Notes from a Flat Earth Conference • Hacker News Board

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#91

Post by gwd » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:28 PM UTC

cma wrote: post #30

lisper wrote: post #17

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't,…

Why would some point of existence or meaning lead specifically to Christianity?

I'm not a YE but I am a thinking Christian. You can imagine this sort of thinking as a game of 20 questions, where you ask a series of questions to try to "home in" on what kind of worldview you think is likely.

So the first question is, "Is there something besides the physical world -- besides atoms and energy and time?" If you say "yes", then you've ruled out materialism (which some people confuse with science).

There are a number of things in our human experience which (in my opinion) are inconsistent with a materialistic worldview. The sense of meaning and purpose is one. Morality is another. (Not trying to argue this here, just trying to answer the question.)

Then you can say, OK, but that could be Buddhism or Shintoism or Islam or anything. So the next set of questions might filter out reincarnation-style religions and get you down to the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam); and then you might look specifically at evidence about Jesus' resurrection.

Not all Christians are Young Earthers; and Young Earthers are certainly not Flat Earthers. But there is this similarity: Christianity gives people something that atheism and materialism do not. And so when modern atheists say, "Belief in evolution is incompatible with belief in God -- you have to choose one or the other", then a lot of people will say, "Well if I have to choose, I'm going with God."

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#92

Post by Jtsummers » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

Humdeee wrote: post #86

Jtsummers wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why apologize? They literally said they came to it for the outrage it caused. That's pretty much the definition of a troll.

I found it confusing that he still openly identified to be part of the flat Earth group, even outside of his trolling persona. If I pretended to be religious for the purpose of trolling evolutionists, I would never say I was at any point a creationist. Surely Santa Clause at the mall doesn't believe he's Santa Clause, nor would he seriously identify as him, but he trolls kids every year to put a smile on their face.…

Well, there's an identity based on belief system and an identity based on group. I took his statement to be that he was part of the group, but not part of the (true) belief system.

If you joined a group of YECs and participated in the community, you might consider yourself a YEC (group member) even though you never truly believed, but only argued and trolled. I do agree that it's a bit bizarre, but knowing many contrarian and troll types this seems a pretty consistent part of their MO.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#93

Post by sunopener » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

ideals wrote: post #25

RobRivera wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Trump supporters I know (family, not by choice) What is the implication here? Is it bad to have friends who are Trump supporters? EDIT: I see my point of political bias proven, complete with intolerance, rationalization of said intolerance, gross assumptions, and overall it leaves me disappointed that the HN crowd allows this.

I judge people (not solely) based on who they choose to associate with, so for me ya it is bad. To put it more bluntly, if you surround yourself with shitty people, I'll assume you're a shitty person.

You surround yourself with 7.8 billion people who shit nearly every day.

To put it bluntly, you are judging yourself when you take yourself to be judging others, you claim an excuse that associating with others leads to your own self-admitted "badness"... You judge yourself, and rather than taking sentence with those aspects within, you externalize it and make assumptions based upon comparisons of your ideal shitty person, which deep down we both know that we are our own worst critics.

This only leads down one road, self-annihilatory behavior.

Learn to love yourself completely, you are not lacking, and to be honest, you taking yourself to be one that thinks of others or yourself as a shitty person is one of the most lovable parts about you.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#94

Post by Kednicma » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

brightball wrote: post #61

lisper wrote: post #17

I've been spending quite a bit of time interacting with the young-earth creationist community on Reddit and YouTube. It is closely related to flat-earth, though there is one significant difference: YEC is overtly religious, and specifically Christian. Other than that many of the forms of argument are the same. From that experience I have made two observations: 1. These people are not idiots (at least the YECs aren't,…

Inerrancy is a whole other bag of chips. I teach a Sunday School class and one of my big topics is man made rules that aren’t Biblically supported. Inerrancy falls in that camp from my reading. There’s a single verse that the basis for the entire doctrine. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be…

