First of all I would like to thank Jeffrey Burton Russell, whose excellently documented and research-based book, “Inventing The Flat Earth, Columbus and Modern Historians“, enabled me to produce this article which I am sharing with you. Here is a short summary of it which I’ve supplemented with my own reflection and research work.

Introduction

With the advent of modern science and new technologies, we thought that the issue of the Flat Earth was definitely resolved, but in recent decades there has been a resurgence of interest in this theory, and today there is an extremely powerful lobby which is promoting it on a world scale, The International Flat Earth Society. More and more truth-seekers and conspiracy theorists are getting convinced by this theory, but what the evidence tells us? What are its origins? What purposes does it really serve and who are behind it?

This article aims to definitively remove any doubt on the nature of this theory with practical arguments which can be verified by everyone, and historical arguments retracing its true origins and promoters, which will allow you to measure its true scope. Eventually, you will be able to see that the Flat Earth Theory is not a mere point of detail, but actually has much more serious implications on our worldview and spiritual guidance.

I. Concrete proofs that the earth is not flat, but round

Let us begin by presenting a number of physical and empirical arguments which, clearly and without any doubt, demonstrate that the earth cannot be flat, but is indeed round. There is no need for advanced scientific knowledge or superior intelligence to grasp these arguments and be able to reproduce them for yourself, but you just need a sane mind capable of having its own reflection, which is not influenced by its own biases, and which is immune to propaganda in all its forms. People with true intelligence are those who demonstrate good judgment, and who know how to make their own established beliefs evolve according to the arguments which are submitted to them.

1. Body gradually disappearing/appearing on the horizon

One of the most obvious arguments proving that the earth is round, is the fact that we can observe with the naked eye the appearance and disappearance of bodies on the horizon as they approach or move away. For example, a common experience is to observe the sun disappearing/appearing on the sea horizon at sunset/sunrise?

 

If the earth were truly flat, then the sun would get smaller and smaller on the horizon until it becomes a tiny point of light, never hiding behind the horizon. However, we can clearly see through these photos that the sun remains of a reasonable size when it begins to disappear behind the horizon, which proves that the earth does indeed have a curvature because of its sphericity.

In fact, not only the sun allows this phenomenon to be observed with the naked eye, but any body large enough to be observed with the naked eye on the horizon also makes it possible to reproduce this experiment, as for example ships, wind turbines, … or cities such as the skyline of the city of Chicago as it is shown in the following photos.

2. The higher one’s elevation the farther one can see

If we place ourselves in a flat place (without relief) such as the sea, the higher is our elevation the farther we can observe distant objects that we could not see if we were on the surface of the sea, due to the fact that these objects are hidden by the curvature of the earth.

For instance, if this same observer stands at the same point, but at a higher elevation, he could then see parts of this skyscraper that he was unable to see on the surface of the ground, due to the curvature of the Earth.

The observer at the top of this 100 m tower can see the mast of boat B, whereas if this same observer were only at 10 m in height, he would need to get closer (at boat A) in order to see the mast of boat B.

3. Lunar eclipses

According to the Flat Earth Theory, there is no explanation for lunar eclipses given that lunar eclipses occur when the spherical Earth is placed between the moon and the sun, and therefore the moon is hidden by the shadow of the Earth. However, in the Flat Earth Theory, this scenario never occurs, and nothing can explain lunar eclipses.

4. The Lighting of the Earth

With the round earth, an entire hemisphere receives the sunlight at the same time, which can be easily verified through various observers located in various places of the illuminated hemisphere.

Whereas with the Flat Earth Theory, barely a quarter of the disk/globe (depending on whether we consider the earth to be flat or round) is exposed to the sunlight at the same time, which does not correspond to the observed reality.

5. Different constellations visible in the Northern and Southern hemispheres

Different stars are seen in different latitudes: for instance, one can see constellations in Sumatra that one cannot see in Europe, which clearly prooves that the earth cannot be flat. Indeed, if the earth were flat, we would be able to observe the same constellations regardless of whether we are located in the southern or northern hemisphere; but obviously, this is not the case.

Conclusion

There are many other arguments that I have not developed in this article which prove that the earth is round and absolutely not flat, such as the variation of the length of the day and the seasons throughout the year, the equinoxes, the polar night and day, the perfect motion of the stars which implies that they move on a perfect sphere, and the fact that the stars rise in the east earlier than in farther west … etc. As you’ve seen, there is no need for advanced modern technologies to be able to make all of these observations. At any time, anyone can make these experiments with the naked eye, which makes us wonder if there ever existed a time when humanity as a whole thought the earth to be flat?

Yet, this is what Modern History claims by stating that up to the Middle Ages, the vast majority of men thought the earth was flat, and that’s only thanks to the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus, Heliocentrism by Corpernicus, and Magellan’s Voyage around the world, that the belief in the round earth was finally established. But is this truly the historical reality or is this rather a modern rewriting of History?

II. The real lie behind the Flat Earth Theory

You will realize that the real lie of the Flat Earth Theory is not to believe that the earth may be flat, but rather to believe that there ever existed a time when the majority of men believed in this false theory. I’m going to show you that this era actually never existed. In fact, those who today think that the earth is flat are as stupid and biased as those – the vast majority of people today – who believe that up to the Middle Ages the common belief was that the earth was flat. In order to do this, one has just to delve into the writings of the great scientists and philosophers who lived up to the Middle Ages in order to realize that the general consensus among the educated was rather to believe that the earth was round. However, I am not stating that all men and scientists of those past times unanimously believed that the earth was round, because in all times, including today, there has always been a small minority of ignorant people endorsing the Flat Earth Theory.

