# Are Most Flat Earthers Trolls? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 2, 2024, 9:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011 "2024-02-02T09:02:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/41 "2024-02-03T00:28:59Z")
I’ve thought a bit about the OP and I genuinely think the believers outnumber the trolls at this point. Especially if we’re including the “FE-curious” in that set. i.e. people who have little science education, and are enticed by going radically against the grain, enough to spread the memes, but internally are not quite there yet. These people are neither true believers (yet) nor trolls. We’re in a world now where hundreds of millions get their views from social media and can find websites that agree with them on everything, so all kinds of nonsense is propagating at an alarming rate. Obviously there has always been ignorance and disinformation but I think we’re at a crucial tipping point right now. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/42 "2024-02-03T00:59:17Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > So, of course the earth is flat because how else could the return of Jesus be seen by everyone at the same time? On the internet? Or else, if you’re old school, on TV? (I’m making a scientific argument here!) ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/43 "2024-02-03T01:10:15Z")
Their God’s omnipotent, no? So God can just make it so that everybody all around the globe can see it at the same time. An omnipotent God isn’t bound by the rules of the universe that they created. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/44 "2024-02-03T01:12:18Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > An omnipotent God isn’t bound by the rules of the universe that they created. That’s the beauty of it, you can explain or refute _everything_. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/45 "2024-02-03T01:16:20Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > When did Flat Earth beliefs also come to include Solid Dome beliefs? I hadn’t heard that wrinkle before, though IANAFE so maybe it’s been there since the beginning. It’s from Genesis 1: > 6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. By some interpretations, the « vault » is a physical barrier that holds the excess water above the dry land of Earth. > **[Firmament](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament)** > > In biblical cosmology, the firmament is the vast solid dome created by God during the Genesis creation narrative to divide the primal sea into upper and lower portions so that the dry land could appear. The concept was adopted into the subsequent Classical/Medieval model of heavenly spheres, but was dropped with advances in astronomy in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today it is known as a synonym for sky or heaven. > In English, the word "firmament" is recorded as early as 1250, in the Middle Engli... ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/46 "2024-02-03T01:19:18Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Further, the concept of the vault of heaven doesn’t imply a solid substance. If it’s accepted that the vault is still holding back the waters above the dry land , then it can be interpreted to be solid. (Sorry for two posts: tricky trying to quote on my phone .) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/47 "2024-02-03T01:33:50Z")
No worries. I know that’s true of Semitic mythologies in general, so I don’t object to that point, but are you arguing that modern Flat Earthers’s beliefs are continuous from ancient times? My understanding was that the contemporary conspiracy theory takes its inspiration from religion, but is not itself part of historical Bible-based religion. I’m perfectly happy to be told that the modern Flat-Earth movement includes the Solid Firmament notion, but I’m struggling with the idea that this is something medieval or ancient, because modern Flat-Eartherism isn’t medieval or ancient. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/48 "2024-02-03T01:49:14Z")
I don’t know enough about Flat Earthers to say. But, it’s remarkable how people will glom on to something in the Bible (or ancient legal texts, like Magna Carta) to support their pre-conceived theories. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/49 "2024-02-03T02:27:43Z")
It isn’t necessarily (or even usually) religious though. If the earth isn’t spinning, then why do the stars move across the sky, with no (obvious) parallax? They must be on some kind of shell. Ergo; dome. And you may as well assume the dome is close, as the sun and moon have had to be brought very close in an attempt to try to explain day and night and the seasons. Also some flerfers use the dome as a handwavey explanation of why the sun appears to set: something distortion refraction something. ---
