A common slam liberals use is to equate creationism with the belief in a flat earth.
However, the Bible does not teach that the earth is flat, although one ancient Greek philosopher Anaxagoras did teach that the earth was flat. Pythagoreans in the 6th century B.C. first proposed that the earth was spherical. Ptolemy proved it in the 2nd century A.D. by pointing out that the earth's shadow seen on the moon during a lunar eclipse is round. Nor did the medieval church believe the earth was flat - they accepted the ancient Greek philosophers as the final authority in natural sciences (Burman, "Dictionary of Misinformation," 49).
When Columbus met with the sages of Salamanca, their debate was not over the shape of the earth, but its size and distance between its land masses (Shenkman, "Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History," 1). Nor was Columbus right - he said the distance from Europe to Asia west to east was 2,400 miles. Actually, the distance is 10,000 miles. He was just lucky he ran into America (Tuleja, "Fabulous Fallacies," 2).
So who started the flat earth myth and why is it still around? Washington Irving, the creator of "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," began the flat earth myth in a biography he wrote about Columbus.
"The Irving myth that church scholars in Columbus' day were flat-earthers soon became conventional wisdom in the United States. Champions of Darwinian evolution in the late 19th century took to the myth with special enthusiasm, for they were eager to demonstrate that the religious opponents of Darwin's theory in their own day were just as benighted as Columbus's foolish foes had been four centuries before" (Boller, "Not So!," 3-5). Yet this flat earth myth is repeated as fact from "Star Trek" to supposedly serious documentaries.
This is so typical of liberal hypocrisy. They claim to follow the facts, then resort to myths. They claim to be reasonable, then resort to name calling. They claim to be open-minded, and to look at other view points then use the law to ban from the public schools all views but their own. Did you ever wonder what else they have got wrong?