In fact, the vast majority of renowned scientists throughout the Middle Ages and long before this time, shared the belief that the Earth was round, such as Aristotle (384-322 BC), Ptolemy (100 -168), Macrobius (370-430), Martianus (410), …, Roger Bacon (1220-1292), Jean Buridan (1300-1358), Nicole Oresme (1320-1382), Giles of Rome (1247- 1316), …, or Johannes of Sacrobosco (12th century), who in his Tractatus de Sphaera (On the Sphere of the World), based on the writings of Al-Farghani, astronomer of the Abassid caliphate in the 9th century, established that the earth was round.

Bede, also known as the Venerable (672-735), a great historian and natural scientist of the early Middle Ages, affirmed that the earth was at the center of a spherical cosmos, the earth is a globe that can be called a perfect sphere because the surface irregularities of mountains and valleys are so small compared to its vast size. Bede specified that the earth was “round” not in the sense of “circular”, but in the sense of a ball. The same parable can be found in one of the verse of the Quran, which states that night and day alternate on earth, reproducing the shape of a ball. In the 9th century, the greatest philosopher of the Middle Ages, John Scottus Eriugena, was equally firm on the subject.

He created the heavens and the earth in all truth. He rolls up, like around a ball / يكور, the night over the day, and the day over the night, and He has subjected the sun and the moon to each continue its course for a fixed term. He is indeed the Mighty, the Great Forgiver! S39:V5

The word “يكور” shares the same root as the word “كرة”, which means “ball”. This clearly shows that the earth does indeed have a spherical shape, which explains the use of the Quranic terms: “rolls up, like around a ball, the night over the day, and the day over the night”.

In his English translation of Image du Monde, “Mirour of the World“, William Caxton (1422-1491) explains:

“The world is round like a playing ball; the sky surrounds the earth on all sides like an eggshell”

There is another verse of the Quran which uses exactly the same comparison:

And as for the earth, after that, He gave it the structure of an egg S79:V30

Indeed, we can see that this comparison is perfectly adapted, since an egg shares exactly the same structure than the earth’s: the egg yolk for the molten core of the earth, the white for the layer composed of heavy metals which goes from the core to the surface of the earth, and the bark, for the protective atmosphere that surrounds the earth. Through the first cited verse, God reveals us the shape of the earth: a sphere, and through this second verse, God reveals us its structure, which is composed of concentric spherical layers.

So where does this modern false belief come from that up to the Middle Ages the scientific community as a whole thought that the earth was flat, and who are these so called medieval scientists presented to us today as the eminent representatives of their time, who supposedly endorsed this false theory? Did they really affirm that or have their writings been distorted in order to make them look say so? The study of their writings rather seems to confirm the second option.

For instance, one of the most widely read encyclopedists of the early Middle Ages, Isidore of Seville (~ 560-636) has often been cited as a “flat-earther”. It is true that some passages of his Etymologiae, a twenty books encyclopedia written towards the end of his life, can be interpreted either way, but the ambiguity is owing to his relative lack of concern about the subject. However, in his Treatise on Nature, he gives an estimate of the earth’s circumference, and on balance Isidore can be said to have believed that the earth was round.

Another example, Virgil of Salzburg, an Irish bishop in 8th century Austria, was reprimanded by the Church for believing in the antipodes. However, modern historians and writers confuse the question of the antipodes with that of the sphericity of the earth, and therefore concluded that the latter was condemned because of his belief in the round earth, which led them to the wrong conclusion that the common belief among the Church Fathers at that time was that the earth was flat. But, this was absolutely not the case, because in the ancient and medieval world, the term “antipodes” may mean lands located on the opposite side of the planet, more commonly, human inhabitants of lands on the other side of the planet. Indeed, Christian doctrine affirmed that all humans shall be of one origin, and therefore considered that there could be no inhabitants on the other side of the planet, either because the ocean was too wide to sail across, or because the equatorial zones are too hot to sail through. So according to their logic, if there are inhabitants on the other side of the planet, they could have no connection with the known part of the globe. This is the true reason for which Virgil of Salzburg was condemned and not because the Catholic Church considered the earth to be flat.

In fact, Christianity and Religion in a general way have never been opposed to Science, but on the contrary, Religion has always promoted Science and regarded it positively. Every medieval students learned geography as a part of astronomy and geometry, two of the standard “Seven Liberal Arts”. The general view in medieval times and before that time was not to oppose Science to Religion as we may think today, but this is a pure projection of Modern historians and scientists. On the contrary, the common vision was to reconcile them together: Religion dealing with morality and offering a metaphorical vision of the world, and Science offering an analytical and empirical vision of the physical world, therefore accessible to the human senses and reflection. Indeed, Absolute Science is the exclusive domain of God, because only God knows all the secrets of creation. Whereas, human science remains and will always remain approximate and subject to error, because of the imperfection inherent in our human nature … even if it will tend to always get closer to the truth.

