Is the Earth flat?

[Bromley boy]

You may have seen This Morning yesterday, when Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield had three people in the studio who believe that the Earth is flat:
http://www.itv.com/thismorning/hot-topics/could-the-earth-be-flat

My personal opinion is that this is utter balderdash for numerous reasons, but I'd be interested to know if anyone agrees with these guys?

I tend to think the rise of this kind of nonsense can be blamed on the demise of religion in some parts of our secular society. People still want something to believe in.

The issue I have with it is that “believing” something that is demonstrably factually incorrect isn’t so much taking a leap of faith as telling an outright lie.

Contrasting it with religion, where the existence or otherwise of any particular god cannot be disproved, it has been proved beyond any doubt that the earth is not flat. Anyone saying it is is therefore either delusional or lying.

I also find it rather sinister as it’s from the same stable as other mad conspiracy theories including holocaust denial.

Above all I find discussion of “flat earth” to be incredibly boring. There are plenty of
real issues to worry about in life without making more up!

 

[BlueFox]

I tend to think the rise of this kind of nonsense can be blamed on the demise of religion in some parts of our secular society. People seem to want to have something to believe in.

The bible says the earth is flat.

So maybe people believe in nonsense like this because of religion.

 

[Bromley boy]

The bible says the earth is flat.

So maybe people believe in nonsense like this because of religion.

Well flat earthers don’t tend to be Christians so they aren’t getting it from that religion.

You’ll also find most modern, educated Christians no longer believe in the literal world of the bible.

I’d put creationist Christians in the same bracket as flat earthers.

 

[BlueFox]

I’d put creationist Christians in the same bracket as flat earthers.

I'd put religious people in the same bracket as people who believe in astrology, homeopathy, water divining, "alien" crop circles, ghosts, and that the earth is flat. There's no reliable evidence that any of it is true, but plenty of evidence that it's not.

 

[edwin_m]

Actually there is no evidence one way or the other about whether religion is true, unless you could the Babel Fish.

 

[The_Engineer]

The bible says the earth is flat.

Where?

 

[Lucan]

The bible says the earth is flat.

Book, chapter and verse please ?

 

[BlueFox]

Where?

There's not a verse that says "the earth is flat", but plenty of passages that would only work with a flat earth. For example there's one that says you can see the whole world from the top of a high mountain.

 

[BlueFox]

Book, chapter and verse please ?

Luke 4:5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

 

[LOL The Irony]

Flat earthers believe Australia is a hoax used to cover up mass murder of the prisoners sent there and Aussies are paid actors.

 

[LOL The Irony]

There's not a verse that says "the earth is flat", but plenty of passages that would only work with a flat earth. For example there's one that says you can see the whole world from the top of a high mountain.

That high mountain could be the pearly gates. The Devil was banished from heaven and you're not in it until you pass through them and the pearly gates are high enough to see the whole world.

 

[The_Engineer]

There's not a verse that says "the earth is flat", but plenty of passages that would only work with a flat earth. For example there's one that says you can see the whole world from the top of a high mountain.

Well, the bible was written by people who lived in an age where the overwhelming world view WAS that the earth was flat! So it does not surprise me that's reflected in their writings. So, unless you believe that the bible is literally true word for word (fundamental Christian view), it proves nothing.

The minority view of a spherical earth was mostly thought laughable at the time, much to the chagrin of Greek scholars who not only believed it was roughly spherical but accurately calculated it's diameter. It just shows the passage of time, and changing knowledge, can make once what was widely believed laughable, and what was once laughable widely believed.

I don't want to make fun of anyone's beliefs; they are welcome to them so long as they cause no harm to others. It does amuse me that people of no faith can resort to the bible to prove their point. "Faith" by the way is defined as being certain of something that cannot be seen (i.e. proven), so flat earthers must have a tremendous amount of faith in the face of overwhelming evidence against their beliefs.

 

[BlueFox]

It does amuse me that people of no faith can resort to the bible to prove their point.

I use the bible to prove that people who believe in the bible believe in nonsense. I'm not sure how that's amusing.


I think it's perfectly fine to make fun of people who believe in nonsense. The flat earthers who have appeared on TV should have been shown up to be the idiots they are. I don't know if they were, I didn't see it, but I see no point having them on TV if you're not going to make fun of them.

