You know what's the single most ridiculous detail in Flat-Earth-theory?

[DetlefK]

I have been in two FE-forums and have watched several FE-videos and I can say from my own experience, the most ludicrous part of Flat-Earth-theory is... Flat-Earthers.



Flat-Earthers regard themselves as free-thinkers. As true researchers. As heroes fighting a corrupt system that suppresses the truth.
To quote a Youtube Flat-Earther: "Knowing that Earth is flat already makes you one of the smartest people in the world."



All the while these free-thinkers go to insane mental gymnastics to protect the idea that Earth is flat from scrutiny.

* They invent conspiracy-theories to declare uncomfortable evidence to be fake.
(There are actually two rivalling FE-factions with two rivalling conspiracy-theories. One side believes that there is a conspiracy to cover up the fact that Earth is flat. The other side believes that this is ridiculous: The conspiracy is really about faking travel to space.)

* They lie about what can and cannot be seen in a photo.
Seriously: Their best evidence is hazy, foggy photos of skyscrapers or mountains on the horizon, which are so blurred that it's impossible to make any conclusive statement.

* They don't understand or deliberately refuse to understand what they are talking about, just so they can score points.
Flat-Earthers who think that buoyancy disproves the concept of gravity.
Or Flat-Earthers who don't understand how optical perspective works.
Or Flat-Earthers who don't understand that Earth's axis is tilted.
Or Flat-Earthers who create assumptions from gut-feeling and then declare evidence fake because it doesn't match their assumptions. ("These photos of other planets look fake. How come other planets don't have climate-zones?" - How about, because they don't have atmosphere and seas?)

* If all else fails, use a method of research where disproving Flat-Earth is impossible.
What Flat-Earthers love to do is to shift the goalposts: They claim that they are not out to prove that Earth is flat. They claim, they merely want to do a measurement on the shape of the surface of Earth and from that deduce the shape of Earth. (And guess what their single measurement shows...)

Please ignore that it is impossible to make a statement with 100% certainty when using only a subset of all of the available information. (Basic statistical math.)

What's more important here is that Flat-Earthers are deliberately not using the scientific method, because the scientific method discards theories that don't match reality. This must never happen. Flat-Earthers don't want to investigate Flat-Earth-theory in a way where there even is a possibility that it could be proven wrong.






You are a free-thinker only if you think like all the other free-thinkers.

[Girard442]

1. Are there any genuine Flat-Earthers?

Sounds to me an awful lot like something my fellow students and I would have done back in the day as a running practical joke.

[Nitram]

2. If you derive amusement from the mental pretzel-logic of Flat-Earthers, you'll love

conservapedia.com. It is a mother lode of conspiracy, stupidity, and fake news. It held my interest for a while just because it was so weird, but it soon got boring.

[consider_this]

4. too curious...

can you offer a link or search terms you used to find these FE-forums?

This is beyond belief and I need some freak show style entertainment tonight to see what/who/how of this FE concept.

[DetlefK]

5. links:

https://www.tfes.org/
These are the guys who think that the cover-up is about space-travel.

Their arguments do concern measurements and math, so you can have a scientific debate with them... to a degree. However all debate is based on the unshakable foundation that all textbook-evidence for Earth being round is either fake or insufficient. Oh, and they make amateurish mistakes during their experiments, yet they insist that it's not necessary to be more accurate.

Also, they are VERY, VERY touchy and Spherical-Earthers must be extra-polite and extra-curteous or else they get temporarily banned. The mods are biased.

The whole forum is basically for Flat-Earthers to talk to each other. Nobody is seriously interested in actual research, even though it seems so on the surface. If one of their arguments gets debunked, that's quickly ignored and mistakes in their (uneditable) Wiki never get corrected.



https://theflatearthsociety.org/home/
These are the guys who think that the cover-up is about hiding the flatness of Earth.

This is where the more esoteric guys hang out, such as a time-traveller and a guy who thinks that Earth has become spherical because thoughts influence reality and we were indoctrinated into believing that flat Earth is spherical. Also rants about the wisdom of the ancients.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. 15 minute video from the Flat Earth conference in Denver

https://www.theguardian.com/science/video/2019/feb/05/flat-earth-rising-meet-the-people-casting-aside-2500-years-of-science-video

David’s conversion to believing in a flat earth was only a few years ago, yet in that time he and scores of others around the globe – including a few celebrities – have subscribed to the idea that the Earth is shaped like a pancake.

