There are more people that believer in the flat Earth today than at any other time in history.
There is a reason why when claims are asserted that, in particular, Christians have a long history of belief in a flat Earth the two referenced names are Lactantius (240-320 AD) and Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th c. AD). It is because they are the go to guys and not all of the other Christian writers of the past two millennia.
In other words, it is a case of demonstrating one’s desperation to hold to a falsehood—that Christians largely believed that the Earth is flat—by seeking a crumb or two and seeking to make it into the norm; even whilst discrediting yourself in the process.
But what of Christians, then or now, who quote verse here, a verse there and a half verse from elsewhere so as to claim that the Bible itself teaches a flat Earth. Well, one way to know that any such fragmentary claims are misunderstandings is that no one seems to have noticed it until such as time as they were influenced, from elsewhere, to believe in a flat Earth and so they went in to the Bible to pull out fragments which they sought to piece together in a manner that the Bible never did. The lack of Christians historically not in the least bit arguing for a flat Earth shows that the Bible was not in the least bit largely understood to imply as much.
Some years ago, I published Positive Atheism – Cliff Walker: The Flat Earth Falls Flat and was quite satisfied that it was a done deal (as a side note, also see “The Copernican Myths” and “Galileo – A Story of a Hero of Science”). I would not have guessed that starting in 2015 AD the issue of the flat Earth would utterly explode all over the internet. In fact, such an meme-explosion denotes that it is an artificially promulgated issue.
Let me tell you something. If some of these folks were around when Columbus set sail—they must have been founding members of the Flat Earth Society. They would not have believed that the world was round. We’ve heard these folks in the past.
—Barack Obama
Prior to the memetic-explosion the most active, and yet not very numerous, popularizers of the flat Earth was the International Flat Earth Research Society aka Flat Earth Society which was founded by Charles K. Johnson and Marjory Waugh. Their certificate for membership states that it is “the oldest continuous society existing on earth today. In existence since the Creation of the World” and that the new member “Has joined the ELECT, the ELITE; those who are reasonable, logical…as contrasted to unreasoning beasts” and “affirms the Ten Laws of Physics given at Mt. Sinai” whatever that means.
The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat…
—Sam Harris
The Society was subsequently headed by Daniel Shenton who, as reported by Live Science’s Natalie Wolchover, “believes in evolution and global warming” (“Ingenious ‘Flat Earth’ Theory Revealed In Old Map,” June 23, 2011 AD).
Note Daniel Dennett’s essential we’re out to get your children statement as he notes correlates belief “that the earth is flat” with belief “that ‘Man’ is not a product of evolution by natural selection” as examples of “spreading of falsehoods” which some “insist on teaching your children.”
It is the height of irony that Dennett is engaging in the “spreading of falsehoods” even whilst appointing himself an arbiter of falsehoods. In his more evolved than thou attitude, he states that if you do teach your children about a flat Earth and not about evolution being true, “then you must expect” that militant activist Atheists such as himself, “will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity” (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life: Simon & Schuster, New York, 1995 AD, p. 519).
Overall, belief in the myth of the flat Earth is a case of building upon falsehoods in general—that a majority of the Earth’s population held to such a belief and Christian in particular—by employing other falsehoods in particular—that such a belief was actually held to by Christians in general and that the Bible teaches it.
Lastly, I would just LOVE to witness a debate between a flat Earther and a hollow Earther—wow, I think I just had a mini stroke just thinking about it!!!
Google analysis of spike in searches for flat Earth without quotes and with quote below (click on images to enlarge):
top searchers are from New Zealand, Australia and US.
