Page 296 - Lunacy and the Age of Deception

the Earth is flat, stationary, or that the Solar System is geocentric. Stripped of any Biblical mandate
to believe that the Earth is flat, the main force compelling such a conclusion for Christians is
removed.

Some suggest that a spherical Earth model is a recent phenomena foisted upon the public by
influential forces in the government and media. Yet the assertion that a rotating, spherical Earth is
a relatively new belief is proven false with a little investigation. This is another area in which our
educational system, school teachers, and text books have failed us. I remember in my childhood
being taught that during the time period in which Christopher Columbus sailed west, ultimately
discovering Hispaniola and achieving his place in history as the discoverer of America, that men
believed the world was flat. I remember being taught that Columbus had to overcome the fear of the
sailors who journeyed with him, for they were terrified at the thought of sailing over the edge of the
Earth into some unknown abyss. I was led to believe that the Middle Ages, a period stretching from
th
th
the 5 to 15 century A.D. was a time of great superstition and ignorance where the prevailing view
among mankind, including academics, scholars, and the clergy was that the Earth was flat.
This false view of the history of the Middle Ages is now referred to as “the myth of the flat Earth.”
This is not to be confused with people who actually believe in a flat Earth. The myth of the flat Earth
in this context refers to the false assertion that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle
Ages included a belief in the Earth being flat. This can be proven to be a false view of history.
During the time that Columbus made his famous voyage, belief in a spherical Earth was nearly
universal among the educated class.

[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth]

The vast majority of scholars throughout the Middle Ages held to the spherical Earth model which
had been established by the Greeks centuries before Christ. (See the book The Flat Error: The
Modern Distortion of Medieval Geography by Jeffrey Burton Russell.) According to D.R. Dicks in
his book Early Greek Astronomy to Aristotle, after the 5th century B.C., every Greek writer of repute
thought the world was round. Plato, who lived from 427-347 B.C., wrote in his dialogue titled
Phaedo, or On the Soul, “My conviction is that the Earth is a round body in the center of the
heavens, and therefore has no need of air or of any similar force to be a support.”

The Greek philosopher Aristotle who lived from 384-322 B.C. observed that there were stars that
were visible in Egypt and Cyprus which could not be seen in more northern locations. He understood
this to be evidence of a spherical Earth. In 350 B.C., Aristotle wrote De Caelo (On the Heavens)
where he concluded that the Earth was a sphere “of no great size, for otherwise the effect of so slight