 

[The_Engineer]

I use the bible to prove that people who believe in the bible believe in nonsense. I'm not sure how that's amusing.

Hmm, perhaps more ironic that amusing. But that's just my warped sense of humour I suppose..... If some people take the bible literally, let them have their "faith". Same for flat earthers.

I may be old fashioned but "live and let live" (with my earlier provisos); disagree with them but don't ridicule. It's unkind.

EDIT: I think you may think I was pointing my amusement at you. My apologies if you thought that. It was the situation. I respect your views, but may not agree.

 

[Busaholic]

I went to the Scilly Isles with my parents when I was a kid.
My mum was so seasick on the boat on the way over that she spent the first day of our holiday in bed with the room swaying from side to side.
Anyway. There was definitely more world beyond the main island although it was mainly blue and wet...
Don’t know if this helps with the evidence for this thread?

You've been on the flat-bottomed Scillonian then, this being the main public transport to the Isles. They say it has to be flat-bottomed, for reasons I can't remember, maybe to match the earth?!

 

[BlueFox]

disagree with them but don't ridicule. It's unkind.

The problem I have is that by tolerating people believing in nonsense, we're harming society.

People have resorted to prayer instead of proper medicine, leading to death from treatable diseases.
People have denied medical treatment to their children, because their special book of nonsense says god doesn't allow blood transfusions.
People have believed fake news about MMR vaccines, not had their children vaccinated (or used homeopathy instead), which has led to outbreaks of measles and mumps.

 

[The Ham]

Luke 4:5 The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.
Matthew 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

I could, from my front room, show you all the kingdoms of the world. That doesn't mean that you can actually see from my front room to all those places.

Just because I use images stored in a medium that wasn't available at that time doesn't mean that a similar method was being employed. It neither proves or disproves that the earth is flat or not.

Having done some research so as to understand what is believed by flat earthers they do have some crazy ideas but the following covers some of the basics.

The world is a disk with the North pole at the centre and the edge being a wall of ice where Antarctica is (so the cats can't push things of the edge because it'll be too cold for then). The problem with this is that places in south of the equator are much further apart, yet the time taken to travel between two places at a similar distance from the equator (regardless of direction of travel) takes the save amount of time. If the world was flat this would be very different, especially somewhere a significant distance from the equator.

Sun rises/sun sets are due to the sun (which is overhead going around in circles) not being able to penetrate the earth's atmosphere beyond a certain depth. As such if the sun is too far away from you the rays get blocked and so it is dark. However when they start to explain the seasons (the sun moves North/South relative to the equator) they fail to explain how we can have shorter days in the winter North of the equator when the sun would have to move faster to even maintain the same length day yet days don't change in length at all at the equator.

 

[Bald Rick]

Like many others on the forum, I’ve been all the way round. The moon was practically upside down in New Zealand. Good enough evidence for me.

 

[The Ham]

The problem I have is that by tolerating people believing in nonsense, we're harming society.

People have resorted to prayer instead of proper medicine, leading to death from treatable diseases.
People have denied medical treatment to their children, because their special book of nonsense says god doesn't allow blood transfusions.
People have believed fake news about MMR vaccines, not had their children vaccinated (or used homeopathy instead), which has led to outbreaks of measles and mumps.

I would agree that the above are things that are bad, but I would also suggest that there's a lot of good done by people of faith. For instance how many of the DEC charities were started by people who had a strong faith. With several retaining religious titles and/or associations. I would also suggest that there's a lot of bad things done by those who are non religious who may have done some equally crazy things down to what they believe.

I would also suggest that (for example MMR) some on that list aren't necessarily linked to religion. In fact most aid organisations would probably not worry about the (miss-)cited impact of Autism when they are more concerned about saving lives of children who could die from the illnesses that they could get if not immunised.

The question of blood transfusions is only a problem for Jehovah's Witnesses (unless there's others that I'm not aware of), who are quite a small minority of those who would be linked with Christianity (which world wide is circa 2.4 billon people who are members of a Christian group, i.e. excluding those who just say that they are Christian) let alone all those with a faith (basically everyone on the planet exert the circa 850 million who are non-religious).

 

[BlueFox]

I would also suggest that (for example MMR) some on that list aren't necessarily linked to religion.