The Church Fathers were not the enemies of Science as they are depicted to us nowadays, just as the enlightened religious people of our time are not the enemies of science and technology. Rather, they considered that the shape of the heavens and earth are irrelevant to the real business of being a Christian, which is moral and spiritual, rather than philosophical. For example, Jean Damascene (675-749) considered that “geographical knowledge was a useless vanity, but if philosophers show the earth to be a globe, let it be”. Indeed, at any time, the true believers have awlays shared this way of thinking: “Who am I to expect to understand the creation of the Universe and all that is therein while I am a mere dust compared to God?”, therefore they leave this question to God and focus instead on what is in their scope: what appeals to morality and is accessible to direct experimentation. Only those who have a disproportionate ego and who are in no way guided by God are vain to the point of thinking that one day, they will know all the secrets of creation, as is the case today with this lost modern secular society which claims to be able to hold explanation of the origins of life, while we are not even capable of digging more than 3 kilometers under the ground, so much the heat becomes unbearable.

Damascene followed Basil of Caesarea, also called Basil the Great, one of the great figures in Eastern Orthodox theology, who explained that the mass of the cosmos presses in on the earth’s center from all sides, it follows from this that the earth is probably a sphere. Basil tells his monastic audience that “the Bible seems to prefer a flat earth, so they should simply pray and thank God for creation, whatever its shape”. In fact, the Bible has never pretended to be a book of science, but rather claims to be an allegorical book when it comes to science. 

Although the general consensus among the educated during the Middle Ages was that the earth was round, there will always be people, just as is the case nowadays, to believe that the earth is flat, and this can be explained most of the time by the fact that this category of people have a literal and not a metaphorical understanding of the sacred texts. For example, in Severian’s Homilies of the Creation of the World, Severian (380), Bishop of Gabala, states that God did not create a spherical sky as the Greek philosophers believed, but that the sky is rather like a tent or a vault. This belief is rooted in the idea that the Tabernacle of Moses, the tent that housed the Ark of the Covenant, is constructed in imitation of the shape of the world, then it follows that the world must be in the shape of the Tabernacle.

Another error that led modern historians to believe that during the Middle Ages most of people thought the earth to be flat, comes from the existence of numerous medieval maps representing the earth in 2 dimensions. However, these mappaemundi in no way expressed the so called popular belief that the earth was flat, but were intended to represent only a portion of the known world on a flat map. These maps did not attempt to conform to criteria set for a modern atlas, just as a modern flat map of Europe or Africa is intended to represent only part of the planet.

“Maps need not necessarly show only Euclidean space”. a map is a representation of any concept whatever in spatial terms. There are “maps of the heavens”, “maps of the unconscious”, “maps of personal finances”, “maps of the economy”, or “maps of the future”.

David Woodward, “Reality, Symbolism, Time, and Space”, p. 511

It also often happened that the proportions of such or such territory was deliberately exaggerated in order to represent the supremacy of such or such monarch, which confirms that many medieval maps did not have a scientific purpose, but were purely symbolic.

Another proof that these maps were purely symbolic, and that the established medieval belief was that the earth was round, is the fact that many monarchs of the Middle Ages and before that time were depicted with a globe in the palm of their hand in order to symbolize their power and authority over the whole world. Here is an example of a portrait of the Coronation of Richard II (1367-1400) in Westminster Abbey:

In this medieval representation from the Book of Hours, Jesus is portrayed as carrying in his hand a globe representing the earth, in order to symbolize his authority and influence over the whole world.

In this other representation dating from 1375, we can see a Malian king named Abu Bakr II (~ 1320) carrying in his hand the globe symbolizing the earth, more than 200 years before the discovery of Christopher Columbus and the so-called transition toward the belief in the round earth.

The 2 medieval figures that modern historians mainly quote to back their false theory that most of medieval people thought the earth to be flat, are Lactantius (245-325), an African pagan who converted to Christianity, and Cosmas Indicopleustes, a 6th century Greek merchant.

From Lactantius’ angle of vision was that since Revelation, Christians were faced with two competing approaches to truth: one based on the authority of the Revealed Scriptures and the other based on the authority of philosophical logic. It was coherent to Lactantius to believe that Revelation must be prior to any human system of thought. However, his mistake lay in trying to force the philosophers into the biblical mode, failing to distinguish, as Saint Augustine (354 – 430) and John Chrysostom (344 – 407) had, between two kinds of statements, the scientific and the revealed, which need not be reconciled in one system. But his views eventualy led to his works to be condemned by the Church as heretical after his death, which clearly prooves that Lactantius’s view in no way represented the common established belief of his time, and that the Catholic Church never endorsed his vision in any way, including his belief in the flat earth. Moreover, contrary to what modern history and encyclopedias state today, the work of Lactantius was by no means a plea for the flat earth, but his literal interpretation of the Bible brought him to believe that the earth was flat, among many other bad interpretations, and this topic is actually just a point of detail if we consider his work as a whole. In fact in the Middle Ages, there was no controversy opposing the proponents of the flat earth to those of the round earth. Few people in the Middle Ages were really concerned with the shape of the earth, and the general belief among the educated was that the earth was round. So, turning Lactantius in a champion of the Flat Earth theory and affirming that his thought was shared by most of the people in the Middle Ages, is a pure invention of modern historians, blinded by their own humanist biases, fierce opposition to religion, and feeling of superiority over the people of the past times.

