The truly remarkable thing is not that some entertain the notion of a flat Earth — after all, human gullibility is no small matter — but that those very same minds, so quick to sneer at such absurdities, often display an equal readiness to dismiss mountains of evidence whenever it threatens their comfortable prejudices. It's a peculiar form of intellectual dishonesty, not borne of ignorance but of willful blindness; a stubborn refusal to let facts encroach upon the cozy fiefdom of ideology, whether political, religious, or both.