Yes, Flat-Earthers Really Do Exist

AD1184

Celestial
It is important to note that the flat earth belief is not so much a conspiracy theory, but rather a religious belief that is of a piece with young earth creationism. The conspiracy theory is merely something which follows naturally from the belief in the flat earth, just as young earth creationists believe that there is a scientific conspiracy to obscure evidence of a young earth. The flat earth belief does not make sense unless in a created universe.
 
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Xuu

Honorable
It is important to note that the flat earth belief is not so much a conspiracy theory, but rather a religious belief that is of a piece with young earth creationism. The conspiracy theory is merely something which follows naturally from the belief in the flat earth, just as young earth creationists believe that there is a scientific conspiracy to obscure evidence of a young earth. The flat earth belief does not make sense unless in a created universe.

Pretty much. I remember a portion of the old testament describing the sky as a sheet tented over the land.. Wouldn't surprise me if that's where many religious fundamentalists hooked onto flat earth.
That and just many of them being home schooled...
 
Yes, Flat-Earthers Really Do Exist

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With the sphericity of the Earth empirically established by the ancient Greeks more than 2,000 years ago, it is difficult to believe that there are still holdouts. Yet, as a reporter for Vice recently observed, “If a flat Earth conference in Edmonton, Alberta, of all places, can pull in over 200 people … I think we may be underestimating the size of the movement.”


How prevalent is flat-Earthery?

In a previous column, we examined what seems to have been the first systematic attempt to assess the American population’s views on the shape of the Earth, a YouGov poll conducted in February 2018. According to YouGov’s report, when asked, “Do you believe that the world is round or flat,” 2 percent of the 8,215 respondents chose “I have always believed the world is flat.”

When we asked YouGov for the data, however, we received a spreadsheet reflecting data for 10,374 respondents, of whom only 1.28 percent preferred the always-a-flat-earther response. Unfortunately, YouGov was unable or unwilling to resolve the discrepancy, making it impossible for us to reach a firm conclusion about the actual size of the flat-Earth movement on the basis of the poll.

Whether 2 percent or 1.28 percent, it’s still disturbingly high. So it’s not surprising that readers of our previous column were skeptical of the poll’s results—suspicious about the way in which the participants were selected, critical of the question used to assess belief about the shape of the Earth, and speculating about the possibility of insincerity skewing the outcome. So let’s take a look.

First, because YouGov’s poll was conducted online, a number of commentators expressed concern that a poll open to all comers would be vulnerable to a selection effect: flat-Earthers would be more likely to notice and answer the poll and to recruit allies to respond to it. That is a reasonable concern, but not applicable. YouGov’s polls are only administered to members of a prescreened panel of respondents.

Second, a lot of the skepticism centered, naturally, on the wording of the possible responses that YouGov offered to the respondents:




    • I have always believed the world is round.
    • I always thought the world is round, but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts.
    • I always thought the world is flat, but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts.
    • I have always believed the world is flat.
Responses that did not fall into those categories (7 percent in the report; 5.19 percent in the spreadsheet) were recorded in the Other/Not Sure category.

It is a serious flaw that the offered responses combine two questions: what respondents have thought in the past about the shape of the Earth (about which they may be unsure or unreliable) and whether they have recently entertained doubts. So it isn’t entirely clear what the responses indicate about the current beliefs of the respondents with doubts.

It is not a serious flaw, however, that the offered responses assume the only relevant views are that the Earth is round and that the Earth is flat. Other views (such as the view that Earth is cubical, à la Scotland L. Moore’s planet of Aoicicinori) are probably not prevalent enough in the American population to be worth recording in their own category distinct from the Other/Not Sure responses.

It is a flaw, but probably not a serious flaw, that “round” and “flat” are imprecise. Technically, the Earth is not round, but rather a bumpy oblate spheroid. But it is unclear to what extent YouGov’s respondents were deterred from expressing acceptance of a round Earth by such considerations; it is likely that they generally discerned the pollster’s intention and selected the response closest to their view.

Third, in light of reports that younger people were less likely to prefer the always-a-round-Earther response, it was widely speculated that their responses were frivolous or ironic. Perhaps, but no evidence for it is apparent. Moreover, the most flagrantly insincere response would have been always-a-flat-Earther, while younger people were instead more likely to offer a response categorized as Other/Not Sure.

Perhaps it’s easier to admit the existence of flat-Earthers in light of a 2016 survey finding that 27 percent of Americans don’t accept heliocentrism, 48 percent don’t accept common ancestry of humans and non-human animals, and 61 percent don’t accept the big bang. Clearly, whether due to ignorance or ideology, the scientific consensus is not always accepted—so why not about the shape of the Earth?

If it’s difficult to believe that people embrace a flat Earth, it’s going to be difficult to trust a poll that claims to validate that belief. There were genuine flaws in YouGov’s poll, and there is clearly room for improvement. Still, along with the evidence from such events as Edmonton’s, the poll credibly indicates that—to parody the famous editorial about Santa Claus—yes, Alberta, there are flat-Earthers.