As for Cosmas Indicopleustes, although he truly believed that the earth was flat and that the shape of the universe was that of a Tabernacle, his influence on medieval society was almost nil, as his writings were in Greek while Latin was the language used during the Middle Ages. In fact, Cosmas Indicopleustes was completely ignored until the 9th century, when Patriarch Photius of Constantinople again rejected his vision. This point is confirmed since we cannot find a single medieval commentator citing Cosmas Indicopleustes, which clearly exposes that he was completely marginal during the Middle Ages. The works of Cosmas Indicopleustes were not translated into Latin until 1706, further proof that he had absolutely no influence on medieval Western thought. For instance, a distinguished historian in 1926 claimed that Cosmas “had great popularity among even the educated till the twelfth century”, which is actually a pure invention. Another standard book on geography in 1938 merely conceded that:

“Cosmas and the other supporters of the flat earth theory did not have it all their own way– even in the dark ages”

The Making of the Modern Mind, John Herman Randall Jr.

So, as for Lactantius, making Cosmas Indicopleustes one of the main representatives of the common mediveal thought is a blatant lie, which illustrates both the ignorance of modern historians and their numerous biases.

III. The hidden purpose of the Flat Earth Lie

Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes are not the medieval obscurantist “villains” opposed to science and human development, as modern historians have portrayed them for us, but these figures have been deliberately caricatured to serve as symbols of their time, in order to be used as weapons against the Anti-Darwinists. Indeed, for centuries after the Middle Ages, there was no controversy about the shape of the earth, and the Humanists, propagandists of Enlightenment, did not go so far as to accuse the Catholic Church of asserting that the earth was flat, because it was clearly not the case. But, as early as the 1870s, Humanists began to oppose Religion and Science in military terms, specially Hume, who planted the idea that Science and Religion were in conflict. In the same vein, Auguste Comte (1798-1857) argued that Humanity was laboriously struggling upward the reign of Science, presented as “good”, and anything blocking movement in that direction as “evil”, consequently depicting Religion as retrogarde and evil since it supposedly prevents Humanity from progress.

In fact, the truth is quite the opposite: In all times, Religion has favored and funded Science, and theologians of the past considered Science and Religion as 2 different views of the world, with different roots, and that they should in no case be confused. As a matter of fact, we see the illustration of this with the emergence of Islam and the revelation of the Quran, which completely revolutionized the pre-Islamic Arab society, propelling it to the forefront in terms of scientific knowledge, which is today ackowledged by all. Indeed, Religion deals with the Revealed, is mainly focused on morality, the relationship with God, and interactions in society, while Science deals with a completely different topic, which is that of the analytical study of Nature, through observation, experimentation, and therefore is practical rather than philosophical and spiritual as is the case with Religion. Turning Science into a Religion as Humanists did is an undeniable error, because Science only concerns physical elements, while religion deals mainly with morals. Conversely, turning Religion into Science in the strict sense of the term can in no way work, and leads to obscurantism and scientific regression, because very often, the scientific fact is treated in the Revealed Scriptures under a symbolical approach. If we consider the case of the Quran, which differs from previous Scriptures in that it addresses a large number of scientific points and is the Pure Word of God, the science it contains is not made for scientific studies strictly speaking, but rather to give to Science the right direction to follow. Indeed, it’s the science of man, the one based on observation, study, and experimentation, the one which goes into the details of what God tells us in the Quran, which shall be studied in the academic books. Religion shall be considered as the Supreme Science, the mother of all sciences: spiritual, philosophical and physical, since only God has the Absolute Knowledge. Science as a discipline which derives from Religion is the True Science, the one which allows men to approach God according to their own senses, and which allows them to better know God and His Bounty on them. Whereas, the “science” of the Humanists is mere false theories and imperfections, and its true goal is only to destroy Religion, in other terms, to shift us away from the Truth, thus leading us to our own demise.

The open warfare of Science turned by Humanists into a weapon to destroy Religion and Divine Revelation, is officialy declared with John W. Draper (1811-1882), who came from a religious family and which father was an itinerant Methodist preacher, who forced him to attend a Methodist school at the age of 11.

As an adult, Draper gradually turned away from Religion to adopt Science as his new religion, and then took the reins of New York University. In 1862, he published his book History of Intellectual Development in Europe in which he denounced the subordination of Science to Religion. The papacy’s growing opposition to liberal humanist thought led him to go even further by publishing in 1873, History of the Conflit between Religion and Science, combining the Enlightenment skepticism of Gibbon and the positivism of Comte’s with political liberal’s faith in the advance of society. The latter book is of great importance because it is the first book written by an influential figure officially declaring that Religion and Science are at war. Draper wrote exactly the contrary of what I’ve described to you above, of what should be the true relationship between Religion and Science:

The Catholic Church and science are absolutely incompatible; they cannot exist together; one must yield to the other; mankind must make its choice, it cannot be both.

