Are there any flat earthers left? Better still, are there any scientific flat earthers? As there are creation scientists I don’t see why not.
I’m genuinely interested by the way, this isn’t some kind of parody intended to insult creationists.
Well, then you seem to be insulting yourself with that question.
A creationist doesn`t have to believe in a flat earth either.
I think there are still a few nut-ball out there. You might find this page interesting. Especially this link, altough there is of course a fine line between stupid and clever
“Stupid” is definitely the word I’d go for.
But it’s funny nonetheless.
Yes. :eek:
Although this isn’t exactly what the OP asked for (OTOH, it says “Are there any flat earthers left”), I’d like to comment that the belief that medieval scientists believed the Earth to be flat is an urban legend. Actually, the majority of learned duriing the Middle Ages was convinced that the Earth is a sphere; during the age of Enlightenment, this myth came up in order to portray the medieval people as blockheads believing everything they were told by the church.
Cite? http://www.bede.org.uk/flatearth.htm
I like how the “Fighting the ‘evidence’” link went to an under construction message.
Modern day Biblical literalists often seem to pick and choose their fights.
In the 19th Century a conviction that the Earth is flat and that pi is equal to three exactly was often held by people who also opposed evolution on scriptural grounds. These points of contention seem to have been conveniently forgotten while the struggle over evolution continues to rage.
Many Funadmentalists, I am sure, see this differently. In fairness, the Biblical assertions that the Earth is flat are generally by inference rather than flat-out statements. The same cannot be said, however, with regard to evolution, as the Bible is very forthright in stating when and how species came into existence.
The same can be said for the Bible’s assertion about the value of pi.
In Kings IV there is a description of Solomon’s Temple in which an object called The Great Ocean is described. It was a huge cauldron filled with water. It is said that it was perfectly round, and that its circumference was exactly three times its diameter. A number of tortuous arguments have been made to get around this, such as that the writer meant the diameter of the inside of the cauldron and the circumerence of the outside of the cauldron, but these do not hold up in context, as the thickness of the cauldron and other measurements are also given and would not allow for these proportions.
Incidentally, Fundamentalism is not synonymous with Biblical literalism. The term Fundamentalism was coined in the early 20th Century, after a group of Baptist laymen published a series of tracts called “The Fundamentals”. Fundamentalism has largely to do with Dispensationalism, a theological view which holds that God has dealt with man under a series of differing requirements or “dispensations” throughout history. Dispensationalism was about universally regarded as a heresy by Christians until the 20th Century.
As for “scientific” flat earthers, I am not aware of any at present. During the Nazi era in Germany, however, there were some people in academic positions who believed in a flat Earth, and others who believed that the world was round but that we were on the inside. The German navy actually conducted some experiments to test this, attempting to photograph English installations by pointing cameras towards the sky.
That’s not what I meant, but I’ve already been more insulting to creationists than I would like, so I’d prefer not to rub it in by elaborating further. By the way, thanks for your advice in the other thread - and my apologies to manhattan.
Good point, although I was aware of this. I suppose I put left because I think that relatively recently there really was a “Flat Earth Society” - unless this is just an urban legend too. I think they were mentioned in Can You Speak Venusian by Patrick Moore, which I read a very long time ago. I don’t know whether they were pulling their ideology from the Bible, or their own imaginations.
I will look at a few more of these links. I’m pretty sure that the second is a joke, rather than the work of genuine believers, even though it does purport to be the Flat Earth Society.
This sounds familiar, it may be in the Patrick Moore book. I will have to find it again.
Here are some interesting flat-earth links.
The Flat-Out Truth - Interview with the late Charles K. Johnson, in which he confirms that his flat-earth beliefs derive from his interpretation of the Bible.
Flat Earthism - lots of stuff here including “100 Proofs The Earth Is Not A Globe”.
The second link posted by Tapioca Dextrin is definitely a joke. Click on the “Current Events” link and you’ll see what I mean.
From The Flatearth Society’s website:
Well … I guess I have another thing to be paranoid about… What should we do about the neurotransmitters…