DC: . Only Kooks And Simpletons Have Believed The Earth Was Flat For 2,000 Years.
In the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, a marble statue (which dates from the second century A.D. and is known as the “Farnese Atlas”) shows a Titan holding the heavens on his shoulders. It’s a Roman copy of an earlier Greek original. The muscles strain, the face is a grimace — and the shape of the heavens is a globe.
There are many views on what that is. Likely, it’s the earth around which the stars circle. But if common wisdom is believed, that before Christopher Columbus people thought the earth was flat, then Atlas should really have a large tray over his shoulder, like a busy waiter.
In our age of abuse and misuse of history, fiction often obscures fact; intentionally so, because fiction is a better handmaid to ideology. Truth tends to be destructive.
But Atlas’ globe tells a more fascinating tale, for it’s a summary of what the ancient world knew about the earth as a planet. They had mapped it, studied its lifeform and knew its circumference (Eratosthenes, in the third century B.C., measured it at 37,487 kilometers. The current estimate is 40,140 kilometers. The slight difference is likely because of our own faulty understanding of Greek quantifications). more here
Me thinks somebody would have fallen, flown or sailed over the edge by now.
If it was flat, we wouldn’t need time zones.
Perhaps if our moon had not been tidally locked in its orbit and thus seen to rotate, the simpletons of Europe (many of whose offspring have not advanced) would have understood that it was their heads that were flat.
If the earth was flat, cats would have knocked everything over the edge by now.
The Earth is flat and the Democrats are our friends.
The Earth is flat, just like Marxism in it’s various forms works
*GoogImges Farnese Atlas*
HIS RAPE WINKIEDOODLE IS SHOWING!!! GAHHHHH! SMASH IT!!!
The Flat Earth “movement” of today has two kinds of people in it…
1. Kooks
2. Master Trollers, who are an endless source of entertainment.
after reading the article I’m a bit confused (big surprise!) … so Galileo wasn’t arrested & imprisoned for the rest of his life by the Catholic Church?
(being a contrarian asshole here …)
… I mean, why did they hold ‘4:20 Day’ on Adolph Hitler’s birthday?
ok … I’ll go now ……….. for now
I am certainly glad there were great minds that accurately figured this shit out loooong ago so that I can personally sit here and enjoy my ‘adult beverage’ without straining my brain over liberal mistrust and commie dictation.
Surprising that most of the earths water hasn’t dripped off yet. You know, being flat and all. Volcanoes must be shallow. The ocean floor probably leaks. Guam will probably start listing, like it’s going to flip over. A new study shows that all the earths water will have dripped off by the year 2025. Unless it all evaporates first from global warming, you know.
Dang, that would have made a good 4/20 riff.
ICYMI
The Greg Gutfeld Show 4-21-18
39m:21s h.t.t.p.s://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRYsUXYHEPI
23 minutes ago – 39 min – Uploaded by Mr Smith
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRYsUXYHEPI
Pairs well with IOTW in toasty tasty-ness
Especially data-points at 20m20s
Repeats at 1 and 4 AM EST on Fox
**mIke was Here. {Before HAL 9000}
If the earth is flat, what is on the bottom side?
From A Brief History of Time:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn,
orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “What you have told us
is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.”
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “What is the tortoise standing on?”
“You’re very clever, young man, very clever”, said the old lady.
“But it’s turtles all the way down!”
🙂
Joe6,
I always heard it is China.
What a weird article. Yes, he Greeks knew the earth was round, the article notes Eratosthenes’ estimate. But Atlas has nothing to do with it, he is not holding up the earth, he holds up the sky. The statue shows a celestial sphere. They were a way to explain the movement of planets since they believed the earth was the center of the universe.
The platter on atlas’ shoulder was holding a giant New York pizza.
Regretfully it slid off into the ocean. Nothing was lost.
Some direct pics
For the more artistically minded
http://www.italianways.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IW_Atlante-Farnese_01.jpg
http://www.italianways.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IW_Atlante-Farnese_02.jpg
http://www.italianways.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IW_Atlante-Farnese_03.jpg
http://www.italianways.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IW_Atlante-Farnese_06.jpg
http://www.italianways.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/IW_Atlante-Farnese_11.jpg
According to Homer’s “Odyssey”, it is the rebel Titan Atlas that “supports
the great columns that separate earth and sky” – as a terrible punishment for
his attempted attack on Mount Olympus. It was Zeus’s decision: “And Atlas
through hard constraint upholds the wide heaven with unwearying head and arms…for this lot wise Zeus assigned to him”.
The Farnese Atlas, currently in the National Archaeological Museum in Naples,
bows under the incredible, eternal strain to which his muscles are visibly subjected. The globe he holds is an ancient representation of the sky and constellations, most likely inspired by the observations made by Hipparchus of Nicaea, who lived in the 2nd century BC and was the greatest astronomer in antiquity.
All that matters is the narrative.
2 + 2 = 4? Really?
2 + 2 = “Whatever I tell you it equals! No more; no less.”
Ask Winston Smith.
Earth is Flat; Earth is Spherical.
Earth is whatever I tell you it is!
Again, ask Winston Smith.
izlamo delenda est …
On a board I frequent, I challenged some hard-core FEs (not trolls, true believers) to start a GoFundMe for some FE celebrity to charter a jet with really big fuel tanks to set an unwavering, laser-straight course out over the middle of the Pacific. That course, on a globe, will take you to, say, Japan. But by FE thinking, if you do not waver off-course it MUST bring you within sight of the magic big giant Ice Wall of Magic.
No need to build a rocket in your backyard like that idiot did — just fly a jet in a straight line and see what happens. FE is either proved or disproved for all time within a matter of hours, beyond any dispute.
So far, no takers.
If the earth wasn’t flat, wouldn’t the peas roll off my plate? It’s science….
Sometimes after a couple whiskeys, I go to YouTube and watch some Flat Earther videos. Some of them are as good as a 1950’s sci fi movie.
Gaia used to be (basically) flat.
Feminism, Cheetos, and Facebook have worked their magic.
If 21st century humans can believe in astrology, Scientology, space aliens, ghosts, voodoo, and the Twin Towers being brought down by CIA-planted controlled demolition charges,
then they can believe in anything.
Including a flat Earth.
😉
I wished a long time “friend” after knowing for almost 60 years. He insists the world is flat. Man did not land on the moon in 1969 and Madonna is the smartest woman in the world. I had had enough and just said “Goodbye”.