Sitting and chatting with my daughter got me to thinking, do you all think that the Flat Earth people are truly earnest in what they are spouting, or rather that it is somewhat akin to “belief” in The Flying Spaghetti Monster? I want to believe it is the latter, but my daughter insists they are nutso and truly believe the planet to be a disk over a sphere. I just do not understand how people who can, presumably, dress and feed themselves without assistance can swallow such a large fallacy.
I know one who is quite vocal about it. He states that he is mostly going from what he has observed in life and what the Bible says about the earth. However what he says the Bible says is someone’s interpretation of what the Bible says,and that person has a flat earth agenda.
He normally links to youtubers trying to explain the science that supports FE. I debated him on and off for about a month, looking into his claims, which is that the FE model is simple while the round earth is very complex. I did the math on what he claimed to support it and found quite the opposite, the round earth is simple and FE is overly complex. Apparently he never tried to work the numbers out, but just took their word for it. His fall back is he is not a scientist and he does not know what model of FE is correct, though he seems to favor the UN flag model with a ice wall.
He claims that no one has ever truly seen a sunset/rise, but only the sun going behind a feature such as a hill. There is no outer space (moon landings were fake), no satellites, as there is this barrier (Racca/Firmament) that he also claims the USAF tried to nuke a hole in. When asked about that in a biblical sense, that barrier is holding back waters from above, and it would be monumentally stupid to blow a hole in it, he had no comment.
He also stated a reason for this. Satan wants us to believe that space travel is real, and is coordinating things like SpaceX to set up the illusion of opening up space travel to the public. Because Jesus is coming and the rapture is near, taking the believers with him. Satan’s deception for the rest of the world, would be to have these raptured people going to a mars colony.
My take on it is he believes it partly because his parents started him off. I know his dad didn’t believe in the moon landings and as he states ‘laughed out loud’ about the phonecall to President Kennedy from the moon. Strong church indoctrination that the only bible is the King James bible which he has some problem understanding due to the old english, thus more willing to accept interpretations that support his views of how it should be and a reason to disregard what more modern versions say.
But I believe his belief is at its core, is not a belief of a flat earth but a strong belief that the media, education and government is controlled by Satan (by something he calls a oligarchy) and the conveniently FE really fits nicely into that belief. Also he can not accept the RE model as that goes against what he was taught the Bible says.
It was a interesting and fun month engaging him about it, and glad I had the opportunity to share.
You mean the phone call to the moon from President Nixon.
Yes thanks
There have been some prankster FE folk here and there. (One organization back when was solely in the business of selling membership certificates which people bought for themselves and others as a joke.)
But the current big wave is basically all True Believers.
They just can’t comprehend basic notions such as relative motion, gravity and so on. And they believe in weird things like magic bending sunlight. And the Sun and Moon hovering in circles above the Earth around a point that has nothing in it. Come on, what force is making them do this?
I saw a thing just yesterday about one problem with the round Earth is how does the atmosphere not continue on into infinity? Yet, the FE model has the same issue.
That sort of “logic” tells you how messed up these people are in terms of understanding the basics of Physics, Math, etc.
Flat Earths typically have a dome covering to prevent this, normally somehow attached to the top of the great antarctic ice wall, but different models vary in attachment methods and locations. If yours does not have such a dome I would suggest you contact the manufacturer for a replacement, the Bible mentions New Earth, so they are still making them.
It’s not so much crazy as simplistic. Our everyday lives are basically lived on a flat disk. I see a flat horizon. I can walk and drive for hours and hours and it still looks flat in all directions.
It’s only once you leave everyday experience, like travelling in space or thinking about other planets/stars/other astronomical stuff that it starts to matter.
And it’s difficult to personally experience the evidence so you’re constantly having to rely on ‘expert’ evidence. For a person who is skeptical of all things not directly experienced (which is a scientific mindset at its core) , this can be difficult to overcome. This is how you get things like that dude who recently died trying to fly his own rocket to see if he could see the curvature of the Earth for himself.
My aunt is a flat-Earther (and 9/11 conspiracy theorist.) At first, I was baffled as to how someone as highly educated as her (she is really very educated and math-skilled) could fall for such beliefs, but after hearing her go on and on for a while, I gradually realized what it was:
Her mindset was, as long as she can find the tiniest, most miniscule flaw in someone *else’s *theory, then their theory is debunked - but her own theory can have numerous holes, no problem.
If you have Netflix, there is a documentary called “Behind the Curve” that I’d recommend.
I came away seeing this flat earth belief as very “religious”-like: those who believe take it on faith. To believe the FE model, you need to discount a LOT, and be convinced that great lengths, great amounts of money have been invested to try to convince you otherwise.
They touch upon this in the documentary - the challenge for rational people in dealing with this mindset. Just writing them off as “batshit crazy” isn’t the way.
I think the documentary touches on a more encompassing phenomenon: people who believe (whole heartedly) in unfounded crap. UFOs, ghosts, crypto-zoology, contrail (poisoning), etc. The list is long and flat-earth seems to be the latest to add. I suspect that there is also a lot of overlap in beliefs - people who believe in UFOs also believe in ghosts, etc.
