The world is flat

[BrightOranges]

I learnt today that there are 'flat earthers' who seriously believe the conspiracy theories of a flat planet rather than a spherical one.
AIBU to think you can't fix stupid? Or is that too harsh?

A little bit of me thinks sloths aren't real.

Well, there is nothing in the world at large that implies there must be such an animal as a sloth.

I mostly believe they (and other animals I have never seen) are real because no one would profit from spending the massive amount of money needed to keep their non-existence secret.

Same goes for Finland and Bielefeld (both also not real accoding to conspiracy theories, though at least the Bielefeld conspiracy believers have their tongues firmly in their cheeks.)

Hm, you know, someone could make a business out of offering holiday travels to unreal places. You'd be able to spend a week or two outside of reality! How cool is that?

I was at an agricultural show recently and there was a Christian something or other stand with boards that said 'carbon dating - less accurate than speed cameras' and various things about dinosaurs not being real and the earth being a few thousand years old.

At an agricultural show. An industry that relies on hybridisation - so evolution.

You're right - some stupid can't be fixed...

I'm loving the idea of Jassy turning to her kids and saying "Mummy can't hear you now darling, that's your imaginary half speaking, apparently Australia doesn't exist so I can't see or hear you right now"

Knew of someone in Uni that didn't believe in Narwhals, even when provided with videos and pictures. Just couldn't get their heard around the idea of a whale with a tusk. So YANDU you can't engage with crazy

I had a flatmate in 1983 who was a member of the flat earth society, this being one of her many beliefs. She also managed to get a job in a hospital as a staff nurse, with absolutely no training. She was eventually sectioned, poor thing.

They don't see the irony that they themselves are just blindly following blithering nonsense someone else's alternative views.

If my theory is correct, that flat-earthers are a particular type of troll that have been around since before the internet, then what they have to teach is that almost everything any of us knows is something we've unquestioningly imbibed from someone we trust.

I learnt that reality as I understand it was a cultural construct from reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance."

The views of some of the DUP are not far off the flat earthers and they will be sitting besides the Tories in government soon if Theresa May has her way. Creationists who believe dinosaurs and people walked the Earth together and that the world is 6000 years old for example. Not quite so funny....

""There are huge swathes of the US who believe that Darwin was a charlatan and that evolution never happened.""

Not just in the US.

I was dating what seemed like a rational, sane man, he was a Nurse, owned his own home, drove etc.

Went to his to have a drink on a Saturday night. He asked me what I'd been doing because I said I couldn't go at the time he suggested.

So I happened to just say that I always watched Doctor Who with my youngest DD.

This prompted a huge rant about how dare it be suggested that he's descended from a lesser creature, that there was a time when people wasn't on the Earth blah, blah, blah and the worse bit, that Dr. Who etc shouldn't be allowed on television. I swiftly left.

I gave him another chance to explain things and it turns out that there are weekly meetings of a whole load of people who share these views. There was enough of them in my home city (Liverpool) to fill a Church Hall every week and they are all 'Professionals' with degrees etc. I was still actively 'recruited' for weeks after we split up, by other members.

The Flat Earth Society website is great fun for a browse.

I read that they think when people go on a plane to Austrailia, the plane just flies for ages then actually lands somewhere in Africa instead and the just pretend it's Austrailia to fool the passengers.😀

They have sloths in Chester Zoo. Unless they are just ugly cats and I have been tricked.

I don't know, I have been in some towns (not just in America), where it would appear that evolution hasn't happened.

And they are fucking prawns imaginary or not, we don't eat shrimp.

But if they thought it was a conspiracy i wonder what they think would be the reason for it. What would conspiracists think could be gained by being told the earth isn't flat. Bonkers.

They have sloths in Chester Zoo. Unless they are just ugly cats and I have been tricked.

They may look completely different from cats, and also feel different to the touch from cats, and have a different lifespan from cats, and different mating behaviour from cats ... but deep down, in their minds and spirits, they are totally just ugly cats.

Same goes for all the animals native to Australia you have ever seen in zoos.

Sure, they may look different from anything you'd see in Africa, but actually, they are cats. Despite not looking and not sounding and not behaving like cats. Totally cats.

... joke aside, it'd be really interesting to look at the brains of flat earthers and other assorted believers in crazy nonsense in a brain scanner. What areas of brain are activated when they have to actively deny something they have seen with their own eyes to make their belief make sense.

I don't know, I have been in some towns (not just in America), where it would appear that evolution hasn't happened.

That's a mistaken belief. Evolution happens all the time.

Those towns just favour people with the traits you consider backwards, and are not frozen in time. Their inhabitants are likely to become more extreme in all the traits you now consider backwards as time progresses.

Perhaps some day, they will look like neanderthals. But that'll have happened via evolution.

Apparently flat earth theory has fans all over the globe :-)

I think the internet has made it worse as they can connect and encourage each other.

Plus, you only have to look at some of the crap that gets shared around facebook to see that some people will believe any old tosh.

If sloths are cats, thate explains the laying around in the sun for hours....makes total sense now!

But what about giant sloths?
Bears in costume??

In all seriousness though, it does worry me that supposedly "normal" well educated people believe in this shit.
And yeah, I'd love to see the thought process of someone attempting to deny evidence that's right in front of their eyes.

Maybe a flight where you fly right round the world and are forced to look out of the window the whole time??

Mind you, they'd find a way of denying it.

So where do they think the end of the world is have people just fallen off?

There must be someone along soon who believes it to be true.

Oh yes, the spirit level on a plane. So funny!

Someone said about having guards to stop people falling off the flat earth. That reminds me of Stardust. Do people remember that? They post guards at the gap of the wall in the village of, well, Wall, so people don't go to the Faerie side. Maybe that is exactly what is happening.

I wonder if the guards are unionised.

What's the spirit level on a plane? I would Google but I feel many of us need to see this 😂

Yes yes!
Spirit level on a plane!
Can't wait to see that piece of compelling evidence!

Was the person aware of how aviation works??

Have just found this thread.....
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/a1719381-Young-Earth-Creationists

It is both hilarious and worrying in equal measure!

one comment under the video was as follows:-
"The earth is an enclosed system. You do not have to believe it if you choose not to. But I choose to believe what the Bible tells me. The earth is a plane with upturned edges (antarctica) and an expanse (like a tent) is above. These are my beliefs. Take it or leave it."

I'll leave it.