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Tales Of A Flat Earth

There are a lot more people who acknowledge that the Earth is spherical, yet who are also thicker than Barry White’s shit on Boxing Day. lf despising people with weird opinions is one’s “thing”, then FTMB would seem to be an odd place to express it.

Not a dig, just a confused observation.

:dunno:

maximus otter

*Newsflash* - this just in… Barry White died over 20 years ago.
 
Meaning that beliefs like those of the flerfs resemble religious beliefs more than anything. I make no secret of my disdain of religion in general. I see things like flerf "reasoning" as being a substitute for religion, or gang membership, or whatever. A cult is a cult is a cult. As PeteByrdie so succinctly put it, it's about defective thinking. Cult members of all sorts these days like to claim their opinions are as valid as anyone's. They might hold the opinion that Earth is 3000 years old, or that pi=3, but they are wrong. Their precious opinions are demonstrably false.

I figured out about thirty years ago that Science and Religion are each right about the other. Both can be full of shit. Religion, however, has outlived its usefulness, to the point that any real spirituality is carefully cleansed from the dogma. Churches still fill a social need in many ways, for many people, but those needs can be met without the bullshit and without the oppression of others who don't believe the same things.
I think a few billion people would disagree with that.

Who are you (or I) to tell people that religion is bullshit?

Some people may say that you've outlived your usefulness.

Hypocrisy of the highest order here mate.
 
I think a few billion people would disagree with that.

Who are you (or I) to tell people that religion is bullshit?

Some people may say that you've outlived your usefulness.

Hypocrisy of the highest order here mate.
Floyd! Be friendly.
 
Heh! Not the first time I've encountered a knee jerk reaction to an opinion. Doubtless not the last. If you like your religion, then fine. I'm not going to pretend I think it's a valid way of dealing with reality, but I don't see any reason to fear my opinion. I'm certainly not going to try to punish you for it, or try to destroy your church or whatever. Live and let live, and all that.
 
Heh! Not the first time I've encountered a knee jerk reaction to an opinion. Doubtless not the last. If you like your religion, then fine. I'm not going to pretend I think it's a valid way of dealing with reality, but I don't see any reason to fear my opinion. I'm certainly not going to try to punish you for it, or try to destroy your church or whatever. Live and let live, and all that.
Hardly knee-jerk mate. Bit dramatic.

In fact, I would say that's what you have done in your original comment.

Fear of your opinion? What do you mean? I've never feared any of your opinions. It's you who has a fear of an opinion- religious opinion (and quite a few other opinions too).

No one is asking you to 'pretend' anything either, but saying it's 'bullshit' when billions of people around the world (and also some members on here) find it very helpful in many ways, is out of order.

As for oppression, apart from our first primary school vicar who was the most boring man in the world, I've never had anyone try to force religion onto me and I know some very religious people.
 
Since the entertainment on this thread appears to have ceased, I just had a memory return to my mind which I found amusing. My last girlfriend has a couple of great kids. One was I think about seven when I mentioned to him that some people believe the world is flat. He said he hopes it is flat. I asked why.

'Because it would be easier to go to space. You'd just have to go to the edge and jump off.'

Like I said, great kids.
 
Since the entertainment on this thread appears to have ceased, I just had a memory return to my mind which I found amusing. My last girlfriend has a couple of great kids. One was I think about seven when I mentioned to him that some people believe the world is flat. He said he hopes it is flat. I asked why.

'Because it would be easier to go to space. You'd just have to go to the edge and jump off.'

Like I said, great kids.
That got me thinking. If gravity pulls everything toward the centre of the Earth then the pull is nearly the same on a sphere or oblate spheroid, discounting mascons.
What happens on a flat Earth? Do objects near the edge fall at an angle? Is the pull round the edges greater than the pull at the centre - depending on the thickness of the "Earth" Would a flat object actually be stable or would tides etc. pull it apart? What is gravity like on Oumuamua? How would the Moon, flat or not, behave if the Earth were flat? Do Flerfs think the Sun is flat as well???
 
What happens on a flat Earth? Do objects near the edge fall at an angle? Is the pull round the edges greater than the pull at the centre - depending on the thickness of the "Earth"

Some of the FE videos I've seen dispute the existence of this thing we call "gravity". Apparently, it's all density and buoyancy... which of course does nothing to explain how density decides which way is "up".
 
