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I will be the first to admit that I have not blasted into space on a rocket to see first hand, with my very own eyes, that the earth is spherical. However I have walked by the sea and seen the gentle curvature of the horizon far off in the distance. 

I must say that I find it bizarre that in an age of satellites, high altitude flights and all manner of monitoring systems, there is a growing movement to reverse conclusions reached 5000 years ago: to claim that the earth is in fact flat. More worrying still that an increasing number of proponents of this thesis position themselves within the Muslim community, citing their interpretation of texts as evidence.

How exactly the rival space agencies of the United States, Russia, China and India all manage to collude on their massive deception is a feat in itself. How they manage to keep their communications satellites aloft in their orbits is another mystery altogether. But then if you believe in all consuming conspiracies wherein a global cabal of elites control what we all think, everywhere, perhaps such a proposition is not unthinkable: all it would require is for millions of scientists, technologists and astronomers not to think for themselves and to just report findings passed down to them from on high.

‘But the texts, the texts!’ cry the devout, holding them up as certain evidence of their position, even when they prove nothing of the sort. The earth can be spread out for us, without it meaning that the earth is flat. Different types of people will read different meanings into such a text. A geologist may well read continental drift into such a verse, but for most people it simply means that the land in which we live is wide and spacious, granting us new possibilities and opportunities.

Those possibilities include utilising our God-given intellects to study the world around us. To contemplate on the heavens and the earth and conclude, ‘Not for nought was all of this created.’