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Does anyone actually really believe the Earth is flat?

sir drinks-a-lot

Philosopher
sir drinks-a-lot
Joined
May 19, 2004
Messages
5,672
Location
Cole Valley, CA
Of course, I heard about the Flat Earth Society and such, but was wondering if a lot of it was more of a schtick or some sort of performance art or whether there were really people who believed the Earth was flat.

I'm not talking about bushmen on Sentinel island or the like, but actual people living in developed nations. I know it's impossible to determine if someone is being honest when they tell you what they believe, but I'd like to hear from others who have more experience with flat earthers.

For example, have any of you met an actual flat earther? Or perhaps some of you know them?

It almost seems as if it were specifically designed to be the most anti-scientific position one can take, which is what made me consider that it might be a form of provocation or performance art.
 
Most of them appear sincerely deluded, offering fake explanations from the few intelligent cynics making a buck off the idiots. Check out Professor Dave on YouTube. When he gets tired of actual science education episodes, he does analysis and even debates.
 
I wasted some time on Facebook flat earthers recently and estimate the vast majority are trolling. A very few sincerely think satan is trying to trick them into disbelieving what they've been told the bible says. Maybe a tiny number really do imagine they might actually have evidence on their side.

But it's impossible to tell with any confidence what's sincere and what's performance.
 
I suspect most of them don't care, and don't hold the belief as such with any great degree of conviction. I think that for most, it's the transgressive act itself, of professing such a belief. And flat-eartherism is a pretty safe way to indulge this "kink" (for lack of a better word). You can be as absurdly, self-contradictorily conspiracy-theoretical as you want, without it actually affecting anything important in your life.
 
Jack by the hedge said:
I wasted some time on Facebook flat earthers recently and estimate the vast majority are trolling. A very few sincerely think satan is trying to trick them into disbelieving what they've been told the bible says.
Click to expand...

My experience is the opposite; the vast majority of flat earthers I've encountered, talked with, or even just read, are religious zealots who believe the ultimate purpose of the "globe lie" is to lead people away from God, with a small minority being contrarian trolls.
 
The Shaq seemed fairly sincere for a while there, but I think he reverted to a jk, lol?

Eta: one of my whelps actually goes all in, but she is just entranced with an absurdity that gets difficult to argue against, casually. She has a t-shirt with what looks like the UN rendition of the nations with the latitude lines, but if you look closer, it's the flat earth model. She's not what you'd call unusually reverent.
 
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Addendum: I think there are probably more people who care about flat earthers and whether they actually believe in a flat earth, than there are "flat earthers" who actually care about whether the earth is flat.
 
I've met only one flat earther, and in his case, he laps up every bit of bull **** and conspiracy crap he can find, and continuously gish-gallops about all of them.

I'm assuming that it's some kind of mental illness.

My impression is that many or most of them are just condescending pricks being condescending pricks.

Their shtick depends on ignoring the refutation of their puerile arguments.
 
And jumped off the edge trying to get it back.

I doubt anybody really believes it. More just being controversial and a gadfly. If they do, then it borders on mental illness.
 
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PitPat said:
And jumped off the edge trying to get it back.

I doubt anybody really believes it. More just being controversial and a gadfly. If they do, then it borders on mental illness.
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I've known two 'flat-earthers' in person (both extremely religious- fundamentalist christians), and if the first one I met was trolling- he's been trolling for most of his life...

Seeing as how I first met him while at school, and he is STILL a flat earther, that has to be one of the longest trollings in history!!!
:jaw-dropp
Quite sensible about most things (apart from his christianity and his flat earther stuff- with everything that goes with it- no moon landings, no GPS, no satellites of any description)
So they are definitely out there...
 
theprestige said:
I suspect most of them don't care, and don't hold the belief as such with any great degree of conviction. I think that for most, it's the transgressive act itself, of professing such a belief. And flat-eartherism is a pretty safe way to indulge this "kink" (for lack of a better word). You can be as absurdly, self-contradictorily conspiracy-theoretical as you want, without it actually affecting anything important in your life.
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This is pretty much where I'm at with "flat-earthers" I've known.

theprestige said:
Addendum: I think there are probably more people who care about flat earthers and whether they actually believe in a flat earth, than there are "flat earthers" who actually care about whether the earth is flat.
Click to expand...

Maybe. But it's more the thought process that is concerning. It can lead to other conspiracy stuff which then almost always leads to some sort of anti-semitic anti-science weird garbage.
 
novaphile said:
I've met only one flat earther, and in his case, he laps up every bit of bull **** and conspiracy crap he can find, and continuously gish-gallops about all of them.