I didn't say they were. I think all belief in nonsense is bad, whether it's the flat earth idiots, religion, astrology, homeopathy or whatever. People need to be able to think rationally and base decisions on evidence if we're to progress as a society. The recent trend is the opposite of that, with a backlash against experts like economists, climate scientists, doctors etc.

 

[Bromley boy]

I'd put religious people in the same bracket as people who believe in astrology, homeopathy, water divining, "alien" crop circles, ghosts, and that the earth is flat. There's no reliable evidence that any of it is true, but plenty of evidence that it's not.

I don’t know enough about those different viewpoints to comment on them individually, other than flat ethers, upon whom I most certainly will comment.

I’m not overly religious myself but I do know enough to say that I wouldn’t equate considered, intelligent religious faith with idiots pedalling scientifically disprovable lies as fact.

I use the bible to prove that people who believe in the bible believe in nonsense. I'm not sure how that's amusing.


I think it's perfectly fine to make fun of people who believe in nonsense. The flat earthers who have appeared on TV should have been shown up to be the idiots they are. I don't know if they were, I didn't see it, but I see no point having them on TV if you're not going to make fun of them.

There are many extremely well educated, highly intelligent (think Oxbridge, Ph.D level) Priests, Imans, Rabbis etc. who would disagree with you. They aren’t exactly idiots!

They are very different to flat earthers who tend to be idiots/nutters/rappers/attention seekers (delete as appropriate)!

Please don’t conflate flat-erthism with religion. Feel free to conflate it with idiocy!

 

[Bromley boy]

The recent trend is the opposite of that, with a backlash against experts like economists, climate scientists, doctors etc.

I 100% agree with you there!

Sadly we now live in a post-factual world, where the politics of victimhood apparently count for more than scientific reality.

 

[The Ham]

I didn't say they were. I think all belief in nonsense is bad, whether it's the flat earth idiots, religion, astrology, homeopathy or whatever. People need to be able to think rationally and base decisions on evidence if we're to progress as a society. The recent trend is the opposite of that, with a backlash against experts like economists, climate scientists, doctors etc.

People need to think rationally, so let's follow through this example.

There is only one thing that happens to people when they die (unless you subscribe to the diskworld view of death coming along and letting you have the afterlife that you want). Depending on what people believe there's a finite number of answers:
- you ceases to exist and there's nothing
- you become something else living
- you go somewhere else (i.e. heaven)

Am I being rational so far, do let me know at what point I'm not.

What does science say happens, preferably citing papers?

However for now, I'll assume that science can't give you that answer as aug there's been some research into near death experience this is fairly inconclusive (mostly due to the shall sample size) and certainly doesn't go much beyond that.

As such we are left with what happens after death being down to a matter of faith (regardless of if you think all faith is nonsense or not).

If you believe that you cease to exist that's fine but what happens if you are wrong? Either you come back as something else living (no problems with that) or you go somewhere else. Given that most religions that have that in their belief system have a good/bad split on where you go you could be in for a nasty surprise.

If you believe that you come back as something else living then again if you don't and you ceases to exist then there's no problem. However again you may be in for a shock if there's an after life.

If however you believe that there's an afterlife and you are wrong and you cease to exist or come back as something else living then you're no worse off.

As such if you are being rational then the best belief to have on after death is to have one that believes in one that has an after life. Which probably means having to subscribe to some form of religion.

Probably the best one is the one that claims that it's founder had come back from the dead (assuming that you can be certain that this happened). The only one that I'm aware of is Christianity and so I would suggest rationally investigating if the claim that Jesus came back from the dead is true or not.

However, you may have to be mindful that; ".. that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

As a starting point you probably need to evaluate if Jesus existed, a good starting point could well be this article (written by a professor at Cambridge University):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...cal-evidence-that-jesus-christ-lived-and-died

If you can, rationally explain away the death and resurrection of Jesus then I'm sure you could get a very good book deal given that there's at least two books written by people wanting to explain it away which came to the conclusion that it did happen (you would probably have to respond to the points raised in those books).

Those two books can be found here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Moved-...525499923&sr=1-1&keywords=who+moved+the+stone

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation/dp/0310209307

 

[AlterEgo]

I didn't say they were. I think all belief in nonsense is bad, whether it's the flat earth idiots, religion, astrology, homeopathy or whatever. People need to be able to think rationally and base decisions on evidence if we're to progress as a society. The recent trend is the opposite of that, with a backlash against experts like economists, climate scientists, doctors etc.