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True story. Six years ago, for the first time in the past 23 years, I went back to the States
for a visit. I had never heard of the flat earth theory until then. I just never went to places
that speculated on that. When I learned that part of the evidence for their strong belief
was based upon the Biblical texts, I knew they were full of crap. Because the Bible
actually gives the circumference of the Earth measurement, at 96% accuracy, within the
words of the text itself. No, not some number magic crap, but a new way of looking
at the original Hebrew characters.
When I was coming back on the plane, after a month long visit, I explained to the
person next to me what happened next. I asked the person "so you mean, it's like
a clear bowl was placed over the Earth in the very beginning, with the stars painted
on it?" His reply was the killer - "well, when you say it like that it sounds stupid".
Yes, it does.
And still does.
 
How to Determine the Earth’s Circumference
You can figure out the earth’s circumference using a geometric formula that’s over 2,000 years old! Contrary to popular belief, Christopher Columbus did not discover that the Earth is round. Eratosthenes (276–194 B.C.) made that discovery about 1,700 years before Columbus.

Eratosthenes was the head librarian in Alexandria, Egypt, the center of learning in the ancient world. He estimated the circumference of the Earth with the following method: He knew that on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the angle of the sun above Syene, Egypt, would be 0°, in other words, the sun would be directly overhead. So on the summer solstice, he measured the angle of the sun above Alexandria by measuring the shadow cast by a pole and got a 7.2° angle.

The following figure shows how Eratosthenes’s earth measurement worked.
272863.image0.jpg



Eratosthenes divided 360° by 7.2° and got 50, which told him that the distance between Alexandria and Syene (500 miles) was 1/50 of the total distance around the Earth. So he multiplied 500 by 50 to arrive at his estimate of the Earth’s circumference: 25,000 miles. This estimate was only 100 miles off the actual circumference of 24,900 miles!

Here's the back story on that. Eratosthenes plagerized the Sumerian texts, which were in the
library that he was in charge of, for his ideas. They and not he were the first to figure out
the accurate measurement of not only the Earth, but the Sun, the planet Sirius, and several
other bodies. All within 95% of what we think we know today.
 

Xuu

Honorable
Unrelated but
Contrary to popular belief, Christopher Columbus did not discover that the Earth is round

Do they really teach that? Bloody hell. It was a known measured fact by his time.

The knowledge even predates Erato by a few hundred years. It was common knowledge, believed to have developed as the natural explanation for how mountains drop when travelling long distances.
 
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It is important to note that the flat earth belief is not so much a conspiracy theory, but rather a religious belief that is of a piece with young earth creationism. The conspiracy theory is merely something which follows naturally from the belief in the flat earth, just as young earth creationists believe that there is a scientific conspiracy to obscure evidence of a young earth. The flat earth belief does not make sense unless in a created universe.
Well, very shortly I will publish my next work and kill all of those ideas. The young earth is predicated upon the addition of the ages of the prophets for some reason known only to Archbishops who meddle in history. I can prove that those ages do not add up to what they think they do - they were put in the OT so that the Hebrews could remember several key measures both on earth and in space. They are not meant to be added together, and thus there really is no "young earth" to theorize about. Unless they decide to make one up.
Which they probably will. My dad did not have a great deal of money, and none to leave me, but he
told me this "never try to educate a fool".
 

wwkirk

Divine
Tim Binnall did a presentation on Flat-Earthers as part of yesterday's
Anomaly Archives FINALE of Streamathon-2020

His was not the only presentation, so feel free to copy the schedule and video to another thread.


    • 01:00 pm – SMiles Lewis welcomes you to the FINALE of Streamathon-2020
    • 01:15 pm – Tim Binnall – “People of Flat Earth: The History of a Very Odd Conspiracy Theory”
    • 02:15 pm – David Perkins and SMiles Lewis – “UFOs, Cattle Mutilations and the Gaian Mind”
    • 03:30 pm – Susan Lepselter – “Dreaming Across Cultures”
    • 04:30 pm – Susan Demeter – “Spook Lights as Places of Paranormal Pilgrimage”
    • 05:15 pm – Daniel Alan Jones – “Myth.OS – Mythical Operating System: Investigating Simulation Theory, Non-Human Intelligence, and Unexplained Phenomena”
    • 06:30 pm – Stephanie Quick – “Interrogating My Near Death Experience: The Aftermath of Mystical Awakening”
    • 07:30 pm – Nikita Kranda – “I Saw Something Weird: A conversation about regular people experiencing something they couldn’t explain”



 

pigfarmer

tall, thin, irritable
Tim Binnall

I listened to him a little bit but gave up because of the over the top profanity. Thing is, I can swear a blue streak and have to take care not to teach small children new words accidentally. But TB, the whole package, just turned me off a while ago.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
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Skeptical Scottish Man Seeking Funds to Send Flat Earther on Trip to Space

At his wit's end over his friends' insistence that the Earth is flat, a man in Scotland hopes to raise enough money to send a proponent of the controversial conspiracy theory into space so that they can see that the planet is actually round. According to a local media report, the audacious idea is the brainchild of Marc Gauld, who grew increasingly frustrated by a pair of cohorts continually telling him that he was wrong about the shape of the Earth. "It drives me crazy," he declared, "the total nonsense that they speak."

