Flat-Earthers are back: 'It’s almost like the beginning of a new religion' | Science | The Guardian

Such schisms are commonplace in flat-Earthdom, where at least three websites are vying to be the official meeting ground for the movement to save us all from the delusion that our world is a globe. Their differences range from petty (who came up with which idea first) to shocking and offensive (whether Jewish people are to blame for suppressing flat-Earth thought). And they regard each other with deep suspicion – almost as if they can’t believe that anyone else would believe what they do.

“[The multiple sites are] just the tip of the iceberg,” said flat-Earth convert Mark Sargent, who used his two decades of work in the tech and video game industries to create the site enclosedworld.com and a YouTube series called Flat Earth Clues. “There’s dissension in the ranks all over the place.”

Sargent compares the frenzy to the Monty Python film Life of Brian, in which Brian gains a following that immediately splits over whether to gather shoes, wear one shoe, or possibly follow a gourd.

“It’s almost like the beginning of a new religion. Everyone’s trying to define it. And they’re turning on each other because there’s no unified theory.” And so, like the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front, they often spend far less time discussing what they believe than they spend attacking each other.

Flat-Earthers are back: 'It’s almost like the beginning of a new religion' | Science | The Guardian

Consider the Flat Earth Theory -- Following: How We Live Online

So, here is what appears to be our first whack job story of the year.  As you will see, it hasn't taken long for it to make even bigger headlines.

The Flat Earth movement — by which I mean the evergreen alternate scientific/conspiracy theory that posits that the earth is a flat disc — has been around since the late 19th century. (A few ancient cultures did indeed assume the world was flat, though it was never as widely held a belief as some later historians would claim.) The first Flat Earthers, and most of their descendants, tended to push the theory as a confirmation of the Bible's truth; early texts include The Inconsistency of Modern Astronomy and Its Opposition to the Scripture and the proto-listicle One Hundred Proofs That the Earth Is Not a Globe.

The evidence against the flat earth? Physics, photographs from space, the experience of watching a ship meet the horizon. Evidence for a flat earth? Well, you know, everything looks pretty flat. Allow Tila Tequila, the most "friended" person on Myspace v1.0, to explain:

It's 2016 & nobodys been able 2 prove 2 me that the earth is round. Where is the curvature in the horizon? #FlatEarth prove me wrong dammit!

— Tila Tequila (@AngelTilaLove) January 7, 2016

Why are all the buildings in NYC standing straight up? If earth was round then some of the buildings would have a slight tilt. #FlatEarth

— Tila Tequila (@AngelTilaLove) January 7, 2016

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The theory has had a resurgence in recent months. In a petition on Change.org, the society wrote, “We ask Google to recognise this movement, which has trended over 600% in just the past 12 months, by marking 01/01/2016 as the anniversary of the Flat Earth Movement and changing the Google Doodle image appropriately.” (Their emphasis.)

It’s tough to gauge quite how serious individual Flat Earth believers are about the movement (this post, for example, is not serious). The Twitter account @FlatEarthToday is one of the more active accounts and claims to represent the Flat Earth Society at theflatearthsociety.org. Another account, @FlatEarthOrg, also claims to be the Flat Earth Society, located at tfes.org. Their account only consists of tweets to YouTube videos from conspiracy theorists, and retweets that clearly vary in seriousness, but their site contains a well-maintained explanatory wiki. The line between actually believing the theory and enthusiastically entertaining is unclear.

Consider the Flat Earth Theory -- Following: How We Live Online