For the Flat Earth model, if I am say in South America/ Lower South America, Africa/ South Africa, or Australia, it would appear that if I were to look up at the Moon, I would potentially observe the "back side" or "bottom side" of the globe Moon.
How did you arrive at this conclusion? It doesn't follow from FET.
I assume he is referring to the animation of the sun and moon circling overhead from the FAQ:
https://wiki.tfes.org/File:SunAnimation.gifBased on this, what GoldCashew is saying absolutely follows from FET. Pick his first example that he is in South America. Attached is a screenshot of the animation. Suppose the moon is at this point, and he is in S. America looking up at it. Now, say that I am in North America. We are far enough apart, and the moon is close enough to the earth (as depicted by the animation) that we would see
different parts of the moon at the same time. But that's not what is observed. So, it's a problem for FET. I cannot see it addressed on the wiki, though I admit I have not read all of it.
Only if the moon were very far away, would those in N. AND S. America see the same side (the "bottom" side of the moon from this model of a FE). But if it were far enough away that both would see the same part of the moon at once, then ALL humans on the planet would see the moon at the same time. And they don't - only half (geographically) of the world can see the moon at a time.
Additionally, this animation brings up far more questions for which I cannot find answers in the wiki. Two of them come immediately to mind:
1. What causes the sunlight to stop its shine from covering the whole earth, regardless of where it is on its course above? Even when it is directly over the Phillipines (as in my screen capture of the animation), on an actual FE light should trivially still reach S. America. The Wiki reads "its light acts like a spotlight upon the Earth." But this doesn't make sense - imagine you are in a big circular field with a spotlight in the relative proportions and distances as the flat earth animation capture I've attached. The people in this field in the relative area where S. America is would not be under the direct spotlight. But they would SEE the light and that part of the field that is directly illuminated. There is nothing on the Wiki that explains this which I can find.
2. Why do the sun and moon not drastically change size as they move across the sky? As it moves around, if it were traveling within this system, and this much closer, it would obviously become much smaller as it travels over thousands of miles across the earth. (EDIT: Yes, I know there is a section on the Wiki that addresses why the sun doesn't shrink when it sets. But this is a much bigger problem that seems unaddressed to me. The sizes of both the sun and moon would be visibly changing in size just about every single hour, if it were anywhere close to proportional as depicted in this animation).
In the past few days, after discovering this forum, I've read through several threads and been fascinated and enlightened by the clear reasoning and sophisticated understanding of math that I do not grasp. I'm new, and while I've read the forum rules, I don't believe I've broken any of them.
If these questions have been answered by the Wiki, please point them out to me. They seem like glaring errors.