I'm assuming that it's some kind of mental illness.

My impression is that many or most of them are just condescending pricks being condescending pricks.

Their shtick depends on ignoring the refutation of their puerile arguments.
Click to expand...
You don't understand us at all.

From as far back as I can remember, I knew that the Earth was flat. I didn't have to be told, it was self-evident. Then I heard these stories that it was actually a sphere, like a basketball. Apart from the obvious fact that the Earth doesn't look like anything like a basketball, there are many problems with this model. For a start, where I live I would be on the bottom side, so I would fall off. That alone makes the whole idea absurd. The other 'proofs' they came up with are similarly flawed.

When someone tells me obvious lies I will stick to my guns no matter what - they ain't fooling me! Throughout my life people have been trying to force me into believing their worldview. But I know the Earth is flat from direct observation. The most common argument they made for a round Earth was 'We are adults so we know what we're talking about. You're just a kid who knows nothing. The Earth is round because we say so!". Such bankrupt logic must not go unchallenged.

Then they dragged out books and stuff purporting to prove their point. But we all know adults lie a lot, and photographs can be manipulated. Most of their so-called evidence was just hearsay. When I asked them to show direct proof of this 'roundness' they couldn't come up with anything convincing.

But the final realization that the authorities were just trying to make me believe a lie so I would be complaint came from another source. I drank the Kool-Aid too for many years, then one day (at age 7) I discovered that one of my most treasured beliefs was a lie. That's right - there is no Santa!

The revelation came when 'Santa' arrived in a helicopter instead of a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Hmm, I thought, that's mighty convenient. And then I saw it - Santa's 'beard' was just a piece of woolly sheepskin! After getting over the shock I resolved to tell my mother about this as soon as I got home - which I did. Imagine my horror to discover that she already knew it! She had been lying to me all this time... What's worse is she begged me not to tell my younger brother - and I went along with it! Yes, now I was part of the world-wide conspiracy to trick us kids into 'behaving' by telling us outrageous lies.

That's when I realized that all authorities are inherently untrustworthy. You have the evidence for a flat Earth right in front of you and they are telling you not to trust your lying eyes. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Read any news headline and it's clear that we are being lied to all the time. From Covid to Moon landings to 9/11 to Global Warming to sugar being bad for you, the lies just keep piling up - all so they can manipulate us into doing what they want for whatever banal or sinister reason. Well they can't pull the wool over my eyes, I'm too smart for that!

Please understand - this isn't about astronomy or physics, it's about not being cajoled into believing the stuff they tell you over what you know to be true. It's bad enough that they can force us to drive on an arbitrary side of the road that they they decided on, but I won't let them mess with my head. And I'm not the only one. You'll find us wherever the 'mainstream' is pushing some agenda in the guise of 'facts' or 'science'. We see through the BS and uncover the hidden truths they don't want us to know. They call us stupid and gullible or even mentally ill, but the reality is that we are the smart ones who have figured out their game.

I tell you, before I realized how smart I am I used to get quite depressed at times. But not anymore. Because now I understand that the important thing is not what's 'true', but boosting your ego so high that you can't even entertain the possibility of being wrong. This supreme confidence in your certain knowledge and unassailable logic is an impenetrable shield against the manipulative lies of jackbooted authority.

tl,dr - I'm right and you're wrong. Why? because my self-esteem and right to self-determination demands it. Nobody tells me what I will or won't believe! You tell me I must accept that the Earth is a globe? I say no, I will not! You can't make me deny what I know to be true!!! :eye-poppi
 
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Roger Ramjets said:
You don't understand us at all.

From as far back as I can remember, I knew that the Earth was flat. I didn't have to be told, it was self-evident. Then I heard these stories that it was actually a sphere, like a basketball. Apart from the obvious fact that the Earth doesn't look like anything like a sphere, there are many problems with this model. For a start, where I live I would be on the bottom side, so I would fall off. That alone makes the whole idea absurd. The other 'proofs' they came up with are similarly flawed.

When someone tells me obvious lies I will stick to my guns no matter what - they ain't fooling me! Throughout my life people have been trying to force me into believing their worldview. But I know the Earth is flat from direct observation. The most common argument they made for a round Earth was 'We are adults so we know what we're talking about. You're just a kid who knows nothing. The Earth is round because we say so!". Such bankrupt logic must not go unchallenged.

