay Gould wrote in the same year that “there was never a
period of ‘flat earth obscurity’ among scholars. Greek knowledge of sphericity
never disappeared and all medieval scholars accepted the roundness of the Earth
as an established fact of cosmology.
“The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know it is round because I saw its shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church.” –Fernando de Magallanes (1480-1521).
With the
rise of scientific rationalism, which seemed to undermine the authority of the
Bible, some Christian thinkers decided to launch an attack on established
science. An English inventor named Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884) assumed
the pseudonym “Parallax” and founded the new school of “Zetetic Astronomy” (meaning
“skeptic”, from ancient Greek zētētikós, “inquisitive”).
Rowbotham
toured England arguing that the Earth was a stationary disk and the Sun was
only 400 miles away. In 1870, John Hampden, famous for leading polemics, wrote
about the Flat Earth and described Isaac Newton – the author of the theory of
gravity – as “a drunk or a madman.”
Hampden’s
ideas, like those of many flat-earthers, were based on religion: many of the
proofs of his theory came from Holy Scriptures. Science and religion were confronted.
So all things aside, from religion to ancient astronomical knowledge, the main
question here is why do some people still believe we live on a flat Earth?
There is
ample evidence to disprove this theory. Not long ago we wrote about A Ph.D.
Student who had presented a thesis claiming that the Earth is FLAT, stationary,
the center of the universe and only around 13,500 years old.
The thesis
rejected scientific theories presented by Newton and Einstein, astronomical
discoveries made by Copernicus and Kepler, the Big Bang theory, atmospheric and
geological activity, most of the modern climatology, and basically all other
scientific teachings made in the past.
The Flat
Earth debate continues, so how do we end this debate once and for all? One
Reddit user has come up with a rather interesting idea: Let’s make a reality
show to ‘cure’ the Flat Earth problem—if of course there is one. Reddit users
suggested that a group of flat Earther’s should be sent out on an expedition
where they try to discover the ‘edge’ of the World.
Those who
back the Flat Earth theory are convinced that it’s not possible to reach the
‘edge’ of the world because the ‘end of the Earth’ is in fact blocked by a
massive wall composed of Ice, which in turn is ‘guarded’ by the world’s
military.
As Reddit
users suggest, maybe the group of Flat Earthers should be taken to the North
and South Pole, to see for themselves that it’s not flat and that there is no
‘edge’. Other users on social network suggest we should take a group of Flat
Earthers into space, so they can see for themselves that the Earth is in fact
round. But that’s a more expensive solution perhaps.
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