Top 10 Reasons to Believe That the Earth is Flat

According to the esteemed font of scholarly knowledge known as, Wikipedia, the Earth is an oblate spheroid. However, according to the Flat Earth Society who have the word “Earth” right there in their name, the Globe is actually a big flat disk, gravity is a lie and NASA is the most powerful commercial entity on Earth, which we think sounds a lot more likely than all of that “science” crap they taught us about in physics class.

That’s why we’ve decided to list the 10 most convincing reasons that the Earth might actually be shaped like a pancake.

(In case anyone was wondering, we’re being super sarcastic.)

10. You’re part of an exclusive club

When you’re one of the sheep who believes that the Earth is shaped like a slightly overweight basketball instead of a kick-ass UFO or mountain covered Frisbee, you’re one of 7 billion other people who’ve been fooled by the man.

However, if you choose to ascribe to the idea that the Earth is actually a giant disk flying aimlessly through an uncaring, godless void, you’re part of an exclusive club of just 100 people. Yes, amazingly, there are only around 100 people on Earth right now who are smart enough to realise that every person with a PHD in the entire world is lying. According to The Flat Earth Society, they had over 3000 members in the 90’s, but a after a fire, that was probably started by some butthole working for NASA, they lost all their records and had to start again. Since then, only 100 people have bothered to join back up, meaning there are less people in this club than there are rhinos left in the wild.

But hey, don’t let that fact fool you into thinking this is just an idea held by random idiots online with nothing better to do, because …

9. A bunch of highly influential people also believe the Earth is flat

When it comes to the Flat Earth argument, you could be fooled into thinking that those who believe in the ludicrous idea of an orb shaped planet have the upper hand because their ranks include: every scientist of the last 22 centuries, the president, the guy who animated What’s New Scooby Doo and probably some other important people. There are some fairly prominent and influential Flat Earthers out there like, Mohammed Yusuf, you know, the former leader of Boko Haram, that group that explicitly says that they hate Western Education and make the majority of their living in royalties from keeping CNN afloat when it isn’t an election season.

If having one of the most repugnant men in history support the view that the Earth is flat doesn’t convince you that it’s a totally legit theory, how about learning that the most repugnant man in history also apparently believed it. Yes, we’re talking about Hitler who is apparently greatly respected by a subsection of Flat Earthers because he’s “allegedly” the only person known to have seen the end of the Earth during a visit he totally made to Antarctica that only Flat Earthers seem to know about.

But hey if Hitler isn’t your thing, you may still want to reconsider dismissing the Flat Earth Theory outright because, if you choose to believe it, you get to …

8. Live in a world like Game of Thrones

We wrote an article a while ago all about how unrealistic some of the elements of Game of Thrones are in relation to the section of history it takes influence from and we’d like to apologise because holy crap, you guys, the wall is a real thing.

You see, according to Flat Earthers, the world rather than being a bloated sphere is actually a rounded disk surrounded by a several hundred foot wall of ice, which is why the oceans don’t just spill out into space and land on Jupiter. Of course nobody has ever seen this wall, because NASA diverts planes away from it as well as stationing guards at the top to shoot anyone (except for Hitler) who gets too close. While we have no idea if any of these guards dress like Jon Snow, we’re going to assume that they do because what in the hell else is a person tasked with guarding the literal edges of the Earth from the top of a big-ass wall of ice gonna wear?

While the existence of a big-ass wall of ice that keeps all of the world’s oceans in place is certainly reassuring, arguably one of the best things about believing the Earth is flat is the fact that …

7. You get to prove Einstein wrong!

Whenever the idea of a flat planet comes up, one of the first arguments against the theory to crop up in conversation is that gravity simply wouldn’t work on a planet shaped like a pizza. Gravity for those of you who aren’t aware is a myth perpetuated by NASA that says all objects emit an invisible force that attracts other objects towards themselves, the larger the object, the larger the force. Rather than believing this twaddle, Flat Earthers instead believe that the Earth is constantly flying directly upwards at a constant acceleration of 9.81 m/s and that’s why when you drop an object it falls towards the ground at this speed. In regards to what happens when the Earth reaches terminal velocity, the opinion of the Flat Earth society is that it probably won’t so don’t worry about it. Where’s you’re theory of relativity now, Einstein!

But wait you ask? If gravity doesn’t exist, how is the moon kept in place? Well the moon does have a gravitation pull and it does effect the tides, but the only reason it moves across the sky is because the Earth is spinning and it stays in place because it just so happens to be travelling the exact speed we do. As for why the Earth doesn’t have gravity if the moon does, the official stance of the Flat Earth society is to just not try to think about how ridiculous that is. Oh and for anyone wanting to be clever and ask how we have things like lunar eclipses, that’s obviously due to an invisible “shadow object” that nobody has ever observed flying in front of the moon at random that you should absolutely believe exists just because we said so. Also the sun, moon and all the stars are only a couple of hundred miles above the Earth.

However, while Flat Earthers whole heartedly think that you should accept everything they say without question or proof, you shouldn’t give NASA the same privilege because ….

6. NASA is like, super evil and corrupt

In the world of Flat Earthers, no single entity is treated with more contempt and animosity than those dicks at NASA. Why? Well it probably has something to do with the fact that NASA is pretty much solely responsible for maintaining the illusion that the Earth is a sphere and they’re also evil and corrupt because sure, why not.