The theories splinter off from there, with varying ideas about who is propagating misinformation about the Earth’s shape and why, but there are a number of unifying touchstones: Nasa, Freemasons, the “faked” moon landing, globalists, Elon Musk.

But perhaps the most common thread is the Bible, and the conviction of its fundamental truth. That makes evangelical Christians one of largest and most enthusiastic groups who embrace the theory, but they are also one of the least reported on and one that causes immense controversy in their own community.

Yet walking the halls of the conference – where 650 people from around the world paid up to $350 to attend lectures about their horizontal idea of the planet – it’s not uncommon to see people praying over one another, discussing apocalyptic theories about “end times”, or swapping Bible verses that describe the Earth in a non-spherical fashion.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/18/flat-earthers-keep-the-faith-at-denver-conference

[marble falls]

12. What do they think is at the bottom of their pancake?

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Water, rocks, and God.

I'll let my great-great grandfather explain:

SECTION 6.

THE EARTH PROVED TO HAVE IMMOVABLE
FOUNDATIONS.

[multiple biblical quotations omitted]

There is, however, one question which the enquirer
still may ask — Granting that the Earth has foundations,
to what are these foundations fixed, for there is no
stability in water by which the Earth could be firmly
held? To this I answer — the Bible does not say that
the Earth was fixed to the waters or seas, but that it
was founded (ol) upon or over them, which we know
from other Scriptures previously mentioned to be
positively true — " the waters under the Earth '' —
Exod. XX. 4; Deut. v. 8. What difficulty would there
be for God, who made the strong firmament of the
Heavens above, and with whom all things are possible
— Mar. ix. 23, except to " deny Himself " — z Tim. it. 13,
to form such a vast basin of impregnable rocks as would
contain the whole waters of the Great Deep? Is it
not written He hath " bound the waters in a garment ?
Who hath established all the ends of the earth ? " —
Pro. XXX. 4. Upon such a basin the foundations of
the mountains could be settled, and the hills which
were of old — Pro. viii. 25. " The pillars of the Earth
are Jehovah's, and He hath set the world upon them "
— / Sam. ii. 8, Job ix. 6. The mountains, and other
lands, which have been already discovered in various parts
of the farthest known Southern Seas, may in all proba-
bility, form the beginning of those impassable barriers
which girdle the mighty basin of the world's location,
designated by Job as — " a circumference upon the face of
the waters, unto the boundary of light with darkness" —
Joh xxvi. 10.

One more question may still be asked — By what
means could this stupendous basin of rocks be upheld?
I reply at once — by the Fiat of God, " upholding all
things by the Word of His Power " — Heb. i. 3. Thought
utterly fails in attempting to solve the problem of God's
Omnipotence. It becomes lost, like a little child in a
pathless forest.

https://archive.org/stream/cu31924031764594/cu31924031764594_djvu.txt
https://archive.org/details/cu31924031764594/page/n141

[Lheurch]

7. I would say the craziest thing in the pit of crazy that is FE "society"

has to be the anti-moon and all the stuff that you have to invent to explain an eclipse in Flatworld. I mean, they get points for creativity, but it is Rube Goldberg levels of complicated crazy.

[DetlefK]

8. You haven't seen crazy until you have googled "mud-flood".

[Lheurch]

9. I just did and...

The pain is real. I mean...at least such a thing is theoretically possible in our reality, though of course ridiculous. Want some more pain? I think the most ridiculous theory I have read (and the list of crazy theories is long) is Time Cube.

[DetlefK]

10. I'm gonna one-up you with stuff from a Flat-Earther-forum.

Electromagnetic Acceleration:
The Sun merely looks like it's up in the sky and moving like the round-Earth model predicts, because there is some unknown effect that bends light. Light does not come at us in a straight line but in a curve. For reasons.

Universal Acceleration:
Gravity is not pulling us down with 9.8 m/s². Instead, Flat-Earth and the whole universe is moving upwards with 9.8 m/s². The whole universe except for stuff on Earth's surface. For reasons.

[Lheurch]

11. I have read about the universal acceleration before

We would have passed the speed of light long ago if true. I find it fun when Flat Earthers argue among themselves too pointing out how stupid one of their theories is while defending their own equally stupid theory.