If the Earth is not flat, then explain this photo of a lunar eclipse

Conspiracies are a highly lucrative business... and we are all vulnerable to being scammed. I have worked the Night Shift for 28 years and made it through the long 12 hour shifts for many years by listening to Art Bell's syndicated overnight call in radio show. It was highly entertaining and always good for many laughs. Art was a master at his ability to converse with all of the wackos awake very late at night. I would think many are familiar with Art Bell - but if not I would suggest a Google search and maybe some time listening to some audio archives. I remember an episode with a caller that had trapped a spirit with a Bug Zapper and kept it in a spare room in his house. Jesus would call on occasion and he had several regular guest experts in Ghosts, shadow people, psychics, fake moon landing, time travel, Illuminati, UFO's, military Black Opps, stealth Aircraft research, HARP, Roswell crash history, Area 51, and believe it or not it was Art Bell that first broke the Y2K story nation wide... I remember clearly the very first show in 1998 about Y2K and his "expert" explaining the end of civilization - as we know it - would happen at 12 midnight on New Years eve 1999. Art Bell even stayed live over the Internet for 24 hours starting on New Years Eve following the events as they occurred around the earth - it turned out to be quite boring. I remember the city of Anchorage and the state of Alaska along with most of the United States had prepared in advance along with the hospital where I worked with emergency resources and priorities in place "just in case" everything stopped working at midnight. I had to report for work on New Year's Day along with other hospital employees to reboot all computers and report any problems. I took out $200 cash from the bank as all ATMs were predicted to crash. I had extra canned foods stored along with survival crackers and my car had a full gas tank - "just in case" and many people were more prepared... I believe the whole country was scammed - and it is still going on - just look at our political situation - I think many smart people learned much from what Art Bell promoted in the form of entertainment. Art Bell was a masterful modern day P.T. Barnum - and it is true... "A sucker is born every minute."

Was watching something a few mnths ago and they reckon it was more of a being a member of a group thing more thqn the belief. Lonely people looking for other people to bond with the "beliefs" are just something to talk about ......pretty much like this website .

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FLAT EARTH CARTOONS AND COMICS

There are over 7 billion homo-sapien brains on this planet and no two are wired exactly the same so it is to be expected that there will be a wide range of thoughts, beliefs, ideas, realities, cultures, customs, etc. Liberals don't understand conservative thinking, conservatives don't understand liberal thinking, a-theists don't understand theist thinking and theists don't understand a-theist thinking as two examples.

In part its a religious argument. Many flat earthers claim Satan tries to deceive us by tricking people into not trusting their own senses. "We can see the earth is flat, it's Satan that tries to convince us it's round so we won't believe in the truth God gave us." These fundies also claim the earth go be 4000 yrs old and that Satan is trying to deceive us into believing it to be older and believing in evolution. Basically Satan is science. Which works actually since Satan is the one who got eve to eat from the tree of knowledge in the myth of the original sin. Their book says Satan is the deceiver, but what if the book was written by the deciples of the deceiver? If the deceiver told the story wouldn't he cast himself as the victor? Wouldn't he claim to be the truth, the one to thank for creation, the one we owe?

Young Earth Creationism is another one to add to the list. A surprisingly recent phenomenon, apparently.

I suspect a big part of the appeal of Flat Earth belief is that it 'proves' the existence of God on the basis that something that convoluted could only exist through intelligent design. If you accept that gravity is real (and that everything produces it, in proportion to its mass) then a lot of arguments for intelligent design go out of the window. Roughly spherical planets can simply form over time when matter in space gravitates together to form large masses. No gods required.

Just how many people are in on the conspiracy now? Sailors and scholars, back in the day. But now anyone who flies long haul aircraft or works with satellite technology (broadcasting or GPS) must be part of the cover-up, too. Surely someone would have blown the lid off it by now.

Oh, and "Australia doesn't exist, but South America does." I'm still trying to get my head around that one.

For years I thought flat earthers were just spoofs, kind of like The Liers club. I didn't really think people could be that stupid. But then you look at the number of Mormons, Scientologists and all the rest of the folks following superstitions.

I would strongly suggest you stop paying attention to assholes. If more of us did that, they would likely get less media attention & blow away. (Do you hear that, Donald Trump)

Their are still people that believe that the holocaust never happened either

I have only met one person who was a flat earther (he no longer is ), and according to him, the reason he believed it was because he just couldn't think of a single reason that any of it was wrong, so after being hounded with all of their bad logic and false proofs, he concluded that it must be correct.

Although this speaks nothing of the type of people who come up with this kind of stuff and spread it around, it goes to show that information, especially the interpersonal type, can sometimes be relative. Those who have little or no critical thinking skills due to a lack of development or necessity are prone to believing whatever other people say even when it is absolutely ridiculous. They aren't insane, they just prefer to import information.

Loved this video and his snark...excellent and simple

My bet is that the church has a LOT to do with it . . . . they want to discredit science, and they do not care if that means lying, because the alternative is that they will eventually have to stop being the parasites that they are when people stop giving them their tax-free dollars.

Here on earth, we do not have the technology, the ability, to send a human into Fukushima, or into Chernobyl. We cannot physically send a human being into either one of those locations in any way shape or form, without them dying shortly thereafter.
The Van Allen radiation belts that surround our planet have just as much radiation and more, and more types, then they radiation inside of Fukushima or Chernobyl.
So therefore, it is absolutely positively impossible that we sent anybody to the Moon.
Learn, apply logic and reason, and examine the results.

A lot of the deniers are just looking for attention.

Exactly. its as though the more information is freely available the more people bury themselves in myths and conspiracy theories.

There are certainly insane people among us who think this, but I think that the overwhelming majority of them do it as a tongue-in-cheek trolling of society. They simply enjoy throwing the shit out there just to watch the scientifically minded people who value the truth get angry about it. I have met a surprising amount of immature people who get their kicks getting other people annoyed or upset.

I think that a lot of flat earthers are simply indulging in an elaborate joke, some may be serious but not all.

Here is quite a good overview of the history, if you forgive the annoying add at the start.

Have you watched the Netflix documentary "Behind the Curve"? It gives a good (implicit) explanation for why all these things persist. Part of me empathizes with people who have these "wacky beliefs".

I get the frustration with the conspiracy theorists. I’m starting to think however that we are missing something about the flat earthers. The things they say are just so incredibly stupid I am now leaning towards believing we are being plunked in a way. Once in awhile you’ll catch them saying “see for yourself” or some such recommendation to not just believe what you’re told. Maybe it’s an elaborate ploy to get people to look into science and engage in critical thinking. Because if you do look for self it’s easy to see the world is a sphere.

I watched the whole video and I am sorry to see that all the scientific books I have, over two hundred on various topics, are lying to me. Such a waste of money and all I had to do was watch one video. Every one knows there is no such thing as Gravity, the Earth sucks. Thoughts?

I wonder if there was a similar wave of voluntary ignorance when the printing press came into common use.

And: deniers that "men are not women just by claiming they are."

The science imbeciliacs are not confined to any group.

I had never understood or believed in a flat earth. People who have to lie to "prove" something are insecure about what they believe. Often making wild reasons that NASA is hiding the "truth" is hilarious.