One of the issues is that, in almost every way, people today have been made promises by educators the world can’t keep. The general feeling I got from my (very good, selective grammar school) education was that there was no problem human ingenuity couldn’t solve.

People are also taught that it’s okay to think what you like, even if it’s a load of bull. Nearly all conspiracy theorists are very dull people with a blunt intellect, who love to believe in conspiracies simply because they think it makes them more intelligent than the people they think are perpetrating the imagined conspiracy.

A further issue is the increasing liberal bias in academia which is only making the distance between the ordinary person and an “expert” more intractable.

 

[birchesgreen]

The thing about conspiracy theories is that it is very easy to get drawn by them if you keep reading about them, it all "makes sense"... basically because of selective use of facts and out of context reasoning. In my youth i read a book which claimed the Bible contained explicit evidence of alien visitation but it had been suppressed by "Them". Page after page it quoted Biblical verses and it all seemed so plausible. But the verses had been selectively edited and taken out of context, if you read them normally then it didn't prove any conspiracy at all.

Conspiracy theories were once harmless but that kind of thinking seems to have entered the mainstream now and its becoming a danger to us all.

 

[The Ham]

I didn't say they were. I think all belief in nonsense is bad, whether it's the flat earth idiots, religion, astrology, homeopathy or whatever. People need to be able to think rationally and base decisions on evidence if we're to progress as a society. The recent trend is the opposite of that, with a backlash against experts like economists, climate scientists, doctors etc.

One of the issues is that, in almost every way, people today have been made promises by educators the world can’t keep. The general feeling I got from my (very good, selective grammar school) education was that there was no problem human ingenuity couldn’t solve.

People are also taught that it’s okay to think what you like, even if it’s a load of bull. Nearly all conspiracy theorists are very dull people with a blunt intellect, who love to believe in conspiracies simply because they think it makes them more intelligent than the people they think are perpetrating the imagined conspiracy.

A further issue is the increasing liberal bias in academia which is only making the distance between the ordinary person and an “expert” more intractable.

Quite, however it's nothing new, there's a long history of people with "secret knowledge" peddling their beliefs.

 

[Lucan]

The thing about conspiracy theories is that it is very easy to get drawn by them if you keep reading about them, it all "makes sense"... .... In my youth i read a book which claimed the Bible contained explicit evidence of alien visitation but it had been suppressed by "Them".

Sounds like Erich von Daniken's "Chariots of the Gods" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_the_Gods%3F . I've read it; among other things he believes that the Ark of the Covenant was a radio given to Moses by aliens to send him advice and commands.

I am agnostic and scientifically minded, and one aspect of the scientific mind is that it should be an open one and not form firm opinions about things that cannot be proved or disproved by experiment. God's existence (or that of any other gods of the biblical type, rather than of the shoulder-rubbing Greek style for example) can be neither proved or disproved in the scientific way. Certainly the God as styled by some religious sects can be dismissed as nonsense, because people have their own agendas and claim God is on their side, and shape Him accordingly.

There are many things beyond science, either for now or for always. For example science cannot at present explain time, despite the fact we take it for granted (a layman would ask why it even needs to be explained) and can use it in technical calculations like dynamics; we don't know how time came to be manufactured, along with matter, by the Big Bang and whether it existed before then. The explanation of how the four fundamental forces* of nature relate to each other, and to time, is still awaited (currently referred to a bit jokingly as "The Theory of Everything"); Stephen Hawking spent a lot of time trying to derive it and concluded that it could not be done - ie no matter how much we understood each of those entities individually, we could not link them all to each other https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_everything.

We are like toddlers born and brought up in a windowless room with plenty of bricks and sand to play with. We are bright kids and get to know a great deal about the geometry of bricks and the properties of sand, but we have no idea where they came from or what is outside the room.

* Gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong atomic forces.

 

[fowler9]

People of faith who have a religion I have no problem with as long as they cause no harm, in fact I am jealous of them, I wish I had their faith. Flat earthers are just nut job conspiracy theorists who should be laughed at though.

 

[Joseph_Locke]

Like many others on the forum, I’ve been all the way round. The moon was practically upside down in New Zealand. Good enough evidence for me.

I can add that as one who deals with surveys of very long projects, "down" is not parallel at all points but all the "downs" intersect.

 

[Class465fan]

The earth is a cube