Draper, History of the Conflict, p. 363

His book will serve as a starting point for the whole movement that will follow, gradually relegating Religion to oblivion in favor of Science and liberal thought. Draper offers an explanation in his latter book on when and where he believes religion went wrong, and this is an excerpt of his thought:

The Antagonism we thus witness between Religion and Science is the continuation of the struggle that commenced when Christianity began to attain political power. A divine revelation must necessarly be intolerant of contradiction; it must repudiate all improvement in itself, and view with disdain that arising from the progressive intellectual development of man… The history of Science is not a mere record of isolated discoveries; it is a narrative of the conflict of the two contending powers, the expansive force of the human intellect on one side, and the compression arising from traditionary faith and human interests on the other… Faith is in its nature unchangeable, stationary; Science is in its nature progressive; eventually a divergence between them, impossible to conceal, must take place. It is the duty of the educated to take a stand, for when the old mythological religion of Europe broke down under the weight of its own inconsistencies, neither the Roman emperors nor the philosophers of those times did any thing adequate for the guidance of public opinion. They left religious affairs to take their chance, and accordingly those affairs fell into the hands of ignorant and infuriated ecclesiastics, parasites, eunuchs, and slaves.

History of the Conflict, Draper, VI-VII

It is clear that the starting point for Draper is his own rebellion against God and his rejection of God’s Scriptures, which led him to be blinded by his own biases. As a good Humanist adept of liberal faith and Enlightenment, he believed he could be his own guide instead of God and adopted the imperfect science of men as a Religion rather than the Divine Revealed Law. However, he is not entirely wrong in his remarks about the unchanged character of Religion compared to the progressive character of Science. For, the law of God is immutable in that God is perfect, and therefore is never wrong, and therefore His Law remains perfect from beginning to end. It should come as no surprise to intelligent minds that spiritual laws do not change over time, when we observe that the same is true with the laws of physics and the fact that God’s Rule is perfect from scratch, so why changing what is already perfect? As for the progressivism of Science, this is in no way to its advantage, because Science never ceases to disavow itself over time, each time realizing afterwards its naivety and its gross errors because of the vanity and Error of those who turned it into a Religion. We can see the illustration of that nowadays, in less than 50 years, science has disowned itself on many occasions, as for example with the theory of relativity or the so called impassable limit of the speed of light, which were ultimately proven to be false, when for decades the general public, including the entire scientific community, considered these rules as established scientific “truths”. Those, like Draper, and they are the vast majority today, who believe in the infallibility of Science and who adopt Science as a Religion, have not finished being disappointed and betrayed by their own false beliefs. Science must remain in its place and so does Religion, and there is no need to oppose or favor one to the detriment of the other, but only those who are guided by God can understand that. As for the vain people who refuse to submit to God and who believe in their own divinity, these will inevitably be the losers and their illusory world will collapse like a house of cards by the end of their life, when God will take back their souls, and that they will see the angels of God with their own eyes and will have to face their past actions during the Judgment Day.

Draper’s book, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science, became the best selling volume of the International Scientific Series, and had been printed in the United States 50 times in 50 years, 21 times in 50 years in the United Kingdom , and was translated worlwide. The Progressives (Humanists Adepts of Enlightenment) followed Draper’s footsteps and picked up his work in schoolbooks, making it an absolute truth:

The sphericity of the earth was a doctrine held by many at that day [Colombus’s]; but the theory was not in harmony with the religious ideas of the time, and so it was not prudent for one to publish openly one’s belief in the notion

P.V.N. Mayers “a general for colleges and high schools” (Boston & LondON, 1891), page 513

What is said in this excerpt is absolutely false, because at the time of Christopher Columbus, there was no public controversy regarding the sphericity of the earth. Christopher Columbus’ journey was not intended to demonstrate that the earth was round, but simply to find new business opportunities for the Crown of Spain. Indeed, at the time of Christopher Columbus, the Turks were blocking the old land route for India and China, while the Portuguese were seeking an eastward sea route around Africa, and in the process establishing profitable trading posts. Ferdinand and Isabella, the monarchs of the Spanish Empire, had no choice than exploring a new westward trade route across the seas to the Indies in order to steal a march on their Portuguese competitors. Unlike the false figure of Christopher Columbus created much later by the humanist “historians” (from the 19th century), the motivations of Christopher Columbus were in no way religious but purely commercial, and he had never been the champion of the struggle of Science and the Round Earth Theory facing the “evil” Ecclesiastics and their so-called Flat Earth Theory. In fact, the only notorious fight of Christopher Columbus lies in his efforts to convince Isabella to fund his expedition. Christopher Columbus was not this man of science and great integrity that Modern History  has depicted to us today, but he actually lied about his project in order to face the numerous refusals of the committee of scientists and clergymen specially formed by Queen Isabella, as to the feasibility of his expedition. Indeed, for 6 long years, from 1496 to April 1492, Columbus had to constantly modify his figures downwards in order to convince them: Columbus estimated the distance between the Canaries and Japan at about 4450 km, when the modern figure is 22’000 km, in other words, he estimated his voyage at about 20% of its actual lenght!

To cap it all, Christopher Columbus relied mainly on the scientific knowledge of Pierre d’Ailly (1350-1420), a theologian and philosopher, without him, his expedition would never have been authorized by Queen Isabella. So, telling that Colombus was leading a crusade against the ecclesiastics and that the main purpose of his expedition was to proove that the earth was round, is a pure invention and lie.

