Ygrene, you seem like a fairly intelligent human being. So I'm curious as to why you reject the spherical earth model. What's the basis for your belief?
I am a mathematician, so I see geometry very different because of the transformations that can be made. I don't actually believe the earth is flat, or spheroid: I just think of it as a manifold. If God rolls the ends of the heavens like a scroll, it translates as exactly that to me in terms of topology - and makes
literal sense.
How do you deal with the fact that in order for there to be a conspiracy about the shape of the earth that dozens of governments must be in collaboration as well as hundreds of private businesses. The weather channel with satellites to GPS companies, to even RedBull and Mythbusters - how are all these people brought into the conspiracy without any of them blowing the whistle?
Whistleblowers are murdered, and painted as incredulous by just as many psycho-social, and academic paradigms. People don't usually come out and tell the truth
especially if they are part of some well-funded entity (a network, a peer group, TV show, etc.) I have been a tangential witness to these things; if you are a scientist or engineer, the psycho-social structure drives toward threats to scholarly contributions and reputation directly related to dissidence. So, I focus on what I know, what I can prove and what I have been given (in terms of Providence.) I know more than enough sciences and mathematics to prove things on my own, and I am fortunate enough to have a couple of friends who are geniuses in other specialized science fields that have had the same rigor/credentials, and promote open philosophical conversation without pretense.
I find the phrase "conspiracy theory" grossly dismissive. This is mainly because
I used to scoff and laugh at some alleged crackpot theories over the decades, then I entertained them for the purpose of finding out on my own, and finally I got to the point of
parroting some of the same things people have said that I once believed was ridiculous. After University, I realized this entire existence is a conspiracy - right down to the [sacred] math and geometry we learn. It is purposefully
incomplete until you get to grad school - by then, one would be weeded out by circumstance, through disillusion or by social imperative.
And finally - the question of why the need for the conspiracy in the first place. What's to be gained by such a massive conspiracy?
The Christian answer: If you believe the enemy, known as a Satan, is a magistrate of this planet, then the answer is clear: to destroy the truth. A little bit of leaven makes the whole lump rise: there is no need to completely destroy the truth. Over the thousands of years, the "rulers," as it were, have learned that truth cannot be destroyed:
only transformed (sound familiar?) So, instead of trying to attack the truth, and have the unwanted consequence of more people cling to that truth, the "rulers" just change some details, and let people run with it.
Misinformation.
This can be done through an array of agencies and institutions that program the layperson to rigidly fit into socially acceptable categories. We can't forget that there is no necessary incentive to keep truth from "us;"
lower classes/serfs were never supposed to be educated. That is never the point of any nation even if they claim it is, because a well-educated population is dangerous for entities that want complete control over mind and function (body.)
From a cosmopolitan point of view, hiding the truth fits the same purpose: to destroy the truth. In the case that there are no principalities, deities or angels interfering with our progress, we have the unsettling prospect of humans that think themselves principalities/deities/archons, and therefore create social and psychological constructs in order to order the chaos of millions/billions of humans with free agency. You can't do that if you know the "truth" about the physical world around you. And, in the cosmopolitan view, subjects aren't to be educated either. A well-educated population is always the most dangerous thing to an unworthy leader. And, a well educated population that entertains everything - including the possibility that everything they have been told is wrong - is equally if not more dangerous to leadership.
The conspiracy about something so fundamental (i.e. the shape of the earth) is actually extremely profound in terms of what it means for the rest of our lives. If the location on which we reside is NOT what we thought it was, then it opens the door to other "conspiracy" gaining credibility.
Which is why I stepped WAY out of my comfort zone, and used my
handwriting to post evidence of why the earth is the shape I explained it is - a simple compact 2-manifold with homeomorphology of a sphere.
Both sides are arguing the same thing, which is the spiel:
To make people divided over issues they are told to believe are somehow different, especially fundamentally.
When I see the arguments about flat earth vs. globe earth, I chuckle a bit because it is a real case of pot calling kettle black. The ancient philosophers realized this - when they represented a circle with 4 lines through it as the earth, it was a 2-manifold in the form of a disk -
which is the same as a sphere, or a 2-manifold projected stereographically. So, the ancients would realize every time they saw that symbol that the "disk" (manifold) of the earth is flat, but it is also
projected as a spheroid. Before there was number theory/analysis/differential geometry and topology, there was just "philosophy."
This is why I made it a point to say BOTH sides are right in my previous posts - because they are.
But, flat earth is not a conspiracy to me; the math shows it is a manifold. I would consider it more of a conspiracy that NASA or any other space agency has not released unedited, non-CGI pictures of our planet from beyond orbit.
I do understand why this is considered a conspiracy, especially in light of the
misinformation people are inundated with almost hourly, as well as the social pressure to conform to the status quo/standard. (When I was giving a presentation on the flavor oscillations of neutrinos at Uni, it was still considered
massless by the Standard Model.) It is easy to adhere to the rigidity of standards set up - especially when one's livelihood and social/psycho-social well being is threatened. I have seen people do some unarguably immoral things to keep their reputation.
