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The standard astronomical symbol of the Earth consists of a cross circumscribed by a circle.[154] Unlike the rest of the planets in the Solar System, humankind did not begin to view the Earth as a moving object in orbit around the Sun until the 16th century.[155] Earth has often been personified as a deity, in particular a goddess. In many cultures a mother goddess is also portrayed as a fertility deity. Creation myths in many religions recall a story involving the creation of the Earth by a supernatural deity or deities. A variety of religious groups, often associated with fundamentalist branches of Protestantism[156] or Islam,[157] assert that their interpretations of these creation myths in sacred texts are literal truth and should be considered alongside or replace conventional scientific accounts of the formation of the Earth and the origin and development of life.[158] Such assertions are opposed by the scientific community[159][160] and by other religious groups.[161][162][163] A prominent example is the creation–evolution controversy. In the past, there were varying levels of belief in a flat Earth,[164] but this was displaced by spherical Earth, a concept that has been credited to Pythagoras (6th century BC).[165] Human cultures have developed many views of the planet, including its personification as a planetary deity, its shape as flat, its position as the center of the universe, and in the modern Gaia Principle, as a single, self-regulating organism in its own right. |
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