Then they dragged out books and stuff purporting to prove their point. But we all know adults lie a lot, and photographs can be manipulated. Most of their so-called evidence was just hearsay. When I asked them to show direct proof of this 'roundness' they couldn't come up with anything convincing.

But the final realization that the authorities were just trying to make me believe a lie so I would be complaint came from another source. I drank the Kool-Aid too for many years, then one day (at age 7) I discovered that one of my most treasured beliefs was a lie. That's right - there is no Santa!

The revelation came when 'Santa' arrived in a helicopter instead of a sleigh pulled by reindeer. Hmm, I thought, that's mighty convenient. And then I saw it - Santa's 'beard' was just a piece of woolly sheepskin! After getting over the shock I resolved to tell my mother about this as soon as I got home - which I did. Imagine my horror to discover that she already knew it! She had been lying to me all this time... What's worse is she begged me not to tell my younger brother - and I went along with it! Yes, now I was part of the Word-wide conspiracy to trick us kids into 'behaving' by telling us outrageous lies.

That's when I realized that all authorities are inherently untrustworthy. You have the evidence for a flat Earth right in front of you and they are telling you not to trust your lying eyes. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Read any news headline and it's clear that we are being lied to all the time. From Covid to Moon landings to 9/11 to Global Warming to sugar being bad for you, the lies just keep piling up - all so they can manipulate us into doing what they want for whatever banal or sinister reason. Well they can't pull the wool over my eyes, I'm too smart for that!

Please understand - this isn't about astronomy or physics, it's about not being cajoled into believing the stuff they tell you over what you know to be true. It's bad enough that they can force us to drive on an arbitrary side of the road that they they decided on, but I won't let them mess with my head. And I'm not the only one. You'll find us wherever the 'mainstream' is pushing some agenda in the guise of 'facts' or 'science'. We see through the BS and uncover the hidden truths they don't want us to know. They call us stupid and gullible or even mentally ill, but the reality is that we are the smart ones who have figured out their game.

I tell you, before I realized how smart I am I used to get quite depressed at times. But not anymore. Because now I understand that the important thing is not what's 'true', but boosting your ego so high that you can't even entertain the possibility of being wrong. This supreme confidence in your certain knowledge and unassailable logic is an impenetrable shield against the manipulative lies of jackbooted authority.

tl,dr - I'm right and you're wrong. Why? because my self-esteem and right to self-determination demands it. Nobody tells me what I will or won't believe! You tell me I must accept that the Earth is a globe? I say no, I will not! You can't make me deny what I know to be true!!! :eye-poppi
Click to expand...

You had me at basketball.
 
gabeygoat said:
Maybe. But it's more the thought process that is concerning. It can lead to other conspiracy stuff which then almost always leads to some sort of anti-semitic anti-science weird garbage.
Click to expand...

In my experience, flat-earthers come from these beliefs rather than get to them via starting with flat-earth as a gateway. Indeed, they sign onto flat-earth rhetoric because it supports a worldview they already strongly hold.
 
The overwhelming majority of those who claim to want to prove the Earth is flat merely want to prove they can win an argument. They want reward through engagement to maintain the grift - usually by argumentum ad revenue.

The ones who aren't selling a product and genuinely think it's flat are stupid beyond belief.
 
threadworm said:
The ones who aren't selling a product and genuinely think it's flat are stupid beyond belief.
Click to expand...

Or they just don't care, because the earth is pretty obviously flat for practical purposes, for almost everyone almost all the time. As a single mother working two jobs to prove to you the earth is round, and she's going to tell you it looks flat to her and she doesn't have time for your nonsense. Not because she's stupid beyond belief, but because she's right*.

Don't look down on people who haven't been taught to prove the roundness of the earth in school, and haven't bothered to reason it out for themselves from first principles.

---
*She's right on all three counts: It does look flat, she doesn't have time to get into it, and you are pushing nonsense.
 
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theprestige said:
Don't look down on people who haven't been taught to prove the roundness of the earth in school, and haven't bothered to reason it out for themselves from first principles.
Click to expand...

Flat earthers, generally speaking, do not believe the world is flat because nobody ever taught them how to prove that it is round. They are not ignorant of the evidence, nor has poor reasoning skills led them to mistakenly believe that the evidence "for" the Earth being flat is actually better or more compelling than the evidence that the Earth is round.

They embrace flat-earth for one reason - because it makes the existence and intervention of God irrefutable if true, whereas a round Earth that just exists and behaves according to mathematical principles of gravity and planetary motion doesn't need a divine operator.
 
