Flat Earth Theory is a theory that is under development.
I am reading a well written book titled "The History of an infamous Idea: Flat Earth" written by Christine Garwood.
It tracks the Flat Earth model from as early at circa 302-311 in the works of Firmianus Lactantius. In the third book of his "Divine Institutions" - "On the False Wisdom of the Philosophers" he "...ridiculed the notion of a sphere where people on the other side lived with their feet above their heads, rain..." (From Page 9, "The History of an infamous Idea: Flat Earth")
"The Christian topography of Cosmas[sig]" by Indicopleustes, circa 548, also attacks the idea of the earth being a sphere.
Christine Garwood's book goes on to detail the history of the Flat earth idea all the way up to the 1970's. She introduces the reader to many of the characters involved in the flat earth debate - Joseph Holden, Lady Elizabeth Anne Mould Blount, Wilbur Glenn Voliva, Shenton, Charles K. Johnson, Robert J. Schadewald, Samuel Bieley Rowbotham (I called him self, lectured, and wrote under the name Parallax) ...
Your saying that the "Flat Earth Theory is a theory that is under development" raises the question - how long is it going to take for the "theory" to be "developed."
But - hold on a minute - as used in science, the word "theory" is defined as:
"a coherent group of propositions formulated to explain a group of facts or phenomena in the natural world and repeatedly confirmed through experiment or observation: the scientific theory of evolution."Scientific theory | Define Scientific theory at Dictionary.com
www.dictionary.com/browse/scientific-theoryThe flat earth idea has not yet cleared the bar to be called a scientific theory. It is an idea, a model, etc. but not a scientific "theory."
If you want to look at some of the published works about the flat earth idea, go to
https://archive.org/details/ZeteticCosmogony1899WinshipRectangle1899 to get "Flat Earth Book Collection Archive Study Pack zetetics"
If you have not used archive.org much and don't understand how to download a zipped file containing all of the publications on this archive.org page, you can use this link to download the zip file containing the 63 PDFs. The size of the zip file is 316 MB and the 63 PDFs will take up 307 MB when unzipped.
Everyone, on any side of this "debate" should read the publications in this "Study Pack"
I also recommend that everyone read the book (which I referred to above) "The History of an infamous Idea: Flat Earth" written by Christine Garwood.
Here's a page where you can find places where you can buy the book - yes, "buy" it is still under copyright.
https://www.find-more-books.com/book/isbn/9781429986946.html?gclid=Cj0KCQjw_ZrXBRDXARIsAA8KauTVVTQEl0cxMZSrUSlNgfAoGSFWvIfAiHUWvw0WWXL7YmxS5dWEDb4aArUUEALw_wcB I paid $13.79 for a used hardcover copy from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312382081/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1Tom - I strongly suggest you read about the "idea" you are pushing so hard before talking about its "developmental state."
I am reading everything I can find about the flat earth idea and I've found a huge number of publications about it and its history, you should do the same.
On another issue - can someone tell me how to insert a link without having the entire URL showing, that is, how do I put in a link such as "Click Here for more information" and have the actual URL not shown?
Seeker