Is the Earth Flat or Round?

[pastormjunkie]

What are your thoughts?

[J E G]

Aw, nobody else wants to participate?

Flat-Earthers get such a bad rap, but so did Copernicus.

The best that anyone can say in matters of fact, rather than those of belief, is that their own observations and knowledge tend them to certainty in one or another theory.  A round earth makes sense from what I know — but, technically, I think that the Earth is neither:
To say that the Earth is a spheroid — which, technically, it probably isn't — is to say that the collection of matter which we lump together as a singular entity which resembles the abstract Euclidean concept known as a sphere.  From what we know — well, what I know — about space-time, things aren't so simple.

At a certain distance from the surface of a black-hole, what might appear to you as a straight line would appear to be a curve if measured from someone very distant from that same black-hole.  This is because causality is relative to space-time, and the paths of light follow space-time.  www.spacetimetravel.org/expeditionsl/erklaerung1.html

The terrestrial surface of the Earth would “curve” space-time — i.e. direct the flow of causality — inwards to its center of mass, but not so much as is done near the event horizon of a black-hole.  However, because its mass does certainly cause some deflection, one could say that the surface of an obloid Earth would, in fact, seem somewhat flatter to someone standing thereupon than it would to someone measuring it from a farther distance.

This occured to me while reading through one page on the Flat Earth Society's website.  theflatearthsociety.org/home/index.php/blog/einsteins-relativity-proves-earth-flat
What I said is not quite what that page was espousing, but the principles are similar.

And, now, for my little rant.
The most important thing to remember is this:  It is dismissive and ignorant to think of anyone as a “crackpot”; there is a reason why arguments ad hominem are considered to be a logical fallacy.  All you accomplish there is to impede the development of science and the pathways of communication.  No genuine advocate and practitioner of science would do such a thing!

[weatherdude]

I think the earth is flat but could be round in some parts. I wonder why the ISS never shows the other side of the earth? What the globers think the earth is round cause their cameras make it look that way. I fly alot and I have never seen the earth go round as we fly, it's always flat. If the earth was round, the plane would have to keep putting the nose of the plane down.
People think I am crazy but that's what I believe. I am open to anything, but I am skeptical of everything esp what the govt tells us.

[pastormjunkie]

I going to say we where lied to growing up. Our teachers, parents, govt told us lies. I think the earth is flat. I have seen many youtube videos where the flat earthers explain and do experiments and it always shows a flat earth. NASA is a fake.

[Wichita Lineman]

We were not lied to. The earth is round.