Checkmite said:
Flat earthers, generally speaking, do not believe the world is flat because nobody ever taught them how to prove that it is round. They are not ignorant of the evidence, nor has poor reasoning skills led them to mistakenly believe that the evidence "for" the Earth being flat is actually better or more compelling than the evidence that the Earth is round.

They embrace flat-earth for one reason - because it makes the existence and intervention of God irrefutable if true, whereas a round Earth that just exists and behaves according to mathematical principles of gravity and planetary motion doesn't need a divine operator.
Click to expand...

You had me at "[f]lat earthers, generally speaking, do not believe the world is flat".
 
I don't think many of them actually believe it. I predict that if you sat down with a flat earther and talked long enough to come to an agreement about some prediction that the flat earth model makes that differs from the round earth view, and said, "Let's go see which of these is true, I'll bet you $50,000 that the round earth prediction turns out to be the one we see", instead of saying, "okay, let's bet! I'm going to be $50k richer!" They'd come up with excuses for why the test wouldn't work.

As an example, you might start talking about the map of the earth, and they'd tell you about how the North Pole is in the center and the "South Pole" is an ice wall around the outside edge of the flat earth. But if that's correct, the Southern Hemisphere is much larger than it appears on globe. If he says, "yep, that's right", then you offer to talk a trip to Australia and take a road trip across the country to see how far it actually is. I predict that since they don't actually believe that Australia is larger than its presented on a globe the flat earther would neither take the bet nor the trip. Now, they might also disagree about that particular test even before you offer the bet, but the point is just that they would likely agree about some test, some way in which the flat earth differs from a round earth. But when you ask to bet on it, they'll find an excuse. And the reason is that they don't actually believe it.

The above is just my attempt to define what I mean by "they don't actually believe it". It's not evidence for that view, as it's all conjecture, I haven't actually tried to present such a choice to any flat earther. I'm just trying to express the view that they don't believe the earth is flat in the sense that they wouldn't expect the predictions of the flat earth model to turn out to be true if they tested them.

I don't think that's unique to flat earthers, though. I think many of us have "beliefs" that have this quality. It's actually a useful way to test your own beliefs, to see what you really think, to imagine betting on some test of the belief. I suspect I have some "beliefs" that would fail that test (though I don't know which ones, hopefully if I did I'd change them).
 
As all belief, including religious, it's entirely situational.
Yes, Flat Earthers believe 100% that the earth is flat whilst "researching" or discussing it with others.
They don't believe it in any other context.

Just like Christians don't believe in the Bible unless reminded to do so.
 
Flat Earthism seems to be growing amond the extreme Christian Fundies; they consider the spehricsal earth to be against the Bible and the whole of modern astroney to be the work of Satan.
It has become so popular that some Evangelical leaders have denounced the Flat Earth movement as delusional.
 
You can tell by which one's try to prove that the Earth is flat instead of just believing it - there aren't too many of them and they tend to 'test' themselves out of existence.
 
Hans said:
You can tell by which one's try to prove that the Earth is flat instead of just believing it - there aren't too many of them and they tend to 'test' themselves out of existence.
Click to expand...

"The Earth Is FLat....And That Is That"
Hagar the Horrible, by favorite VIking.
 
I was at a talk by Michael_Marshall_(skeptic)WP a few years back on the subject of flat earthers and he talked about a few factors. One is that on the web some smart people seem to like playing games inventing reasons as to how the earth and can be flat but physics still work - gravity is an illusion it's just that the flat earth accelerates at 9.82m/s2.
A few of his talks and articles are here.
https://goodthinkingsociety.org/category/projects/flat-earth/

See especially his article in the Guardian on visiting a flat earther convention
https://www.theguardian.com/science...-isnt-real-notes-from-a-flat-earth-conference
“When people ask me what I believe, I can’t say that I believe in anything 100%”, Gary John tells the audience during his opening address. “Apart from that we don’t live on a globe”.

That unshakeable belief is one of the few points of total agreement for the 200-strong audience at this week’s gathering. There is less consensus, however, on what form the Earth actually takes: some believe it to be a disc with the Arctic circle in the middle; some believe that circle is under a dome, above which there may or may not be an expanse of water; others believe the Earth is just one in a series of ponds in a vast expanse of ice; and other still believe the Earth exists beneath four cosmic rings within a giant egg-shaped universe.
Click to expand...
 
