I've seen Flat Earth ideas getting more popular lately. There are some compelling Youtubes. What I've found is that this is now being coupled with a belief in Christianity and a wide-ranging conspiracy theory about how the "Truth" is being kept from us by the New World Order.
Yeah, I know. Don't get me started.
Let me give you the gist of what's going on:
1) The United Nations logo proves the New World Order knows the Earth is flat. That's really how the earth looks. Cold in the middle (North Pole) Temperate in the middle and cold again at the edges (South Pole).
2) Ships disappearing over the horizon are an optical illusion. You need a zoom lens to see the truth. They then show mirages of tankers hanging in mid-air.
3) Since you can occasionally can see the skyline of Chicago from the west coast of Michigan, that means the Planet is flat. Nevermind that you need a temperature inversion in the intervening atmosphere to make it happen.
Flat Earth is a lot like Creationism. The idea is that because things weren't mentioned in the Bible or that scientific belief is contradicted in the Bible, it must be false. The idea of a round Earth, therefore, is the workings of the Devil and Devil worshippers in the New World Order.
I had a close friend who was deeply into this. I did my best to refute the Youtube videos and also offered to repeat some of the early experiments that indicated the world was round. I'm fairly convinced he did not change his mind, but he gave up haranguing me.
What I find most disturbing about the Flat Earth purveyors is that it is obvious from the Youtubes alone that these people don't believe the crap themselves. The videos are put together with deliberately deceptive arguments. This is similar to what the Vatican was doing 500 years ago. Columbus didn't prove the Earth was round. That was already pretty settled fact. The Greeks knew it. A flat Earth was just a more convenient way to take money from the dumb peasants.
How is this done? Stand up in your pulpit on Sunday and tell everyone the Earth is flat and lay the whole Aristotelian Model on them, and then let them know the truth is being obscured by Evil. It's being taught in Universities, it's being included in government-approved textbooks. It's being pushed down their throats by Devil worshippers. NASA is a fake. Astronomers, physicists and all intellectuals are minions of Satan. Only you and the Church you represent are holding off the Evil. Then stick your hand out and ask for money.