You may be interested in a detailed breakdown of authorship of various parts of the Bible [0]. In summary, to a first approximation, only the books written during the Babylonian Exile and during the preaching of Peter and Paul were written during the events that they describe, and most other books were written much later. The Gospels are decades after Jesus' life and death, and all of the Bronze Age stories are set centuries before they were recorded.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorship_of_the_Bible

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#95

Post by Humdeee » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #80

shadowgovt wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you had a strategy for reconciling the theory of the flat moon with flat Earth? Believing in both at the same time is extra-tricky, and that's what caused me to get banned from the Facebook flat-Earthers. If the moon is flat, perspective distortion should make it disk-like, and nobody's observed a disk-like moon. So either the moon is round (and the fact it only shows us one face is some extra-fancy trick…

Even if the moon were a disk, the angle it makes relative to a normal vector coming out from ground demonstrates a spherical earth. You don't even need to factor in the moon, this can be done with the stars. In a flat earth, the same stars would be visible when you're in the southern too of south America as in the northernmost top of north America. This isn't the case since the earth is spherical. Heck, even just the…

I have no clue about any arguments flat earthers make, but I am curious how they would object to some of the fundamental concepts like you provided. I suppose it doesn't make much sense that they would use science to refute your points...

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#96

Post by ab3rC1te » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

Joshua 10:13, Joshua commands the sun and moon to stand still for about a whole day. Isaiah 38:8 God brings the sun backwards to set the shadow of the sundail of Ahaz back 10 degrees. Genesis God sets the sun, moon and stars inside the firmament with us. Or the great flood that is recorded with similar versions all across the world. Even the Roman Catholics believed the earth was flat at the time of Christopher Columbus. There's a reason why sea level is always at zero. Point being its about worshipping our heavenly Father that created all things, and set aside all of man's teachings to forsake the things of this world to have enternal life.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#97

Post by manfredo » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

Humdeee wrote: post #95

manfredo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if the moon were a disk, the angle it makes relative to a normal vector coming out from ground demonstrates a spherical earth. You don't even need to factor in the moon, this can be done with the stars. In a flat earth, the same stars would be visible when you're in the southern too of south America as in the northernmost top of north America. This isn't the case since the earth is spherical. Heck, even just the…

I have no clue about any arguments flat earthers make, but I am curious how they would object to some of the fundamental concepts like you provided. I suppose it doesn't make much sense that they would use science to refute your points...

Personally I think that it's just the limits of geometric understanding for some peole. Personally I hit that limit when I tried to understand quaternions. Some people hit that limit with calculus. I guess others hit that limit when they try to understand perspective from a sphere.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#98

Post by jpmattia » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:35 PM UTC

I was a little surprised that there was no mention of mental illness. A human/reptile hybrid race is secretly controlling us all to serve an unknown agenda? I know that could be used for humor, but really it's just sad.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#99

Post by lm28469 » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

toss1 wrote: post #88

rustybelt wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure these types of policies would never be used against you and your beliefs.

It has zero to do with the specific beliefs It has everything to do with the person actively maintaining willful ignorance and complete distrust

I find your whole line of argument to be pretty frail and ignorant, I wouldn't bar you from being able to work though.

If you don't see how this kind of system would be abused you have a very peculiar perspective on life.

Re: Notes from a Flat Earth Conference

#100

Post by mindslight » Thu, Aug 20, 2020, 4:37 PM UTC

> When a worldview grows in a group of people that requires the belief that this trust has been fundamentally broken by the institutions of modern society, modern society feels the effects

I think this causality is backwards. These people already feel that the social contract has been broken, and then FE falls into their lap as an explanation for what they're feeling.

The disillusionment with our modern social structures is entirely valid and personally healthy. The real question is how to keep that feeling from collapsing into simplistic red herrings like FE, "jet fuel can't melt steel beams", or Trumpism. It's more difficult to hold nuanced anti-mainstream-propaganda opinions in your head, than to rally around a counter-fiction.

Then again, maybe this has been the genesis of all religion - reassuring narratives to assuage cognitive dissonance between what the rulers say and how you're actually treated. And the ones that end up being memetically successful are the ones that at least inspire people to do productive things.