If Earth is a disc, what is on the other side?
And does gravity work the same way on that side?
And who built it, because it'd have to be artificial to be flat...?
 
My autocorrect often tries to make gravity, gravy. If it's all about buoyancy and density maybe it really is gravy.:)
 
That got me thinking. If gravity pulls everything toward the centre of the Earth then the pull is nearly the same on a sphere or oblate spheroid, discounting mascons.
What happens on a flat Earth? Do objects near the edge fall at an angle? Is the pull round the edges greater than the pull at the centre - depending on the thickness of the "Earth" Would a flat object actually be stable or would tides etc. pull it apart? What is gravity like on Oumuamua? How would the Moon, flat or not, behave if the Earth were flat? Do Flerfs think the Sun is flat as well???
Gravity absolutely doesn't work as observed on a flat earth. In the usual flerf model, the sun and moon are relatively small and circle over the top of the disk. There's no space. There's usually a dome over the earth, like a cloche, and there's little agreement on what's outside the dome. However, it's required to hold the atmosphere in. Obviously, there can't be a ball in the vacuum of space with an atmosphere on it because, as they're so fond of telling us, 'you can't have a gas pressure next to a vacuum. It would all get sucked into space.'
Some of the FE videos I've seen dispute the existence of this thing we call "gravity". Apparently, it's all density and buoyancy... which of course does nothing to explain how density decides which way is "up".
Aye, to the flerf the question of how the falling object knows which way is down and which is up is ridiculous. Everyone knows what down is. It's just apparent. Down is just part of the world. This, along with 'You can't have a gas pressure next to a vacuum,' and, 'water always finds a level, so it will always be flat, so can't cling to the surface of a sphere,' are good examples of two of the central, complementary mechanisms in science denial. The appeal to intuition, and the tendency to look at science and facts only as far as one needs to in order to arrive at something that seems to support one's chosen belief.
And who built it, because it'd have to be artificial to be flat...?
Again, the majority of flerfs are young earth creationists. So, God made the flat Earth, the sun and moon that float miraculously over it, and the dome containing everything. Scientists, and particularly NASA, are conspiring to hide the truth to take people away from God. This is another mechanism of science denial; the conspiracy theory to bridge the gap between what one's chosen to believe and what's being said by those in a position to know better.
 
Again, the majority of flerfs are young earth creationists. So, God made the flat Earth, the sun and moon that float miraculously over it, and the dome containing everything. Scientists, and particularly NASA, are conspiring to hide the truth to take people away from God. This is another mechanism of science denial; the conspiracy theory to bridge the gap between what one's chosen to believe and what's being said by those in a position to know better.
Some real mental gymnastics are required to think like this.
 
Must admit, I'm not familiar with any part of the Bible or even apocryphal writings which state that:

'God made the flat Earth'
 
Some real mental gymnastics are required to think like this.
I wish that were true, but I don't think it does. Thinking 'like' this seems to be the natural way people think. Thinking these specific things is unusual. Yet you need only go to young earth creationism to find not only large numbers of people believing it, but quite a few scientists, including geologists and geneticists who you'd think had no business disputing evolution and an ancient age for the earth.

A lot depends on making one's beliefs unfalsifyable, making a reason why the world one believes in should look the same as one in which one's beliefs are not true. Conspiracy theory does a lot of heavy lifting with that. Of course there's evidence against what I'm saying, because the people giving us the evidence are faking it to [insert assumed nefarious purpose here]. But there's always some way to explain away evidence. When young earth creationists are asked how we can see objects tens of thousands or millions of light years away if the Universe is only a few thousand years old, they'll reply God miraculously created the light from those objects in transit. Logically speaking, the distance we can see in the Universe should falsify YEC, but how do you falsify a God that can do anything?
 
The thing is it requires a far more powerful and imaginitive God to create the universe as science is finding it to be than to create a pancake with a dome over it.

"Turtles all the way down."
 
Graffito in, of all places, the men's washroom at a motel in Watson Lake, Yukon Territory, many years ago; among all the expected obscenities and important social messages such as "For a good time phone XXX-XXXX and ask for Brenda", I found the following scientific hypothesis ----

THERE IS NO GRAVITY. THE EARTH SUCKS.