**Author:** ![3AxisCtrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/ecd19e/32.png) [@3AxisCtrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3AxisCtrl)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/50 "2024-02-03T03:00:23Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > … something distortion refraction something. Don’t forget “perspective” - you gotta throw that word around frequently. ---
**Author:** ![3AxisCtrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/ecd19e/32.png) [@3AxisCtrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3AxisCtrl)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/51 "2024-02-03T03:26:15Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > The explanations for long distance southern hemisphere airline flight times (Capetown to Sydney sorts of flights) is rather lacking as well. With their map these should be immensely longer than they really are. And the actual paths followed by those flights would require the planes to fly at Mach 2+. (They sometimes try to explain this with freakishly high winds - that apparently always blow in the direction a plane wishes to travel.) The southern hemisphere causes all sorts of problems for flat earth models. A conspicuous one is the observed direction of sunrise and sunset from far southern locations (e.g Ushuaia, Argentina) in the southern summer. Flat earth says the sun will rise well north of east, but it actually rises almost due southeast. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/52 "2024-02-03T04:38:37Z")
I know a chap who will believe anything so long as it is a conspiracy theory. Any. Thing. Flat Earth naturally included, that’s about the least of it. I do not think he is a troll… ---
**Author:** ![Cugel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cugel/32/1199_2.png) [@Cugel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cugel)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/53 "2024-02-03T06:42:45Z")
> [@3AxisCtrl](#): > > The southern hemisphere causes all sorts of problems for flat earth model If you live in the SH, the bias that the NH is the default situation, ergo the SH is reversed, backwards, upsidedown or whatever, is common place. It just counts less in their thinking. I wonder what would happen if a SH flerfer flipped everything, the South Pole is real, it’s the North that has the wall. Evidence to the contrary would suddenly become extremely important where previously it had been blithely discarded. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/54 "2024-02-03T07:39:13Z")
> [@Cugel](#): > > If you live in the SH, the bias that the NH is the default situation, ergo the SH is reversed, backwards, upsidedown or whatever, is common place. It just counts less in their thinking. While that’s certainly true for some of them, I am aware of Flerfs from three out of the four southern ~~hemisphere~~ hemiplane continents. ---
**Author:** ![Guapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@Guapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guapo)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/55 "2024-02-03T12:03:17Z")
What kills me is that FE people think it’s a NASA conspiracy, as though educated people all over the globe haven’t known the earth is round for millennia. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/56 "2024-02-03T13:51:18Z")
> [@Guapo](#): > > What kills me is that FE people think it’s a NASA conspiracy, If you keep digging, you’ll probably find those people think it originates as an Illuminati-type conspiracy. They’ll say something about how “NASA” is Hebrew for “deceive”. It’ll likely devolve into an anti-Semitic/anti-Catholic thing about how “they” don’t want you to see the Truth. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/57 "2024-02-03T14:22:31Z")
Also that there are numerous space agencies and aerospace companies around the world. That’s another one that doesn’t get answered…by implication China, Russia etc all need to be in on the conspiracy but, IMO, FErs never seem to want to talk about that, they always switch back to talking about NASA. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/58 "2024-02-03T14:42:58Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](#): > > The guy being interviewed said the earth had to be flat because when Jesus returned, he would descend from heaven, and every human on the planet would witness this event. But only half of the physical Earth sees the Sun at one time? ---
**Author:** ![xtenkfarpl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c2a13f/32.png) [@xtenkfarpl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xtenkfarpl)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/59 "2024-02-03T16:04:09Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > But only half of the physical Earth sees the Sun at one time? I’m not sure flat-earthers would agree with you on that? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2024, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011/60 "2024-02-03T16:34:21Z")
> [@xtenkfarpl](#): > > I’m not sure flat-earthers would agree with you on that? Again I kind of already regret asking, but: if you were a flat-earther, and I were a flat-earther, and we’re both living in Florida to set up an obvious punchline or two, and you say it’s noon, what with the sun right overhead, and I say “yup,” because you’re right — well, then, what happens when I get on a flight to Australia? I mean, sure, you and I are conspiracy theorists who’d figure I’m not actually flying the route shown on the globe, the way those pricks at the airline would claim, but put that aside for a moment: once I’m in Australia, and you’re still in Florida, and we talk on the phone — what happens? You say it’s noon when you see the sun right overhead, and I say, _uh, no; I saw the sun set hours ago; it’s, like, an hour past midnight now._ And then we talk on the phone again later, and I now say it looks like it’s noon, what with the sun being right overhead — and you say, uh, _what,_ exactly? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-most-flat-earthers-trolls/997011.md?page=4)