Flat Earth Society
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Template:Creationism2 The Flat Earth Society was an organization based in Lancaster, California which advocated the belief that the Earth is not a sphere but is flat (see flat Earth). No other modern religious fundamentalists have published support for this belief, and scientists universally reject it. This exposed the society to much outside ridicule and made it a popular metaphor for dogmatic thinking.
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Origins: Zetetic Astronomy
A renewed belief in a flat Earth was popularized in the 19th century by the Englishman Samuel Birley Rowbotham, who, after his 1849 publication of a 16-page-pamphlet, Zetetic Astronomy: A Description of Several Experiments which Prove that the Surface of the Sea Is a Perfect Plane and that the Earth Is Not a Globe!, spent the next 35 years publishing and lecturing about his beliefs. He supported his statements both with observational claims and scriptural references. For example, Rowbotham believed that observations of lighthouses by mariners at considerable distances defied the theory of the Earth's rotundity. However, it was shown by his contemporaries that he selectively chose only data from lighthouses that supported his view (about 1.5% of the sample), and ignored that which did not (lighthouses which were no longer visible); the remaining deviation could be explained with atmospheric refraction. He also uses biblical references such as Revelation 7:1 where it refers to the "four corners" of the earth, though "circle of the earth" appears in Isaiah 40:22. Rather than take the common view that this was "language of appearance", he interpreted it as a literal flat earth teaching. Regardless, Rowbotham's devotion paid off as the Universal Zetetic Society opened branches in Britain and the United States (New York, 1873).
Flat Earth from Space
In 1956, Samuel Shenton renamed the American UZS to International Flat Earth Society. With the advent of the space program, the Society found itself confronted with pictures of Earth made by orbiting satellites and, eventually, by astronauts who had landed on the moon. When confronted with first NASA photographs of earth from deep space, Shenton reportedly remarked: "It's easy to see how a photograph like that could fool the untrained eye". The society took the position that the Apollo Moon landings were a hoax, staged by Hollywood and based on a script by Arthur C. Clarke (see Apollo moon landing hoax accusations).
Charles K. Johnson: The Last Flat-Earther?
In 1971, Shenton died and Charles K. Johnson became the new president of the Flat Earth Society. Under his leadership, over the next three decades, the group grew in size from a few members to about 3,000. Johnson distributed newsletters, flyers, maps etc to anyone who asked for them, and managed all membership applications together with his wife, Marjory, who was also a flat-earther. Membership inquiries came from several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and India.
The last world model propagated by the Flat Earth Society holds that we live on a disc, with the North Pole at its center and a 150 feet high wall of ice at the outer edge. Curiously, the resulting map is basically the symbol of the United Nations, something Johnson used as evidence for his position. In this model, the sun and moon are each a mere 32 miles in diameter.
A newsletter from the society has been digitized. It gives some insight into Johnson's mindset (all errors original):
- Aim: To carefully observe, think freely rediscove forgotten fact and oppose theoretical dogmatic assumptions. To help establish the United States...of the world on this flat earth. Replace the science religion...with SANITY
- The International Flat Earth Society is the oldest continuous Society existing on the world today. It began with the Creation of the Creation. First the water...the face of the deep...without form or limits...just Water. Then the Land sitting in and on the Water, the Water then as now being flat and level, as is the very Nature of Water. There are, of course, mountains and valleys on the Land but since most of the World is Water, we say, "The World is Flat". Historical accounts and spoken history tell us the Land part may have been square, all in one mass at one time, then as now, the magnetic north being the Center. Vast cataclysmic events and shaking no doubt broke the land apart, divided the Land to be our present continents or islands as they exist today. One thing we know for sure about this world...the known inhabited world is Flat, Level, a Plain World.
- We maintain that what is called 'Science' today and 'scientists' consist of the same old gang of witch doctors, sorcerers, tellers of tales, the 'Priest-Entertainers' for the common people. 'Science' consists of a weird, way-out occult concoction of gibberish theory-theology...unrelated to the real world of facts, technology and inventions, tall buildings and fast cars, airplanes and other Real and Good things in life; technology is not in any way related to the web of idiotic scientific theory. ALL inventors have been anti-science. The Wright brothers said: "Science theory held us up for years. When we threw out all science, started from experiment and experience, then we invented the airplane". By the way, airplanes all fly level on this Plane earth.
Charles Johnson died on March 19, 2001, leaving the fate of the Flat Earth Society uncertain.
Sources and links
- The Flat Earth Society web site (http://www.theflatearthsociety.org) — a site collecting Flat Earth and Flat Earth Society information in an attempt to re-form the Society. Includes discussion forums and Flat Earth Society newsletters from the 1970's and 1980's.
- The Flat-out Truth: Earth Orbits? Moon Landings? A Fraud! Says This Prophet (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fe-scidi.htm) by Robert J. Schadewald. Science Digest, July 1980. A very detailed look at the Society and its leader. Schadewald was president of the National Center for Science Education and an expert on alternative earth movements.
- Looking for Lighthouses (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/litehous.htm) by Robert J. Schadewald, Creation/Evolution #31 (1992). This article explains the use of lighthouse data by Samuel Rowbotham.
- Scientific Creationism, Geocentricity, and the Flat Earth (http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/crea-fe.htm) by Robert J. Schadewald, from the Skeptical Inquirer, Winter 1981-1982. Describes the movements leading to the Flat Earth Society and discusses parallels with creationism.
- The International Flat Earth Society (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flatearth.html). By Robert P. J. Day, 1993. Documents the full Flat Earth Society newsletter. Part of the Talk.Origins archive on the Evolution/Creationism archive.
- Holding, James Patrick, 2000. Is the ’erets (earth) flat? (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v14/i3/flat_earth.asp) TJ 14(3):51–54.
- Russell, Jeffrey Burton, 1997. Inventing the Flat Earth : Columbus and Modern Historians ISBN 0-275-95904-X
- Russell, Jeffrey Burton, 1997. The Myth of the Flat Earth (http://id-www.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/RUSSELL/FlatEarth.html) (summary of above book).da:Flat Earth Society