I don’t know that this aspect has been explored sufficiently, but it seems that there must be something in common with these people who are SO committed to believing in these unfounded claims. (What pisses me off is that they are enough of a demographic as to support all these “ghost hunter” and Ancient Aliens shows !).
My theory is that there is some sense that by maintaining such beliefs, these people feel “special”, “enlightened” and “superior” to all the rest of us who either 1) believe all the verified research that has come before and/or 2) rely on scientific evidence. And finding that there is a community of like-believers only reinforces their beliefs - they have a “choir” to “preach to”.
Among those who get their flat-earth ideas from the Bible, why do they think the earth is flat-disk shaped and not square? After all, The Book does mention the four corners of the earth. Cite.
No space travel needed: As I’ve often noted, a sailor each day experiences things (a ship seen “hull down” on the horizon) that defy FE theory while fitting perfectly with a spherical earth. Sure, flat earthers try to handwave this away, but that in no way makes it invalid.
It appears there’s considerable evidence that while it suited him to affect a belief in FE theory, he well understood the truth.
My take on it is it works even worse then the flat disk, the flat disk makes things like time zones very hard to explain. So my WAG would be that due to observation it is most likely a disk.
But I will ask him.
Explained that 1: It doesn’t work and is never seen, they point out and run ‘experiments’ where they send a boat a certain distance where if the earth is round, one should no longer see it. (the answer to this is atmospheric lensing allows one to see slightly over the horizon, they don’t accept this). During their testings they will never go beyond that distance when the object would be obscured.
2: When pushed given proof of what you state they mention atmospheric lensing but for FE to work light has to bend in the opposite way then observed.
This really resonates with me. These people seem bright, but not ‘conventionally’ intelligent or perhaps socially awkward. Thus, they’ve been ‘locked out’ of the ‘normal’ routes to intellectual acceptance like academia or a research-based career.
Being a thought leader for a fringe belief provides them with the affirmation they seek that they are intelligent people that have important insights. I thought Behind the Curve did a really good job of demonstrating that these are people who are generally scientifically-driven. They want to understand how the universe truly works. They just went down the wrong path and for their own reasons are loathe to admit that they could be wrong.
The question as I asked it:
Here is his answer:
Which seems to be addressed here: Orlando Ferguson - Wikipedia and shows how this disk has 4 corners.
My question is why, if people want to feel intellectually superior, they pick a topic that will immediately lead to utter ridicule (Flat-Earthism.) There are a dozen of other fake scientific-sounding claims that they could have chosen that would have given far more plausible deniability - even anti-vaxxing or the Moon-landing-was-hoaxed theories sound more credible than flat-Earthism, which a 7-year old would laugh at.
I think part of that has a historical throwback, seeming like ancient wisdom that we got deceived into discarding in favor of what the powers that be say. Add to this discrediting round earth through one’s observations of the world, makes one think they are using common sense and it’s foolish to believe the lie of round earth because one can see it’s flat.
Wow, I had to deal with some family stuff, coming back to this thread last night was an eye-opener, and I see there have been more posts today. I am so interested in this, conspiracy theorists have always been a thing in my family, and while I spend some time thinking about life on other planets, and sometimes I think about Sasquatch, my biggest denial of reality was religion. I am deity-free now, and it fascinates me to study other cults. I fell asleep watching Behind The Curve last night, but I am going to watch it now. I have been accepted into a FE group on Facebook, so I can lurk and see what they are talking about - not trolling, just eavesdropping - and I am going to come back and read what everyone is saying. Thank you for making this an interesting thread!
Flat-Earthers, as well as Anti-Vaxxers, and Holocaust-Deniers, are all of a piece: They spout contrarian ideas, as loudly as possible, in the hope that their stupidity might be taken for intelligence. It works, sort of, in the sense that they get validation from other, even stupider, people, except that unlike the Holocaust deniers, they’re not necessarily ignorant bigots, and unlike like anti-Vaxxers, they pretend to believe in science. It’s kind of like Evangeligal Americans: believe literally in the words that reinforce your prejudices, tell yourself everything else is metaphor, and hold your nose and plug your ears at anything else.
RIght, a dome. Forgot about that one. It’s remarkably hard to remember “facts” as created out of nothing by others.
Now, the edge of the dome goes around the mysterious Antarctic wall. The peak is over the North Pole. Which would mean that the atmosphere would behave dramatically differently in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Which doesn’t happen and they are completely oblivious to points such as this.
One thing I don’t understand is this “free pass” these people get. They don’t have to specify any Physics equations, do any measurements, do any Math, etc.
And it’s not just the Flat Earth folks. All these sorts of Science-deniers don’t have to provide any such thing.
Why? Why aren’t they embarrassed by their lack of the simplest formulas?
(Note that there seems to be some commonalities for many people of this type regarding other topics. E.g., there’s strong correlation between climate change denialism and social isolation skeptics.)