Recently, the argument of the planet earth's being flat has risen and taken the spotlight; flat-earthers believe that the government spreads misinformation to the masses so they will believe the opposite of their claim.
Modern society treats the flat earth as a conspiracy theory that leads people to the cliff of their minds, and most people believe that there is enough evidence of the earth being spherical; however, despite all the logic, there are a large number of people who assert that the blue planet is flat.
The image popularly known by the term "earthrise" is the globe and the most famous image taken from outer space to support the fact that the earth is not flat.
In her book "Flat Earth: The Story of an Infamous Idea," author Christine Garwood believes that it is a "fallacy of history" from Antiquity of Darkness believed that the earth is flat and was only fooled by Christopher Columbus as he reached America without falling on the corners of the world.
Garwood's claim contradicted Jeffrey Burton Russell's words in 1997, saying that "no educated person in the history of Western civilization from the third century believed that the earth was flat."
In the same year, eminent scientist Stephen Jay Gould wrote that "there was never a period of 'flat earth obscurity' among scholars." Gould added that in the Greek knowledge of sphericity, the 'concept' was never displayed, including that all medieval scholars accepted the roundness of the planet as a fact in cosmology.
Early Societal Claims About the Earth Shape
The Portuguese explorer Fernando de Magallanes (1480-1521) said that the church believes in the flatness of the earth, but he said, "I saw its shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church." The rise of scientific rationalism seemed to undermine the bible's authority, and thinking Christians decided to create an attack on what was established by science.
Parallax is an assumed pseudonym of an English inventor, Samuel Birley Rowbotham (1816-1884), who founded the new school named "Zetetic Astronomy," derived from the Greek word zētētikós meaning skeptic.
He toured around England, claiming that the earth was a stationary disk and the sun was only 400 miles away. In 1870, Sir Isaac Newton and his theory of gravity were described by John Hampden as a mad idea, and he even called Newton a drunk or a madman.
Hampden's claim about the earth's shape is the same as those of flat-earthers who based their argument on religion, which is supported by the scriptures from the bible.
Read also: Big Bang Theory: Where Its Name Came From & Why Its More Accurate Than the Steady State Theory
Why Modern People Still Believe in the Flat-Earth Claim
The Church and science were confronted. Setting aside the religious and ancient astronomical knowledge, the question is why some people persist in believing the earth is flat.
Recently, a PhD student presented a thesis ditching all the scientific theories and astronomical discoveries of past scientists and claiming that the earth is flat and the center of the universe is only 13,500 years old.
Journalist Kelly Weill, who covered fringe acts for the Daily Beast and spent years studying the flat-earth movement and its adherents, said in her book, "Flat Earth enables people to cast out all previous information that they didn't want to believe and rebuild the world from scratch."
She even traced the resurfacing of the conspiracy in 2015 and how it began to spread across social platforms.
The argument between the two sides continues, but how will this debate end once and for all? A Reddit user created an interesting idea by creating a reality show about curing flat-earthers' problems.
They recommended that a group of flat-earth believers should send out an expedition trying to discover the "edge" of the world.
The 'Flat-earther' responded that it's impossible to reach the 'edge' of the earth because it is, in fact, hindered by a great wall composed of ice and 'guarded' by the world's military.
The Reddit users on the other side of the argument suggest the 'flat believers' should be taken to the poles of the earth to see for themselves that the north and south poles exist. There is no edge, while others said they should be taken into space so they can see how round the earth is.
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