Another important "achievement" of the society was new interpretations of the Bible, in which its members were looking for confirmation of their rightness. Thus about the form of the Earth in the Sacred Scripture, it is not told anything concrete - its authors did not worry such questions. It hasn't prevented the distribution of ideas of the flat Earth in the small Christian Catholic Church which has arisen in America at the end of the XIX century. Its founder John Dowey brought the ideas of flat Earth to American soil. And the second and last head of church Wilbur Woliva till death fervently protected idea of the flat Earth. Their efforts in the USA have arisen small, but steady group of supporters of Rowbotham. So the book of Irving became self-executing prophecy: religious obscurantism really began to believe in the flat Earth.
By the middle of the XX century, this belief has concentrated in the USA. In 1956, Samuel Shanton created the Society of Flat Earth. Its members called themselves successors of the Zetatics Society and borrowed almost all concepts of Rowbotham, only slightly adapting them. The Flat Earth Society adopted a long tradition of arguing with opponents, a holistic view of the world, and "scientific experimentation" from the Zetatics Society. All this allowed them to survive after what happened next.
And Sputnik happened. A year after the emergence of society, the Soviet Union opened the space age. Then the Americans flew into space. It seemed to be the final collapse of Rowbotham's followers. But they got away with it very simply: they announced that spaceflight was a lie and a conspiracy. Any information from the Soviet Union during the Cold War seemed unreliable, especially to religious Americans, but the government itself was a little more credible. Society accused NASA of trying to deceive its people and thus laid the foundation for another conspiracy theory: denying landing on the moon.
By 1980, society had about 3,000 members. Of course, someone joined in a joke or rebellion, but the organization continued to exist and offer new arguments in defense of its views. It was only in the 1990s that a period of oblivion began, with the old members dying and the new members not coming in their place.
But in 2004, the theory of flat Earth was waiting for new birth - on the Internet. Daniel Shenton (a namesake, not a relative of Samuel Shenton) created the Flat Earth Society website. The solution turned out to be brilliant - and not only because it is easier to find and recruit supporters on the Internet. The main thing - the public suddenly learned that in the XXI century, the supporters of flat Earth are counted in the hundreds, and fell on the site just out of curiosity. This justified the existence of society and allowed it to attract people, until, finally, he began to support even celebrities.
What do they actually believe?
Modern adherents of the theory of flat Earth are true to the general ideas of Rowbotham: the Earth is flat, the Arctic in the center, Antarctica forms a giant wall on the edges. The question of what exactly is under the Earth's disk is not clear. The moon and the Sun are spheres about 50 kilometers in size, which move around the disk, providing a change of day and night. Individual parts of the planet are illuminated by them separately as if we were driving a flashlight over a geographical map.
Moon eclipses are allegedly explained by the existence of a special "ante moon". It has often been mentioned in connection with the recent eclipse, which has increased the controversy about the flat Earth on the Internet. Knowing that the best defense attacks, supporters of flat Earth have developed a theory that a full moon is impossible on spherical Earth. By the way, other planets in this theory are recognized as spherical, but the answer to the question, why, is quite simple: "Because the Earth is not a planet".
Although supporters of flat Earth are not as aggressively paranoid as followers of other similar concepts, the conspiracy of the authorities occupies an important place in their picture of the world. At the same time, the "main villain" is NASA, with which they associate the government's attempts to hide the truth from people. Thus, insidious officers of NASA, based in Antarctica, allegedly do not allow people to see the edge of the Earth. They manipulate navigational devices on planes, because of what ordinary pilots feel as if they are flying around the spherical Earth. And still, the almighty NASA does not allow airliners to rise above 36,000 feet (11 km) - because, according to calculations, the curvature of the Earth becomes visible to the naked eye at an altitude of 40,000 feet (12.2 km).
The motivation of conspirators, according to the authors of the theory, is quite prosaic. The FAQ on the site of flat Earth says: "This space program would cost much more than a fake one. NASA and similar organizations simply profit from the money allocated for space exploration. The question of how expensive it is to manipulate all air carriers in the world is not touched upon.
Well, the most interesting explanation of society gives an earthly attraction. According to the modern version of their doctrine, there is no gravity. The fall of objects is explained by the fact that the earth's disk and all the construction associated with it moves from bottom to top with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s2. This movement itself is explained by the action of a mysterious force known as "dark energy". And the authors of the theory are seriously arguing about whether this acceleration will continue indefinitely or not and what will happen when the Earth exceeds the speed of light. Yes, yes, supporters of flat Earth are trying to reconcile their views with Einstein's teachings.
They're not serious, are they?
After reading all this, most people who were at least good at school should grab their heads and ask, "Are they serious? At first glance, the Flat Earth Society looks like a long joke like the famous 17-year-old schoolgirl post from Stockholm that "Australia doesn't exist. The current vice-president of the society, John Wilmore, does not deny that some people join its ranks only to get a funny diploma, which can be hung on the wall. But Wilmore himself claims to be sincere in his faith and knows many members of society who look at the world in the same way.
And we have no reason not to believe him. Karen Douglas, a psychologist at the University of Kent who studies conspiracy theories, says most of society's supporters are honest. Their faith is a little different from belief in any other conspiracy theory. Followers of such theories invent some alternative to the generally accepted view of the world and adhere to it contrary to all arguments. Any facts that contradict the theory are declared to be deceitful, even if the motivation of the deceivers is vague. If a person has begun to believe in something like a flat Earth, it means that he has already rejected a lot of scientific truths, and it will be difficult to convince him to change his mind.
It is not surprising that these people believe in the flat Earth, but that many of them believe only in it. Usually, conspiracy theorists or pseudoscientists easily accept many different concepts. Russians are well aware of this: the same people used to charge water from TV, were afraid of TIN as "the number of the devil", and now believe in Dulles' plan. But the Flat Earth Society is moving away from this scheme. Its members do not believe in homeopathy and are not afraid of GMOs, even trying to reconcile their theory with modern physics. And when President Obama compared people who denied global warming to the Flat Earth Society, they were outraged in real society: they believed in climate change.
Perhaps it is this combination of faith in one strange idea and attempts to remain faithful to the generally accepted picture of the world and allows supporters of flat Earth to feel like modern people and not be afraid to express their views.