A Saudi cleric has left users on social media both bemused and shocked after announcing in a video that the Earth is ‘stationary’ and does not revolve around the sun.
In a surreal statement he said, “First of all, where are we now? We’re going to Sharjah Airport to travel to China by plane, [is that] clear? Focus with me, this is the Earth,” he explained holding up a sealed water cup.
He then attempted to explain that if the plane stopped moving mid-air “China would be coming towards it in case the Earth rotates in one direction. If the Earth rotates in the opposite direction, the plane would never reach China, because China is also rotating”.
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Somebody Needs a Science Lesson
His bizarre explanation received a barrage of criticism on social media.
A Saudi cleric who rejects that Earth revolves around the Sun, that’s no News. Finding a high Saudi Cleric who believes it, that’ll be News
— Baki 7our Mansour (@7our) February 17, 2015
Twitter user ‘ink’ tweeted: “Check out this hashtag if you feel like watching your IQ plummet”
“This is why you don’t give khutbah [a public sermon] after smoking up,” another user wrote.
Another tweeted, “Did somebody tell that guy that there are people literally live in space?”
Rt.com report:
The statements, rather ironically, were delivered on the birthday of Galileo Galilei, the 16th century “father of modern observational astronomy” who was persecuted by the Catholic Church for supporting heliocentricism – the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the sun at the center of the solar system.
After being found “vehemently suspect of heresy,” Galileo was forced to spend the last nine years of his life under house arrest.
In 1992, the Vatican formally and publicly cleared Galileo of any wrongdoing.