I challenge anyone to disprove it . . . .
 
Groupthink - Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.
 
Groupthink - Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome.
At least one ex-flat earther (Seek Truth, Speak Truth, I wonder if he's still about on the tubes) has talked about the effect being part of an online community playing a large part.

I haven't properly followed the scene for a couple of years and have cancelled most of my subscriptions to channels that focus mostly on the topic, but I still get the odd video thrown my way by the algorithm. I was pleased to learn a while ago that prominent UK flerf Ranty Flat Earth has renounced the flat Earth. I always had a soft spot for Ranty. In spite of his rather aggressive sounding name, he actually seemed a nice guy, and he was always doing little experiments and admitting they didn't give him the result he wanted, prompting Conspiracy Cats to do a regular segment on his channel about Ranty being a 'globe hero', with a song proclaiming he 'proves the globe'. But I might look back to see whether the reformed Ranty gives any reasons for his former beliefs.

I imagine everyone going down the flerf rabbit hole has their own story, but I've often wondered what the driving force is that ignites flerfism. In some, I genuinely think they've spent much of their lives not really being able to grasp even quite simple scientific principles that clash with their terrestrial intuition, such as how people can be 'upside-down' in the southern hemisphere and not fall off, and in fact how there's no universal 'down' at all. Then flat earth comes along and gives them a simple model based on the intuition of the relatively small minded, and suddenly they can lord their greater knowledge over everyone else, telling us we're the morons for thinking water can stick to a ball that's 'spinning at a thousand miles per hour'.

I suppose it's pretty harmless for the most part. It's the conspiracy element that no doubt doesn't affect some people's lives much, but in others must surely make their lives miserable. I'm thinking mainly of the channels CC, who seems to get more erratic every time I see him (I don't follow flerf focused content any longer, but he often turns up on Sir SIC's and Creaky Blinder's channels). And then Hans Wormhat, who believes every conspiracy going. He always speaks calmly but it must be terrifying to live in the world in which he thinks he's living.
 
I suppose it's pretty harmless for the most part. It's the conspiracy element that no doubt doesn't affect some people's lives much, but in others must surely make their lives miserable.
I suppose so. However, for some it's the beginning of their descent down the 'rabbit hole' - if they sign on to one crazy theory, they might be inclined to accept (by extension) another, then another ... until they cannot operate in ordinary society and take up the most extreme views. By that time, they're so invested in the whole web of nonsense that to come to their senses is impossible.
 
I suppose so. However, for some it's the beginning of their descent down the 'rabbit hole' - if they sign on to one crazy theory, they might be inclined to accept (by extension) another, then another ... until they cannot operate in ordinary society and take up the most extreme views. By that time, they're so invested in the whole web of nonsense that to come to their senses is impossible.
Well, exactly. Who knows where Hans Wormhat started, but he's ended up believing a bunch of animals aren't real, most houses are empty and are just there to convince us there are more people around than there are, and that electricity is harvested from the air for free and we shouldn't have to pay for it, and all kinds of other things. Once you become used to assuming perfidy in those most likely to have the best information, once you habitually  look for the conspiracy in everything, there's no nonsense you can't accept.
 
I suppose so. However, for some it's the beginning of their descent down the 'rabbit hole' - if they sign on to one crazy theory, they might be inclined to accept (by extension) another, then another ... until they cannot operate in ordinary society and take up the most extreme views. By that time, they're so invested in the whole web of nonsense that to come to their senses is impossible.

Indeed. This is from my review of: Off the Edge: Flat Earthers, Conspiracy Culture, and Why People Will Believe Anything by Kelly Weill,

"Online the Flat Earth message co-exists within a morass of Anti-vaxxer, Anti-Semitic and White Supremacist beliefs. Even alien conspiracy theorists upload Flat Earth videos on youtube and run a Flat Earth compound in Brazil, US citizens have moved to this UFO City. Some Flat Earthers believe that a cloned Adolf Hitler lives in New Berlin, Antarctica, others regard the Holocaust as a fakes. There are even Flat Earther Nazi rap songs. The Daily Stormer founder Andrew Anglin started a virtual civil war on the site when he mocked Flat earth beliefs."

https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...ns-recommendations.13479/page-69#post-2182420
 
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