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Reporter Shares Experience of Visiting a Flat Earth Convention (vice.com)
Tom Usher, reporting for Vice: I arrived at the venue -- a Jurys Inn hotel -- on a wet Saturday morning, to discover that the event was essentially a small carpeted convention room boasting a few cameras, some stalls selling merchandise, and 70 or so attendees watching PowerPoint presentations beamed onto a wall. As I entered, I was offered a gift of "fluoride-free" toothpaste. This made perfect sense, given the location. A popular conspiracy theory states that governments across the world have been putting fluoride in our water supply to tranquilize the masses, despite the fact the only piece of "evidence" for this theory -- which involves both the Nazis and the Communists -- has been widely discredited. With the tone set for the day, I sat down to watch some speeches.
The speakers all seemed well aware of how "globe-earthers" view the idea of a flat Earth, i.e. ludicrous, and their talk of the current scientific establishment felt very "us versus them" -- a nice bit of truther tribalism. One speaker talked at length about the moon, and how its orbit proved the Earth couldn't be spherical, which seemed a little counterintuitive. Another talked about how the Egyptian pyramid structure points toward clues that the Earth is a flat diamond shape, supported by pillars. Between sounding off about the Vatican and the fact that the establishment has indoctrinated us to believe all sorts of things, including that the Earth is a sphere, a third speaker suggested that cancer is caused by negative emotions and argued that dinosaurs didn't exist. The story also explores why some people still believe these long-debunked theories. Further reading: The bizarre tale of the flat-Earth convention that fell apart (CNET).
The speakers all seemed well aware of how "globe-earthers" view the idea of a flat Earth, i.e. ludicrous, and their talk of the current scientific establishment felt very "us versus them" -- a nice bit of truther tribalism. One speaker talked at length about the moon, and how its orbit proved the Earth couldn't be spherical, which seemed a little counterintuitive. Another talked about how the Egyptian pyramid structure points toward clues that the Earth is a flat diamond shape, supported by pillars. Between sounding off about the Vatican and the fact that the establishment has indoctrinated us to believe all sorts of things, including that the Earth is a sphere, a third speaker suggested that cancer is caused by negative emotions and argued that dinosaurs didn't exist. The story also explores why some people still believe these long-debunked theories. Further reading: The bizarre tale of the flat-Earth convention that fell apart (CNET).
Just like religions.
It's bizarre, isn't it?
Oh surely not! If they can't accept the 'secondhand' proof available from 60 years of space and near-space exploration, then how could they accept religious concepts without a personal experience of having actually seen and dealt with a supreme being?
It does beg the question of how they could believe in bacteria or atoms or the Marianas Trench since they haven't personally seen them either...
Granted the above, per Aristotle, you can show "the existence of the unmoved mover of the universe, a supra-physical entity, without which the physical domain could not remain in existence" (Physics, Bk. VIII) from first principles:
* http://tofspot.blogspot.ca/2014/07/first-way-some-background.html
Asking for physical proof of God's existence is like asking Bilbo Baggins to prove the existence of Tolkien.
Back when Galileo was talking about "orbits" and such, I'm sure he had the same pushback -- "you IDIOT, how stupid ARE you?". Enough so that the church kept him under house arrest until his death.
My point isn't that they're right, but they have an idea. Just like WE have an idea about spherical planets. So just like MOND vs dark matter, there's a debate (at least on their side.)
FINE. That's fine. *I* think the world is literally a cube from Superman's Bizarro World. So let's ALL make some predictions and observations and see what works. If you don't like an observation, fine, explain how it's wrong or produce a repeatable different one. But the more things a theory explains the "better" it is, right?
Spontaneous generation might still be proven right, but you'd better have everything absolutely perfect and repeatable to be accepted. I want the galaxies closer together -- AND a pony -- but wishing doesn't make it so. (So I guess I'll have to use astral projection to visit them instead of in person -- have to get the help of "expert" Shirley MaClaine for that one. Anyone have her phone number, or is she Out of Office / Body for awhile?)
Or is Flat Earth an unsupported belief AKA religion? "I don't care what you say, I know what's right." What, are they going to take their ball with an ant on top and go home?
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Don't know what you are talking about. Christians did wholesale mass-murder in the crusades, for example, in pretty much the mode you describe. There is no larger religion that has not done atrocities and justified them afterwards.
Totes adorbs, TODAY'S Islam:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_mutilation
You need to grow a brain.
FGM isn't a problem with Islam, it's a problem with a specific region of Africa. It's true there's a fairly high correlation between Muslim Africa and FGM Africa, but it's not perfect. In Nigeria it's actually the Christians, not the Muslims, who are the problem.
That's really the problem when trying to generalize religions, even among people who claim the same label you find a whole bunch of different groups with wildly different beliefs, especially with things like religion where there's not a lot of evidence to rally people around certain foundations.
That's also the reason things like Flat Earth Conventions end up so chaotic, when you're so detached from reality that you're a Flat Earther it's almost random the collection of beliefs that you end up grabbing. Gather a bunch together in one place you're bound to get some equally wild ideas on other subjects that aren't shared by all present, in-fighting is almost inevitable.
I stole this Sig
According to Wikipedia the current wave of violence started with anti-Muslim riots in 2012 triggered by the gang rape of a Buddhist woman, despite a medical examiner saying she wasn't raped, and at least one of the alleged rapists being Buddhist.
This doesn't seem to be consistent with your claims that "they started it".