NDE, Dowsing, Faith Healing, and Magic Rock Believer Mocks Flat Earthers

[I Have Questions]

Without any obvious signs of self awareness, Peterson posted this…

I’ve heard all of my life about “Flat Earthers,” but I hadn’t really encountered any of them until the Artemis II mission began to get news coverage. Now, though, I’ve seen several of them popping up online, and I’m still recovering from the shock of learning for myself that such people do actually exist — although one that I noticed was perspicacious enough to acknowledge that the evidence on the subject is, as he put it, “mixed” and indecisive. He apparently also believes — of course! — that the Apollo moon landings were faked on a soundstage somewhere, that the seven astronauts aboard the Challenger space shuttle survived the “explosion” that “destroyed” it in 1986 and are living under assumed names in a kind of NASA witness-protection program; that Lee Harvey Oswald was framed by the CIA; that the COVID pandemic was really a “plandemic,” and that the anti-COVID vaccines were part of a plot to . . . do something or other. (I begin to zone out, sometimes.) I’m not sure, but I think that the fact that President Nelson and other leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints received the COVID vaccine is what took him out of the Church; he probably realized at that point that the Church is just one more part of the vast global conspiracy. And, oh yes, he’s an anti-Semite.

I find myself wondering what it would be like to live in his world. I can easily imagine that it might be very terrifying. But it’s also, I suspect, deeply gratifying for him to know that he’s one of the elite few who know what’s really going on.

He really doesn’t see the irony. I’m assuming that, when asked to do so last weekend, Peterson raised his right arm to the square and promised to sustain President Oaks. Here is what Oaks requested members do

My brothers and sisters, as followers of Christ, let us follow Him by forgoing contention and by using the language and methods of peacemakers.

So after promising the Lord that he would sustain President Oaks, within a few days Peterson has reneged on that promise (like he did when he committed to forgoing contention with this board in return for $10,000 from Dr Moore) and foregone the language and methods of peacemakers, and reverted to promoting contention and has ridiculed others that don’t believe the same as he does. Folks, you simply cannot make this up.

[Gadianton]

but I think that the fact that President Nelson and other leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints received the COVID vaccine is what took him out of the Church

What makes him think this guy is out of the church? He is saying this as if it would be so uncommon to find LDSFF Latter-day Saints. These people really do exist as strong members of his church and are in good standing. Their beliefs do not put them at risk in the slightest, because by and large, what they believe is compatible with what Dan believes.

Hell, I have extended family that believes half of this, and it's very common for Utah Mormons to believe any given basket of items on his list. In fact, his own style of writing, the vacuous celebratory libertarian essay he won a "scholarship" for as a youth (from some right-wing pseudoscience think tank?) is the common gateway drug that leads people down the path. Somehow, you start off getting excited about low taxes for small businesses while upset about welfare, and end up in a vast network of conspiracy theories. but I kid you not, this really happens.

Dan is part of that network. Several of his commenters have one foot or more dipped into that world.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

It is quite a trip to realize that Joseph Smith, David O. McKay, and many other apostles and prophets were card-carrying members of the Hollow Earth club, fully convinced that the Ten Lost Tribes weren't just lost, but were actually chilling somewhere in the depths of the planet.

[I Have Questions]

DCP believes that not eating food for 24 hours and saying a prayer can conjure up, or stop, rainfall somewhere on the planet. But thinks flat earthers hold a ridiculous belief. Is believing in a “flat earth” (which is more nuanced when you dive into it than you might expect) any more irrational than believing in the Jaredite Barges, or that Jesus died and came back from the dead? Is there any more scientific evidence for resurrection than there is for the flat earth theories?

I’m surprised that DCP chose to mock people who believe in a flat earth. He wasn’t forced into it. He wasn’t asked to review them. He went looking and made a choice. He chose to mock the belief of others. Within days of President Oaks exhorting members to not do that exact thing. Peterson has figuratively stuck the middle finger up at President Oaks. Nobody tells Peterson he cannot mock other beliefs.