What Gauld found particularly galling is that his friends, whom he described as "guys who barely hold down jobs and do nothing," contend that astronauts are actually "actors who are paid to lie." As such, he has launched a crowdfunding campaign aimed at generating around $340,000 to secure a seat on a Virgin Galactic flight into space when such trips begin later this year. In his proposal, Gauld astutely argues that if the Flat Earth community truly wishes to be proven correct, then they should ostensibly be the project's most enthusiastic donors.

As for who, exactly, would get sent into space, should Gauld generate the funds, he explained that he plans to "hold an application process for high ranking Flat Earthers" to make the case that they ought to be the one to take the epic trip. His reasoning for not simply sending one of his Flat Earther friends who have annoyed him so much over the years is presumably that a prominent proponent of the conspiracy theory would have the most impact if they returned from the journey and denounced the much-maligned idea that the planet is not round.

.
 

wwkirk

Divine
View attachment 13218

Skeptical Scottish Man Seeking Funds to Send Flat Earther on Trip to Space

At his wit's end over his friends' insistence that the Earth is flat, a man in Scotland hopes to raise enough money to send a proponent of the controversial conspiracy theory into space so that they can see that the planet is actually round. According to a local media report, the audacious idea is the brainchild of Marc Gauld, who grew increasingly frustrated by a pair of cohorts continually telling him that he was wrong about the shape of the Earth. "It drives me crazy," he declared, "the total nonsense that they speak."

What Gauld found particularly galling is that his friends, whom he described as "guys who barely hold down jobs and do nothing," contend that astronauts are actually "actors who are paid to lie." As such, he has launched a crowdfunding campaign aimed at generating around $340,000 to secure a seat on a Virgin Galactic flight into space when such trips begin later this year. In his proposal, Gauld astutely argues that if the Flat Earth community truly wishes to be proven correct, then they should ostensibly be the project's most enthusiastic donors.

As for who, exactly, would get sent into space, should Gauld generate the funds, he explained that he plans to "hold an application process for high ranking Flat Earthers" to make the case that they ought to be the one to take the epic trip. His reasoning for not simply sending one of his Flat Earther friends who have annoyed him so much over the years is presumably that a prominent proponent of the conspiracy theory would have the most impact if they returned from the journey and denounced the much-maligned idea that the planet is not round.

.
Anyone who donates is wasting their money. If they actually send the Flat-Earther up, he might persist in his belief by claiming he was drugged or hypnotized. Or even more likely, if he converts, the remaining Flat-Earthers will denounce him as having been bought and paid for by the conspiracy. lol
 
View attachment 13218

Skeptical Scottish Man Seeking Funds to Send Flat Earther on Trip to Space

At his wit's end over his friends' insistence that the Earth is flat, a man in Scotland hopes to raise enough money to send a proponent of the controversial conspiracy theory into space so that they can see that the planet is actually round. According to a local media report, the audacious idea is the brainchild of Marc Gauld, who grew increasingly frustrated by a pair of cohorts continually telling him that he was wrong about the shape of the Earth. "It drives me crazy," he declared, "the total nonsense that they speak."

What Gauld found particularly galling is that his friends, whom he described as "guys who barely hold down jobs and do nothing," contend that astronauts are actually "actors who are paid to lie." As such, he has launched a crowdfunding campaign aimed at generating around $340,000 to secure a seat on a Virgin Galactic flight into space when such trips begin later this year. In his proposal, Gauld astutely argues that if the Flat Earth community truly wishes to be proven correct, then they should ostensibly be the project's most enthusiastic donors.

As for who, exactly, would get sent into space, should Gauld generate the funds, he explained that he plans to "hold an application process for high ranking Flat Earthers" to make the case that they ought to be the one to take the epic trip. His reasoning for not simply sending one of his Flat Earther friends who have annoyed him so much over the years is presumably that a prominent proponent of the conspiracy theory would have the most impact if they returned from the journey and denounced the much-maligned idea that the planet is not round.

.

If the flat earther goes up, and sees that one half of the earth is indeed round, he will
come back and start a new club - the hemispherical earth. Not perfectly flat but follows the
firmament in its roundness!
 

SOUL-DRIFTER

Life Long Researcher
If the flat earther goes up, and sees that one half of the earth is indeed round, he will
come back and start a new club - the hemispherical earth. Not perfectly flat but follows the
firmament in its roundness!
When they realize the Earth is indeed NOT FLAT.
They will all yell out "Holy balls!!!":laugh8::laugh8:
 

wwkirk

Divine
I've still never heard an explanation of why knowledge of a flat earth would be suppressed, if it were true. I don't understand why anything of importance would hinge upon keeping the real shape of the earth secret.:think:
 

Standingstones

Celestial
This is a perfect example of how the human race will ever become completely enlightened. With all the evidence given to these people they will never believe. “The government is lying to us!” Save your breath....
 

SOUL-DRIFTER

Life Long Researcher
There are those Hollow Earth believers as well.
I am sure if one looked hard enough we would find those believing the Earth is flat AND hollow.
 
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