I'm not sure I've ever encountered a religious flat earther. The CT loons I have stumbled across who are into this nonsense seem to me to be LARPing. People do weird **** for attention.
 
Roboramma said:
The above is just my attempt to define what I mean by "they don't actually believe it". It's not evidence for that view, as it's all conjecture, I haven't actually tried to present such a choice to any flat earther. I'm just trying to express the view that they don't believe the earth is flat in the sense that they wouldn't expect the predictions of the flat earth model to turn out to be true if they tested them.
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That's because "the Earth is flat" is a faith statement - in the actual religious sense. So you may as well be trying to come up with a way to test the existence of God.

I would concede that flat-earthers almost certainly aren't committed to any particular proposed model of Flat Earth. They believe the Earth is definitely flat, full stop. But they're not willing to put any particular model to the test, at least not with any meaningful stakes, because while they may half-heartedly throw this or that model out there ultimately Antarctica doesn't need to be an ice-wall (for instance) in order for the Earth to still be flat, as far as they're concerned.

In other words, they don't require any specific model of Flat Earth to be true; they just require Round Earth to be false.
 
It seems like flat-earth is too unreasonable for anyone to believe it.
But then, is a 6000 year old Earth much less unreasonable than a flat one?
Is 'trans people's existence is a conspiracy by Jewish billionaires to replace the aryan race' remotely reasonable with more half a second of thought?
'There weren't really planes that struck the twin tower, it was a secret energy weapon fired by our own government'.
'The worldwide pandemic going on isn't real, its being faked by all the governments and medical agencies in the world'.

Seems like there's a lot of conspiracy theories out there that are completely and utterly unreasonable, that can't survive even casual contact with critical thought. They're all completely insane. Does it matter which one is marginally more ridiculous than another? How would you even judge that?

It seems like these people must all be just full of it, but some of these people seem to be willing to lose their jobs, their friends, and in the last example their lives over these beliefs. I have no clue how to even begin to understand this mindset.
 
threadworm said:
The overwhelming majority of those who claim to want to prove the Earth is flat merely want to prove they can win an argument. They want reward through engagement to maintain the grift - usually by argumentum ad revenue.

The ones who aren't selling a product and genuinely think it's flat are stupid beyond belief.
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I agree with that description, plus those individuals who are just downright trolls, wanting attention towards what they say/post.
 
I have never met a Flat Earther IRL. But I have met plenty of Christians. A not unusual response if their belief is questioned is, "I don't want to discuss it." And their belief is continued.
 
Almost ashamed to be linking to it. Parking not included.

https://tickets.creationmuseum.org/webstore/shop/viewitems.aspx?CG=GA22&C=GA0322

Only an hour away from them, and you have one day. Only $114 so not like sacreligious Disney or anything. And they're cute animated giraffes.

Then there's another one I saw which touted the double admission. Can't find it but there's this, an encounter.

Seems like kids aren't free. And looks like a small boat.

 
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PitPat said:
Almost ashamed to be linking to it. Parking not included.

https://tickets.creationmuseum.org/webstore/shop/viewitems.aspx?CG=GA22&C=GA0322

Only an hour away from them, and you have one day. Only $114 so not like sacreligious Disney or anything. And they're cute animated giraffes.

Then there's another one I saw which touted the double admission. Can't find it but there's this, an encounter.

Seems like kids aren't free. And looks like a small boat.

Click to expand...
A bit off topic, but your screen name brought out reembraces of Gone with the Wind.
 
theprestige said:
It's a tool skeptics believe in for castigating their favorite Other, and believe in much less for critically examining the basis of their own beliefs.
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In this case, being that it's 2024, we know for a fact the earth is round. There is nothing to debate, no deeper meaning, or reason to examine our reasons for accepting facts as truth in this case. Every aspect of our daily lives is affected by the curvature of the earth: time-zones, cell-tower relays, satellite communications, seasonal planting of crops, harvesting of crops, shipping, intercontinental air travel, when to wake up, when to sleep.

Flat earthers aren't a challenge to our beliefs, more a symbol of our frustration that stupid people are given a platform to espouse their buffoonery. Flat earth isn't a thought experiment, it's B-List trolling.
 
Craig4 said:
I'm not sure I've ever encountered a religious flat earther. The CT loons I have stumbled across who are into this nonsense seem to me to be LARPing. People do weird **** for attention.
Click to expand...

Oh, the Christian Fundy Flat Earthers are out there..and are probalby the fastest growing segment of the Flat Earthers.
 
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