I really dislike this flat earth subject.

The people who rage on about the earth being flat create a hostile environment that makes it difficult for lay people to discuss scientific ideas.

It is common for people who challenge any scientific dogma to be accused of being a flat earther.

For example, when I brought up the idea that COVID19 may have come from a lab and when I questioned the efficacy of forcing children to wear masks, I was accused of being a flat earther.

A couple of notes. The tiff between Galileo and the Vatican was not rounder earthers v. flat earthers. The Vatican supported the Ptolemaic system for calculating the calendar. Ptolemy was a Greek scholar in Egypt who created a remarkably accurate calculation fo the circumferance of the earth. People who calculate the circumference of the globe clearly do not believe in a flat earth.

This debate was somewhat strange. Galileo advocated a heliocentrenice model that assumed that planets orbited in perfect circles. The Ptolemaic method for calculating the positions of the planets use epicycles. At the time of the conflict, the Ptolemaic model was more accurrate than the heliocentric model.

The idea that the earth somehow conformed to a perfect Cartesian plane could not have existed prior to Descartes ( 1596 – 1650). The ideas that modern people have about "flat earth" really couldn't have existed before this.

Most of the ancient arguments regarding the nature of the earth were based on the baffling observation that gravity seems to be consistent around the planet.

To this day people don't know what gravity is.

The advent of non-Euclidean geometry shows that different types of geometries can exist on different surfaces; so it is logically possible to create a model of the surface of the earth that one claims to be flat. Notably, a person could sail a boat around the world. The boat will always be at sea level. A contrarian can use that experience to claim the earth is flat.

Open minded people who explore different models can develop a better understanding of the universe. Unfortunately we live in a world where people love controversy. People want to create controversy so they turn the discussion of different points of view into personal conflicts whenever possible.