[lancetop]

Why would anyone want to perpetrate such an enormous fraud, as proclaiming a globe earth?  I'm very interested in FET, but this is a question no one seems able to answer.  The only answers I've ever gotten were in heavily christian terms---such as "the Elite want to make Man think the earth is round, in the midst of an infinite Universe, so he won't feel close to god"

Are there secular rationales floating around out there?

excluding religious ideas, what purpose would there be, to lie about the earth's shape and structure?

[WellRoundedIndividual]

Honestly, this post probably won't get an answer, as it's more appropriately going to be relocated either under Community or Complete Nonsense. The reason being is that it's another form of the question, "what in the world makes you believe the world isn't round, are you crazy?"

[lancetop]

^^^ If a fraud is perpetrated, there is usually a reason.  Are any secular reasons being presented, for why a global earth model has been taught? 

Why is that an inappropriate question? 

[WellRoundedIndividual]

I didnt say the question was inappropriate. I said the location of the question in the forum belongs elsewhere.

[Bastian Baasch]

The reason I think most flat earthers would give is that we're all sheeple and we accept without question that the earth is round. That's the reason they give (along with money) for NASA allegedly faking space travel, because FE'rs think there's evidence NASA doesn't have the tech to do it so they fake it in line with their own and general populace's expectations of the shape of the earth, which to many is round.

[shootingstar]

I will be 50 next birthday and for as far as my conscious memory goes back I have been fascinated by space. I have never had aspirations to be an astronaut as I prefer to look at everything in the Universe from the surface. I have never been one to simply follow a lead and just accept this or accept that because it is the done thing or to believe something just because my parents or my teachers said so.

Science is about asking questions about everything and not taking things for granted just because it conforms to a popular line of thinking. Prof Brian Cox recently said in an interview that scientists spend their careers trying to prove themselves wrong. Relativity is a case in point. Many of the predictions were made long before there was any means of testing them in a lab or elsewhere. Over the years we have developed the means to test these predictions to ever increasing levels of precision and the results of those tests have agreed entirely with what was predicted. As Prof Timothy Ferris of the University of California at Berkeley said 'It is this sort of confirmation by experiment that leads us to think we really are moving in the right direction to finally be able to provide answers to some of the biggest, and most fundamental questions in physics.'

[totallackey]

If you consider money to be secular in nature, I would list that.

[stack]

If you consider money to be secular in nature, I would list that.

Money has always been the lamest of arguments. A flat earth would be way more profitable. Just pick and industry/technology today that relies on a spherical model. Say, the airlines. If the earth was flat an enterprising airline would arise and not follow the spherical great circle routes we do today. They would just go in a straight line. The amount of fuel and time saved would be astronomical. Same for global shipping. No more need to waste money on 'fake' satellite launches and such. The list goes on. If a flat earth could actually be shown to be better it would be exploited for the maximum monetary gain it would provide.

[shootingstar]

Yes indeed Stack and perhaps one day someone will invent a way of increasing the rotation speed of the Earth. That would make it flatter.  Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet in the Solar System and not surprisingly it is also the flattest. The polar diameter is visibly less than the equatorial diameter (oblateness) by the greatest amount of any planet as the video shown in the Jupiter thread shows.

[lancetop]

The Flat Earth model makes all the sense in the world to me.  but I simply can't think of why someone would perpetrate a global earth fraud.  When the global earth model was first developed and accepted, centuries ago, there was no NASA to take people's money (?)

The religious "justifications" for the fraud seem laughable.

[totallackey]

If you consider money to be secular in nature, I would list that.

Money has always been the lamest of arguments. A flat earth would be way more profitable. Just pick and industry/technology today that relies on a spherical model. Say, the airlines. If the earth was flat an enterprising airline would arise and not follow the spherical great circle routes we do today. They would just go in a straight line. The amount of fuel and time saved would be astronomical. Same for global shipping. No more need to waste money on 'fake' satellite launches and such. The list goes on. If a flat earth could actually be shown to be better it would be exploited for the maximum monetary gain it would provide.

Considering your argument eats its own tail, you would be better served just sitting quietly in the corner over there----->

Airlines are flying straight line routes , ships are taking straight line routes...all God's children take the shortest route between two points and that is called a straight line.

[stack]

If you consider money to be secular in nature, I would list that.

Money has always been the lamest of arguments. A flat earth would be way more profitable. Just pick and industry/technology today that relies on a spherical model. Say, the airlines. If the earth was flat an enterprising airline would arise and not follow the spherical great circle routes we do today. They would just go in a straight line. The amount of fuel and time saved would be astronomical. Same for global shipping. No more need to waste money on 'fake' satellite launches and such. The list goes on. If a flat earth could actually be shown to be better it would be exploited for the maximum monetary gain it would provide.

Considering your argument eats its own tail, you would be better served just sitting quietly in the corner over there----->

Airlines are flying straight line routes , ships are taking straight line routes...all God's children take the shortest route between two points and that is called a straight line.

Correct, all God's long haul airline pilots and ship captains take the shortest route between two points and that is called a straight line, on a globe it is technically referred to as a 'great circle'.

In case you are unaware what a great circle is, it's defined by the air, sea travel/navigation industry worldwide as: A circle on the surface of a sphere which lies in a plane passing through the sphere's center. As it represents the shortest distance between any two points on a sphere, a great circle of the earth is the preferred route taken by a ship or aircraft.

If you have a problem with the way all global travel/transport/navigation is carried out using the globe earth model I'd suggest you take it up with the folks who run, maintain and carry out all global travel/transport/navigation. I don't believe your "better way of doing things" notions are reaching the correct audience by posting here.

[Stagiri]

(...) When the global earth model was first developed and accepted, centuries ago, there was no NASA to take people's money (?)
(...)

Actually, more like two thousand and some hundreds of years ago, which makes it even stranger.

On another note, I wonder when we'll see quantum mechanics deniers. Those theories are truly mind-boggling!