We are very far from the modern fictitious figure of Christopher Columbus, depicted as a “hero” guided by science, fighting the ecclesiastics, and pushing for his expedition with the sole aim of showing that the earth was round, which any educated person already knew in his time. In fact, Christopher Columbus was by far not the only figure which character has been idealised in order to serve the fierce fight of the Humanists against Religion, but many other medieval figures, whom I’ve mentioned some of them above, were in some cases caricatured and in others praised and portrayed as heroes, in order to produce this false script that we today call: Modern Science.

This parenthesis closed on the real character of Christopher Columbus and the real prupose of his expedition, which was purely commercial, let us now resume the study of the line of Humanists, propagandists of Enlightenment, in their offensive against Religion. After the first nail durably planted by Draper, peddling the lie of the Flat Earth Theory wrongly associated with the Catholic Church, the so called opposition between Science and Religion during the Middle Ages, and the false assertion that the only truth is the scientific truth and not the Revealed one, Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918) took up Draper’s propaganda work and pushed it even further. Like Draper, White rebelled against his upbringing, his family were high-church Episcopalians who sent him to a religious boarding school that he hated, and which amplified his animosity towards religion. When he rose to educational prominence, White faced down a strong religious opposition in founding Cornell University (1868) as the first determinedly and explicitly secular university in the United States, and became its president at the age of 33. Whereas Draper’s animosity was focused on Catholics, White’s ire was turned against Protestants as well. Indeed, Protestants were at first the opportunist allies of Humanists in order to counter the Roman Catholic Church and the Papacy, but they eventually had to regret their choice, as their early allies, the secular Humanists, ended up turning against them. In the meantime, the lie of the Flat Earth as being part of the common belief during the Middle Ages had grown to a stature that entirely dwarfed the historical reality. Indeed, White presented Cosmas Indicopleustes as the typical representative of the common thought of his time (the early Middle Ages):

During the Middle Ages “some of the foremost men in the Chruch devoted themselves to buttressing [Cosmas] with new texts and throwing about it new networks of theological reasonning.”

History of The Warfare, White

As we have demonstrated above, the writings of Cosmas were in Greek and had not been translated into Latin before the 18th century, yet the language of the Middle Ages in Europe was Latin, which prooves that Cosmas’s influence on medieval thought was nil. White also portrayed Lactantius as being typical of “the great majority of the early fathers of the Church,” while we have seen that the work of Lactantius was condemned by the Church and declared as heretic. But, the followers of Enlightenment don’t really care about the truth, and blinded by their own biases, did not bother to verify the sources on which they were relying, considering any information that confirms their own beliefs to be word of truth. White presents Christopher Columbus as a brave navigator “at war” against ignorant theologians:

The warfare of Colombus the world knows well; how the Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal; how sundry wise men of Spain confronted him with the usual quotations from the Psalms, from St. Paul, and from St. Augustine; how, even after he was triumphant, and after his voyage had greatly strenghened the theory of the earth’s sphericity… the Chruch by its highest authority solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray… In 1519, science gains a crushing victory. Magellan makes his famous voyage… Yet, even this does not end the war. Many conscientious men opposed the doctrine for two hundred years longer.

History of The Warfare, White, Page 108-109

Yet, we have clearly demonstrated that Columbus himself mainly relied on the geographical knowledge of a theologian, Pierre D’Ailly, to convince the committee of experts commissioned by Queen Isabelle of the feasibility of his expedition, he was therefore in no way at war with the religious. This story is in fact a deceptive caricature of reality, a fictitious script written from scratch tracing the supposedly origin of the belief in the round earth through fictional episodes which do not correspond at all to the reality of the facts: the Discovery of Columbus in 1492, the Heliocentrism of Copernicus in 1513, and Magellan’s voyage around the world in 1519 … However, all these episodes were absolutly not aimed to proove that the earth was round, which was already known by any educated person during the medieval times, but only served to extend the knowledge of the known world, and were not in any way part of a conflict between Science and Religion. As for Copernicus’s Heliocentrism, the fact that the stars revolve around the Sun rather than around the Earth has nothing to do with the shape of the earth.

Finally, the ultimate figure who has definitely driven the point home of this Flat Earth Error, which has been skilfully and patiently erected over the centuries, and which is now part of academic teaching and is no longer a “truth” open to discussion: Washington Irving (1783- 1859), with his novel, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828), which is not really a historical book as it is presented, but rather a book of fiction presenting Columbus as a hero confronted with these stupid ecclesiastics of the “Council of Salamanca”.

A new stage has been reached, Irving no longer even cares about historical reality, but has been content to find his sources in a number of published sources that he found in the Madrid library of Obadiah Rich, a friend who was a book collector. Far from the work of a genuine historian, Irving was content to reproduce extracts from various books that confim his own view, without even troubling himself to check his sources, adding to them his own inventions, as he was well known for his talents as a novelist. Regarding his story of Columbus, the main opus of his work, Irving readily admits having mainly relied on Navarrete’s (1765 – 1844) collection relating to the voyage of Columbus, without even verifying his sources:

[…] Wherever I found a document published by him, I was sure of its correctness, and did not trouble myself to examine the original.

Life And Voyages, Irving

Literally plundering Navarrete’s work, Irving published in 1824 a 500 pages book, Tales of a Traveler, in just 21 months … which won both praise and good sales.

Irving “simply did not have the time or the knowledge or the training to make such an investigation… His final claim must rest upon his having turned the story of Colombus into a work of art” in which Christopher plays the hero of a romantic novel, or an epic modern Odysseus or a Faust casting a giant wager against fate, or a mythic American Adam, the First Man of the New World.

