Is Flat-Earthism any Wackier than Other Flavors of Religious Woo?

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If you go to youtube and search for "Is Flat Earth a Religion" you'll get plenty of results. And if you listen to the believers in flat-earthism they sound as sincere and convinced as any other religion. At first one is tempted to dismiss them as attention whores or kooks, and not religious adherents, but why do we do that?

I'm most familiar with the catholic version of christian insanity so I know all the claims, and of course they're no less outrageous, unscientific or kooky than flat-earth claims. People turn food into a 2000 year old dead man that came back to life and levitated into the sky. Is that acceptable simply because it contains claims about gods? Does that somehow bestow a rational imprimatur?

Is it possible that flat earth eaters are no different than your standard catholic? Do they just not presently have the mature institution, are they still in the upstart cult mode, and is this likely to change?

Perhaps we see flat-earthers as making scientific claims that are just wrong. If so, why would we not see standard religious claims in the same light? Do people really levitate into the sky after they've come back to life and walked through a few walls? Do flat-earthers just need a few good stories, a few flat earth scriptures like Joseph Smith used and early christians used? Will that give their claims legitimacy and recognition? Will flat-earthism be an accepted faith in future centuries? I can't think of any good reasons why it shouldn't be.

My personal take is that there isn't any difference in claiming the earth is flat or claiming that a man levitated into the sky. They're the same thing. And I think the same thing is happening in both sets of brains to enable the claims. What exactly is happening I do not know, but it's your standard human woo in both cases. It seems to be very tied to emotional gratification and not rational, scientific observation. The brain seems a little bit blind to itself.

I used to think flat-earthers were a special breed of kook but not anymore. I see them as another flavor of your standard religious stuff.

 

[Torin]

Given the current culture, there's likely to be a major difference between the psychology of a typical Catholic and the psychology of a typical flat earther. A Catholic, typically, is simply intellectually passive - he or she was probably taught to believe in Catholicism and just never questioned it. A typical flat earther, by contrast, would have to deliberately choose to believe nonsense in a world where practically everyone emphatically disagrees with him, including the highest scientific authorities.

 

[Learner]

Will flat-earthism be an accepted faith in future centuries? I can't think of any good reasons why it shouldn't be.


I used to think flat-earthers were a special breed of kook but not anymore. I see them as another flavor of your standard religious stuff.

Before it becomes this "religion" as you put it above, this can be solved .....

Why not have one or two at a time go on-board a space flight/ mission (after a bit of preparation and training of course) so when they come back, it can be put to bed?

 

[Torin]

Before it becomes this "religion" as you put it above, this can be solved .....

Why not have one or two at a time go on-board a space flight/ mission (after a bit of preparation and training of course) so when they come back, it can be put to bed?

In my opinion that would not settle the issue. Some flat earthers are trolls, and some are so heavily invested in the earth being flat that abandoning that position would cause them terrible embarrassment. Both of these groups would simply accuse the flat earthers who went on the space flight of being part of the "conspiracy." I don't think this would convince anyone who isn't convinced by the current (utterly overwhelming, mind you) evidence.

 

[Learner]

For the more well known of the F.E. individuals who make vids, this would be more convincing than the current imo, there'd be no excuses when seen with their own eyes and floating around minus gravity etc..etc. I'm sure the scientific community would be up for it to invite them and tell them, we told you so.

 

[Torin]

This would be more convincing than the current imo, there'd be no excuses when seen with their own eyes and floating around minus gravity etc..etc.

There are no excuses now.

They could always say there were fisheye lenses over the windows or something. They are nothing if not creative.

 

[Learner]

Well they may change their minds if they are at a particular distance where they'd see a little more of the globe, a side-view, like the equater for example, the fisheye lens wouldn't matter.

 

[DBT]

Flat Earth belief seems to be a special grade of wackiness, perhaps even Industrial Grade Wackiness.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Will flat-earthism be an accepted faith in future centuries? I can't think of any good reasons why it shouldn't be.


I used to think flat-earthers were a special breed of kook but not anymore. I see them as another flavor of your standard religious stuff.

Before it becomes this "religion" as you put it above, this can be solved .....

Why not have one or two at a time go on-board a space flight/ mission (after a bit of preparation and training of course) so when they come back, it can be put to bed?

So, rather than filter people thru the various pipelines that ensure the best of the best of the best get into orbit, we send the dumbest?
Which blocks one or two actual assets from going into orbit. Which delays their projects, and bumps everyone else's project back a launch or more.
And we spend the millions in order to convince one or two idiots, who will convince a few of their followers, but yhe rest will insist thery either sold out or were fooled?
Doesn't seem cost effective to legitimize the fringe. That would be a lot like flying birthers to Hawaii. Even if you convince that one, you're not going to convince many more.

 

[Keith&Co.]