[Physics Guy]

I'd say that Flat Earthers are farther out on the wacko spectrum than a lot of other things, but that there isn't as comfortably wide a gap as one might imagine between them and more respectable believers. In fact there are some big points in favor of Flat Earthism, the first one being that the world sure seems pretty flat when you just walk around on it. There's a horizon, but unless you're on a seashore or a wide plain, the horizon seems just to be due to hills or buildings or trees or something blocking your view.

If you do have a clear view across water or flat desert or something, things like mirages and heat haze are real optical effects that one could imagine might somehow create a horizon illusion. And there's something that can easily seem like decisive proof that the world is flat, if you aren't quite good at three-dimensional visualization: if you travel out to where the horizon seems to be, then when you get there, the surface around you still seems very flat. You don't notice any kind of edge or slope.

That's a basic but arguably profound fact about what geometric curvature is like. Every line is locally straight, in the sense that it has a tangent, and every curved surface is locally flat, having a tangent plane. You have to have quite a sharp peak or ridge or valley for curvature to be noticeable. A gradual curvature looks locally just like flatness.

The only direct, visible evidence for the Earth being round is that elusive horizon, which is by definition impossible to reach—how convenient! Most of the time, in fact, you can live just fine by operating as though the world were flat. Over 25000 miles, the curvature of the Earth is enough that you'll have traveled completely around it—but who ever keeps going straight for 25000 miles?

[drumdude]

Any day now we will find the edge of the earth, just like any day now we will find some Nephite pottery.

[malkie]

Any day now we will find the edge of the earth, just like any day now we will find some Nephite pottery.

As Samuel Goldwyn is reputed to have said, include me out, drumdude

1. I'm getting a bit old for such adventures, and
2. As I'm sure you're aware, beyond the edge there be dragons.

[I Have Questions]

I'd say that Flat Earthers are farther out on the wacko spectrum than a lot of other things, but that there isn't as comfortably wide a gap as one might imagine between them and more respectable believers. In fact there are some big points in favor of Flat Earthism, the first one being that the world sure seems pretty flat when you just walk around on it. There's a horizon, but unless you're on a seashore or a wide plain, the horizon seems just to be due to hills or buildings or trees or something blocking your view.

If you do have a clear view across water or flat desert or something, things like mirages and heat haze are real optical effects that one could imagine might somehow create a horizon illusion. And there's something that can easily seem like decisive proof that the world is flat, if you aren't quite good at three-dimensional visualization: if you travel out to where the horizon seems to be, then when you get there, the surface around you still seems very flat. You don't notice any kind of edge or slope.

That's a basic but arguably profound fact about what geometric curvature is like. Every line is locally straight, in the sense that it has a tangent, and every curved surface is locally flat, having a tangent plane. You have to have quite a sharp peak or ridge or valley for curvature to be noticeable. A gradual curvature looks locally just like flatness.

The only direct, visible evidence for the Earth being round is that elusive horizon, which is by definition impossible to reach—how convenient! Most of the time, in fact, you can live just fine by operating as though the world were flat. Over 25000 miles, the curvature of the Earth is enough that you'll have traveled completely around it—but who ever keeps going straight for 25000 miles?

Yes. The curvature of the earth is so negligible to our lived experience, and we are individually so small relative to the planet size, that our physical interaction with the world is indistinguishable from that of living on a flat land mass.

Peterson has really made himself look dafter and less self aware than usual on this one.

[Fence Sitter]

Except everyone that has ever sailed at all knows another ship sailing away from view appears to sink into the ocean.

[I Have Questions]

Except everyone that has ever sailed at all knows another ship sailing away from view appears to sink into the ocean.

Yes. You see that in the distance. But the boat you are in, that you are experiencing, does not feel as though it is going over a hill. It feels like you are sailing along on a flat (but maybe choppy ) earth.