Washington Irving: Moderation Displayed, Wagenknecht, page 184

Jeffrey Rubin-Dorky observes regarding Irving’s book on Columbus:

The book is not really a ‘life’ at all, nor does it precisely qualify as ‘history’. Although he might have done so had he wanted, since he had access to the very manuscripts Navarrete had spent decades collecting, Irving did not add anything new to the standard, though often contradictory, accounts of the life and voyages that preceded his own… Irving’s Colombus qualifies, rather, as a work of the imagination… he embellishes, heightens, shapes, and colors the events and incidents of his original sources… At times, Irving looks more the fiction writer than the historian.

Rubin-Dorsky, Adrift in the old world, page 221-222

All the authors dealing with the Flat Earth Error that followed were based on the work of Irving, including Jean-Antoine Letronne (1787-1848), considered as a secular saint and whose influence among scholars was even deeper than Washington Irving’s. Indeed, Letronne ended up establishing the lie of the flat earth and all its implications for Religion, as an academic triviality. Modern History will ultimately retain Irving and Letronne as the founding fathers of the flat earth lie, and their work is today presented as historical truth.

Conclusion

The real chronology of facts concerning geographic knowledge is that from the 4th century B.C. (and certainly long before, but there is no writing on this subject prior to this time … or very few), almost all the Greek philosophers maintained the sphericity of the earth, the Romans then adopted the Greek spherical views, and the Christian Fathers and early medieval writers, with few exceptions, agreed. However, it is true that during the Middle Ages, Christian theology showed little if any tendency to dispute sphericity. Indeed, in the early the Middle Ages, interest in natural science was limited, although geography and astronomy formed part of the liberal arts curriculum that dominated early medieval education and remained the core of the university curriculum throughout the Middle Ages. The shape of the earth was not widely discussed, since interests tended to be focused on theological issues. Among the uneducated, a variety of vague ideas seem to have been common, but among the educated always existed a consensus that the earth was spherical. With the development of commerce in the 15th century, the mindset shifted to embrace the practical knwoledge of geography for the sake of exploring the new markets as well as for the older goal of making more converts to Christianity. Educated medieval opinion was virtually unanimous that the earth was round, and there is no way whatever that Columbus’s voyages even claimed to demonstrate the fact. The idea that “Columbus showed that the earth was round” is therefore a pure modern invention. But, it paved the way for Humanists, and Protestants in early stages, to invent the flat earth lie. The flat earth controversy remained a non-topic until the 19th century, and the Church reacted little to this subject, as there was no controversy at all concerning the shape of the earth. It was just when the flat earth lie was being firmly established in the early 20th century that the first concerted efforts were made to dispel it. At first, the efforts came largely either from Catholic writers wishing to preserve their religion from the imputation of having defended a flat earth, or from professional medievalists with a stake in rescuing their chosen period from the pejorative label “Dark Ages”. What can the Flat Earth Error teach us about human knowledge and our own worldview?

First, historians, scientists, scholars, and other writers often wittingly or unwittingly repeat and propagate errors of fact or interpretation. No one can be automatically believed or trusted without checking methodology and sources. Second, scholars and scientists often are led by their own biases more than by the evidence. Third, historians, who could be expected by the nature of their trade to understand that every worldview is a human construct and that paradigms of knowledge are precarious and inevitably change, including the religious, scientific realist, and positivist worldviews, sometimes forgot that there are and can be no privileged systems by which to judge the truth of other systems. Therefore, this article does not openly accuse the authors who have propagated the the Flat Earth Error of having wittingly lied to achieve their ends, even if many of them have blinded themselves because of their fierce rejection of the Divine Revelation.

The Enlightenment supporters have litteraly written our Modern History, depicting the period preceding the Middle Ages as a Golden Age, in contrast to the Middle Ages which they have labeled as a “Dark Age”, an intermediate age, which explains the term “Middle Ages”, between 2 golden ages: that of the Greek philosophers and pagan gods and that of the Renaissance and Enlightenment, a period that continues until today. These so called Golden Ages have promoted the pagan gods and placed Man at the center of everything, turning Man into his own God in making, in opposition to the belief in a Unique and Almighty God at the center of everything. Religion has today been drowned in the midst of a multitude of pagan beliefs erected as a model for all of Humanity, as we can see in this 3 seasons Netflix documentary, dedicated to the so-called “Religion”, The Story of God. The host and director of this Netflix documentary, Morgan Freeman, makes no secret of his sympathies for Eastern pagan beliefs of Tibet, and his contempt and disbelief in the Religion of the Book.

The so-called Golden Age of the Greek and Roman philosophers have been idealized by the Humanists, since the contrary actually prevails. Indeed, Divine Revelation has served to educate men and to get them rid of the yoke of other men in order to set them free, to bring them together under the authority of the One True God rather than under a pantheon of false gods, actually demon spirits, and to guide them towards justice, truth, and true knowledge, rather than traditions, barbaric practices, and ever-changing false sciences. The real problem with these Humanists or Luciferians is that they do not accept the authority of God or that of anyone, they are no more than mere rebels, and they simply do not want the truth, but just to impose their own false biased “truth” to the whole world, even if it means lying and manipulating the entire humanity for centuries … and through repetitions and mass propaganda operations, they have succeeded well in convincing most people, at least those who are not under the guidance of God.