For the more well known of the F.E. individuals who make vids, this would be more convincing than the current imo, there'd be no excuses when seen with their own eyes and floating around minus gravity etc..etc. I'm sure the scientific community would be up for it to invite them and tell them, we told you so.

"How do I KNOW i'm really 400 miles up? How do i KNOW this is the actual view thru the window, not a tv screen?"
If thgey are invested in the conspiracy, they will resist any effort to say, Look! Duh!

 

[Rhea]

For the more well known of the F.E. individuals who make vids, this would be more convincing than the current imo, there'd be no excuses when seen with their own eyes and floating around minus gravity etc..etc. I'm sure the scientific community would be up for it to invite them and tell them, we told you so.

"How do I KNOW i'm really 400 miles up? How do i KNOW this is the actual view thru the window, not a tv screen?"
If thgey are invested in the conspiracy, they will resist any effort to say, Look! Duh!

^^^This.

Learner, you actually think a space flight would be convincing to them when a lunar eclipse isn’t?
You think they’d believe each other over their personal beliefs?

 

[steve_bank]

In the 80s it was Pyramid Power. People bought pyramid frames to sleep under. Claims were made fruit did not decay as fast under a pyramid. Before that there were Orgone Energy Machines that extracted energy from the at sphere and transferred it t to you increasing sexual potency.

I am sure it goes all the way back in history when a PT Barnum ancestors figured out how to make money selling illusions.

Wanna buy some magic beans?

Religion incorporates moral codes and codes of behavior.

Pseudo-science does not.

 

[abaddon]

I get my info from this interesting article:

https://www.livescience.com/24310-flat-earth-belief.html

It seems some believe that their first-person observations matter most: A rapper who says he can't see the curvature of the earth so there is none. A basketball player who says "No matter how high in elevation you are the horizon is always eye level". A Youtuber who can't see the bubble move in a level while he's on a cross-country flight.

They're referencing a "Zetetic Method" where "sensory observations reign supreme".

The Live Science article comments:

In Zetetic astronomy, the perception that Earth is flat leads to the deduction that it must actually be flat; the antimoon, NASA conspiracy and all the rest of it are just rationalizations for how that might work in practice.

The Flat Earth Society's vice-president Michael Wilmore says he thinks some members use flat earth "theory" as "a kind of 'solipsism for beginners.' There are also probably some who thought the certificate [of membership to FES] would be kind of funny to have on their wall." But he feels sure most are "fully convinced of their belief". And he is among those that are. He says: ""My own convictions are a result of philosophical introspection and a considerable body of data that I have personally observed, and which I am still compiling."

Weirdly most of them accept other science - evolution, climate change, et al. The article quotes Eric Oliver: "If they were like other conspiracy theorists, they should be exhibiting a tendency toward a lot of magical thinking, such as believing in UFOs, ESP, ghosts, the Devil, or other unseen, intentional forces," Oliver wrote in an email. "It doesn't sound like they do, which makes them very anomalous relative to most Americans who believe in conspiracy theories."

Oliver co-authored with another political scientist a study of conspiracy theories https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ajps.12084. The abstract of that study says: "the likelihood of supporting conspiracy theories is strongly predicted by a willingness to believe in other unseen, intentional forces and an attraction to Manichean narratives."

So, what I'm getting from this, is it's persons who see light versus dark forces at work in the world, and become committed to feeling different from the masses for having a special illumination. Somehow they penetrated an illusion in 'the matrix' (my allusion to "Manichean narratives"), and the rest of us are sleep-walkers believing the authorities all too blindly. That's as close to a WHY? that I've gathered.

But, from what I'm seeing so far, I'm siding more with the notion they've got a screwball epistemology than that they're devout religious adherents. It's not magical thinking. They're not accepting a divine revelation told by an authoritative figure or text as their epistemic method. They're not worshiping anything.

Wacky? Yes, extremely. But why blur the distinctions, to fit the various shapes of wackiness into one category: religion? I'd rather note the differences so things don't turn into a false black and white picture of science as "truth" and all non-science as 'woo" (which strikes me as a bit "Manichean" itself).

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

But, from what I'm seeing so far, I'm siding more with the notion they've got a screwball epistemology than that they're devout religious adherents. It's not magical thinking. They're not accepting a divine revelation told by an authoritative figure or text as their epistemic method. They're not worshiping anything.

That's because it's so new, not because it's somehow distinct from standard religious woo. I could easily ask, "what do you mean by "flat?"" I look off my back porch and there's at least 500 feet of relief in the topography. It clearly isn't flat, and it clearly isn't smooth, so how do I know it is flat everywhere when it isn't smooth? Is that dogma? So now we discuss this point and we have two different sects of flat-earthers. And that's just the beginning of epistemological differences. Religion has never been and intellectual pursuit, it's always been emotional. There's an invisible "anti-moon" to explain eclipses FFS! We're not dealing with rational brains here.

