Is the Earth flat again?

Question

kepjr100 hit the question.
We are back in the middle ages.

Answer 1

For millions of people it has never been round. They're too busy dying of starvation to ever look into it.

Answer 2

OK, let me get this straight. First the ancients figured out that the Earth was round, then during the Middle Ages, Europeans thought the Earth was flat, then when Europe came out of the Middle Ages during the age of Reasoning, they discovered that Earth was round, now you asking if it is flat again. Very interesting.

Answer 3

No, it's round. It never was flat! LOL! In reality, however, it's not a perfect sphere, but is ever-so-slighty wider at the equator.
BTW, contrary to what some people think, the vast majority of Christians also believe the Earth is round.

Answer 4

Sorry, contrary to kepjr100 (and to Daniel Boorstein, from whom he may have gotten the idea), the medieval church and scholars did NOT believe the world was flat!

As scholars generally know nowadays (though the popular view has not caught up) the notion that the medieval church thought the world was flat -- including the notion the Columbus disagreed with the church about this question -- is completely mistaken. (In fact, Columbus's critics merely thought the world was BIGGER than Columbus did, and so that he could not possibly make the long trip to Asia . . . actually, on that question they were correct, and Columbus was wrong!!)

For the background of this big misunderstanding note the following from the article "False Conflict" by Rodney Stark:

"These tales are rooted in books like *A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom*, an influential reference by Andrew Dickson White, founder and first president of Cornell University. White claimed that even after Columbus’ return “the Church by its highest authority solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray.”

"The trouble is, almost every word of White’s account of the Columbus story is a lie. All educated persons of Columbus’ day, very much including the Roman Catholic prelates, knew the earth was round. The Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) taught that the world was round, as did Bishop Virgilius of Salzburg (c. 720-784), Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), and Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224-74). All four ended up saints. Sphere was the title of the most popular medieval textbook on astronomy, written by the English scholastic John of Sacrobosco (c. 1200-1256). It informed that not only the earth but all heavenly bodies are spherical."
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17713/article_detail.asp

Boorstein's view (which I have found very UN-convincingly argued in his book *The Discoverers* has to acknowledge that the view of the spherical earth was widespread some time before Columbus, but tries to show this view was lost for several centuries, by picking a few obscure and isolated examples of folks who did NOT represent the mainstream view of the time.)

As a matter of fact, the general popular view of the "Middle Ages" is filled with a lot of notions about how the Christian church opposed science and reason.

But in fact

* it was Christian scholars who preserved and enhanced knowledge at that time, and contributed to advances in many fields (agriculture, warfare, navigation, commerce/banking, self-government, etc)
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/rpw_center/chart.htm
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/peasants.html
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/medieval_achievements.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_market#History

* it was Christian scholars who created the university system;
http://www.ku.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/universities.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_university

* it was Christian scholars (many of them very devout, NOT religious skeptics) who discovered/created the modern scientific method.
(Rodney Stark charted the religious convictions of many leading scientists of the scientific revolution, finding the at least half were particularly devout -- summarized in chapter 1 of *For the Glory of God*.)

For that matter, historians who study this period no longer call it "the Dark Ages" (though again, the popular view has not yet caught up)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~lawlessl/DarkAges.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ages

Answer 5

The Earth is a sphere, like a round ball. It was never flat, at least we (humans) do not believe so at this current time.

Answer 6

You said "again" implying that the earth used to be flat. It is not now and never has been flat.

Answer 7

Just walk over the Earth, if u ever fall off let me know.

Answer 8

The earth is round. It never was flat LOL!!

Answer 9

No. And it is not round either. Technically speaking it is not spherical, it has a bulge around the middle (the equatorial area).

Answer 10

Well, the mentality of some of the people in it sure is flat!