Through the Flat Earth Lie, the invented opposition of Religion to Heliocentrism (it was not only the Church Fathers who did not believe in Heliocentrism before the discovery of Copernicus, but the whole medieval society, including the secular scientific community … and by the way Copernicus was a Christian), and the scam of Evolution or Darwinism, the Luciferians who are still at the head of the world today, succeeded in forging from scratch an alternative religion that they called Science, which keeps crumbling on itself, but which is constantly fed by new lies in order to keep it afloat. The Religion of God is in the image of God: perfect and immutable, and the religion of the Luciferians, the Science of men, is in their image: imperfect and denying itself permanently.

In fact, these Luciferian Humanists did exactly the same propaganda work with Science as they did with the story of the Flat Earth: they invented a fictitious account of the History of Science, giving credit for the various scientific discoveries to human intelligence alone, and using this lie which consists in portraying Religion as an enemy of human intelligence and development. While the truth is that ALL scientific discoveries since the beginning of mankind are not due to human intelligence, but only to the goodness and Mercy of God upon us, who brought us these discoveries literally on a plate. Indeed, Man has not invented anything, but has contented himself with copying the Creation of God, and it is God who manifested the adequate natural phenomena at the right time and to the right person, the one holding the necessary knowledge to be able to correctly interpret these phenomena and to process them into a knowledge which is useful for all of humanity. God has always proceeded in this way, whether in the religious or scientific field: God rewards those who have provided the necessary research efforts in a given field, and who have been intellectually honest, by providing them with the bricks that they lack so that their research is fruitful and leads them to discoveries that are profitable for all of humanity. All the great scientists, religious or secular, agree in saying that their discoveries are mainly due to “chance”, “chance” which in fact has been manifested by God Himself. Indeed, “chance” does not exist, but everything is decided by God far long before they occur. There is the real science that God teaches us and which is useful for men, which translates concretely into all this technology and complex knowledge that we enjoy today, and which makes our life much easier. This real Science is the ally of Religion and concrete proof of the existence and goodness of God. At the opposite, there is the false science made of lies of the Luciferian Humanists, which is no more than the false science of the Devil their master, which only misleads those who believe in it and keeps them further away from God and the truth, without bringing them the slightest profit. This false science is not a real science, but is a mere lie aimed to turn Science into a new religion completely opposed to the One True Religion of God, and which pretends to explain the human spirit, the origins of life and its future,… while Religion already answers clearly these questions.

The real Error of the Flat Earth is actually not to believe in a flat earth, but rather to believe that men as a whole could have ever believed that the earth was flat, which actually never happened. The Luciferians, or Humanists, or supporters of Enlightenment, or Freemasons, or rebels or traitors to God, these names actually designate the same category of people, have used the lie of the flat earth and evolution to dispel Religion, and they managed to do it quite well, at least with the simple minded people who refuse to follow the Guidance of God. Today, these great enemies of God are now using this very same strategy, using their political, academic, cultural, media, technological, and financial power, to once again revive and promote the Flat Earth Lie within the truth-seekers community, so that they never reach the truth. By creating the Flat Earth Hoax, their goal is not really to convince the whole humanity of this lie, but instead to put all the conspiracy theories at the same level than the Flat Earth Hoax, in order to ultimately disqualify them all at once. In fact, those who allow themselves to be manipulated into believing that Religion has ever endorsed the Flat Earth Theory, are the very same people who allow themselves to be manipulated by the mainstream propaganda which is spread by the Luciferian World Elite. I announce to these people: All your false beliefs will collapse one day like a house of cards, and your bad choices and biases will surely lead you to your own downfall. As for those who remain faithful to God and His Revelations, and who are under the direct Guidance of God, those will be saved by God and will eventually win, and their belief in the Revelation of God will never fail them.

You have the illustration of the powerful propaganda of the Luciferian World Elite through this Netflix “documentary” on the Flat Earth believers. We can see in this documentary, given their lifestyle, that the leaders of this movement are funded by the Luciferian Elite in one way or another (this can be through Youtube or through occult donations, and various other means), and that they have been especially elected because of their blatant stupidity. The Netflix documentary deliberately seeks to ridicule this theory and its supporters, and they are indeed ridiculous, but their real goal, as I have explained to you, is to put all conspiracy theories, including that of the Luciferian World Conspiracy, into the same pot,  so that they can dimiss them all at once. Yet, the Luciferian World Conspiracy is indeed real and is clearly exposed in the Quran. Another goal of the Flat Earth Hoax is for the Luciferian World Elite to assess their ability to convince the general public of any false “truth”, even the most improbable, like is the case of the Flat Earth Lie. This allows us to realize how the power of deception of the Devil and his minions among the humans is today more powerful than ever.

Many truth seekers are completely deceived because their approach is biased: most of them do not really seek the truth, but rather to convince themselves that they already hold it, so these dishonest people fully deserve to be duped and led astray by these Luciferians. While, the genuine truth-seekers are perfectly aware that no one has the absolute truth, but that in order to get ever closer to the truth, one must be ready to question one’s own established beliefs, use one’s own discernment, and absolutely not trust what this Luciferian modern society presents to us as the truth.