Those details make the flat-earthers' theory so elaborately absurd it sounds like a joke, but many of its supporters genuinely consider it a more plausible model of astronomy than the one found in textbooks. In short, they aren't kidding. [50 Amazing Facts About Planet Earth]

I would predict that in a couple centuries the flat earth religion will still be gaining momentum.

 

[Learner]

For the more well known of the F.E. individuals who make vids, this would be more convincing than the current imo, there'd be no excuses when seen with their own eyes and floating around minus gravity etc..etc. I'm sure the scientific community would be up for it to invite them and tell them, we told you so.

"How do I KNOW i'm really 400 miles up? How do i KNOW this is the actual view thru the window, not a tv screen?"
If thgey are invested in the conspiracy, they will resist any effort to say, Look! Duh!

^^^This.

Learner, you actually think a space flight would be convincing to them when a lunar eclipse isn’t?
You think they’d believe each other over their personal beliefs?

There maybe some but not all (a growing number apparently) those I mean are the ones who just want to know the truth or satisfy an utmost curiosity. Not all of them are religious don't you know?.

Besides (to both posters) ... perhaps floating about weightless (for a lot longer time than an aircraft free-fall) although one could say they have these great big anti-gravity chambers, or maybe taking a little walk outside the space craft for example.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Besides (to both posters) ... perhaps floating about weightless (for a lot longer time than an aircraft free-fall) although one could say they have these great big anti-gravity chambers, or maybe taking a little walk outside the space craft for example.

Or, maybe the people who say that there is a limit to airplane micro-G travel are just lying to us?
These people are more dedicated to their narrative than Trekkies. And we Trekkies can jimmy up an apology for justifying anything to fit into the holy story line. And we know it's fiction, and our souls are not in jeopardy for taking one side or the other.

....except, maybe, for the Klingon-kin. They are fairly serious about achieving Stoh-Vo-Kor....


Anyway, any evidence for the oblate-spheroid-Earth will be rejected, first, then explained away when they have a chance to think about it...just like any creationist given solid evidence for evolution.
If all else fails, invoke a conspiracy to commit fraud on honest researchers.
There is no piece of evidence that cannot be isolated, examined outside of greater context, and turned into a mirage, myth, major conspiracy, or misapplication of REAL science.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There is no piece of evidence that cannot be isolated, examined outside of greater context, and turned into a mirage, myth, major conspiracy, or misapplication of REAL science.

I think we can call that the Religious Method, as compared to the Scientific Method. The Religious Method also likes to invent silly, unverifiable concepts to explain emotional attachments. Souls, anti-moons, succubi and gods all spring from the same process.

 

[Keith&Co.]

There is no piece of evidence that cannot be isolated, examined outside of greater context, and turned into a mirage, myth, major conspiracy, or misapplication of REAL science.

I think we can call that the Religious Method, as compared to the Scientific Method. The Religious Method also likes to invent silly, unverifiable concepts to explain emotional attachments. Souls, anti-moons, succubi and gods all spring from the same process.

I dunno if I would call it the Religious Method. That seems to suggest it's limited to religious issues.
But any approach where you start with the cherished conclusion and work through the evidence to decide what is or isn't acceptable, then invent shit to justify ignoring the troublesome evidence. It's pretty egregious in the religious views, especially creationism, but not religion alone.

I mean, Lumpenproletariat does it with religion AND economics...

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Given the current culture, there's likely to be a major difference between the psychology of a typical Catholic and the psychology of a typical flat earther. A Catholic, typically, is simply intellectually passive - he or she was probably taught to believe in Catholicism and just never questioned it. A typical flat earther, by contrast, would have to deliberately choose to believe nonsense in a world where practically everyone emphatically disagrees with him, including the highest scientific authorities.

You're right that there's a difference, I just don't think it's an important difference. It's a bit of an argument from popularity or convenience.

I think that if you asked 99% of catholics if they believe that a person rose from the dead after being entombed for three days, then performed scientifically impossible feats like walking through walls and levitating into the sky, they would go with their religion and not the science. They would tell you that food becomes their jesus in the flesh and blood. You would find that they deliberately choose to believe nonsense. That they haven't been confronted generally about their beliefs or went out of their way to find them really isn't important. Those religious beliefs are just as unscientific and impossible.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well they may change their minds if they are at a particular distance where they'd see a little more of the globe, a side-view, like the equater for example, the fisheye lens wouldn't matter.

The Greeks got the size of the spherical Earth down to a pretty impressive accuracy 2500 years ago using methods that didn't even require a balloon.

Personally, I have a hard time believing there is a flat earth movement and always viewed it like an Andy Kaufman faux movement.

The idea of a Flat Earth isn't quite up there with religion as it has been debunked for 2500 years. The claims within religion are a bit fanciful, but until the origin of the universe can be explained, I think there is always that much to be able to hang a hat on regarding creation. The remainder of religion however is silly, but survives via tradition and inertia. Flat Earth... is just stupid.