According to Flat Earthers every image of our planet ever taken from space was doctored by NASA, every trip to space, including the ones where people died, were impeccably planned ruses and there’s no such thing as satellites, only giant, NASA controlled radio towers that “lie” to your GPS, television and smartphone. NASA also somehow controls every single plane on Earth, even private ones without GPS, to stop them from straying too close to the edge of the Earth and uncovering the truth.

If you’re wondering why NASA would bother to go to such lengths to cover up the Earth being flat, congratulations, you’re already starting to sound like a Flat Earther. Yes, despite Flat Earthers being absolutely convinced that NASA is a massively corrupt agency dedicated to hiding the truth from the public, they have yet to offer a convincing explanation for why NASA actually cares about maintaining this impossibly elaborate scam. They just know something is up and that’s enough for them because …

5. Flat Earthers are smarter than most ancient and modern scientists

The laughable idea that the Earth is actually a water covered orb being catapulted around an exploding ball of gas millions of miles away is one that has been commonly accepted by scientists and thinkers since about 400 BC. That is just a bit too long for an idea to stand unchallenged for it to not leave a sour taste in our mouth.

Flat Earth Theory by contrast is a relatively new idea that was proposed during Victorian times by a guy using the pseudonym “Parallax” which is just way too badass of a nickname for it to have possibly belonged to a liar. Parallax, who usually went by the objectively lamer name “Samuel Rowbotham,” eventually founded a school of thought known as “Zetetic astronomy” which taught some of the ideas we’ve already mentioned today like the Earth being surrounded by a wall of ice, the sun only being a few hundred miles away and calling everyone who disagreed with you an idiot.

Now come on, admit it, Flat Earth Theory sounds just a little more convincing now that you know the majority of the theory is based on a book written by a guy called “Parallax”, doesn’t it? And quite honestly, if that doesn’t convince you, maybe you’d be swayed by the fact that when you’re a Flat Earther …

4. You don’t really have to understand how anything works

Thinking is hard and Flat Earthers understand that, which is why the entire theory revolves around wild, baseless claims and hand waving anything you don’t want to talk about. No, seriously.

As you can imagine, people who try to insist that the Earth is flat in an academic setting often have to defend themselves against scientists with less awesome sounding titles than “Zetetic Astronomer.” Luckily Flat Earthers have a cast iron system for answering any question they don’t understand without it making them look like an idiot called, “telling people to look up the answer in the Bible.”

This technique was perhaps best utilised by Charles K. Johnson, who up until his death in 2001, was one of the most well-known proponents of Flat Earth Theory. In the hundreds of interviews he gave over the years, Johnson defended Flat Earth Theory like a champ by ignoring any and all criticism and deflecting difficult to understand questions by saying only God had the answer. For example, when Johnson was once innocently asked how solar eclipses worked if the world was flat, he looked the interviewer in the eye and said “we really don’t have to go into all that” and then stopped talking. When pushed for a more satisfactory answer, Johnson relented and simply said “The Bible tells us the heavens are a mystery” and then refused to talk about it anymore.

We think is just fantastic since it confirms our suspicion that when you become a Flat Earth advocate …

3. You can win every argument!

If browsing Reddit has taught us anything, it’s that winning an argument, regardless of how right or offensive you are, is one of the most important things in the world. If you also think this, then you would probably make a pretty good Flat Earth Theorist because there doesn’t appear to be any argument a Flat Earth Theorist can lose as long as they truly commit to being as obtuse as possible.

For example, in an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Daniel Shenton, the current president of the Flat Earth Society, was able to deftly avoid being proven wrong by insisting that all evidence that proved him wrong was made with “special effects.” And calmly explained that he felt perfectly okay with ignoring a millennium of science based on the fact he felt that he was right. As if that wasn’t delicious enough, Shenton went on to explain that it’s on other people to prove him wrong that the Earth isn’t flat, you know, even though he’s already dismissed irrefutable evidence as lies.

Because when you’re a Flat Earther, no proof is ever good enough and you can always sit there smugly knowing that no matter what your opponent says, you can always ask them if they’ve ever been to space and then cross your arms and say you rest your case. Hell, even if the person has been to space, you’ll still win because there’s no way for them to prove that the image of the Earth they saw wasn’t special effects. And if they ask you to prove that you’re right, well that’s as simple as …

2. Drawing a line on the horizon

As far as we can tell, whenever Flat Earthers need to prove that there theory isn’t just a sack of bovine excrement, all they need to do is bring up a picture of the horizon and draw a straight line across it, thus proving unequivocally that the Earth is flat. If the other person tries to correct you by saying something like “the earth is so unimaginably big that the horizon is always going to look flat to our inefficient human eyes” or “try watching a ship sail out to sea and watch it disappear over the horizon” feel free to ignore them or just draw another, bigger line to prove your point a little bit harder.

If anyone ever tries to trip you up, as people whose mind isn’t as open as yours is wont to do, by showing you a picture taken from orbit in which the horizon is clearly curved, all you need to is tell them that, that’s caused by the camera lens.  Or better yet, just tell them that their picture actually proves your point, like this entire forum of Flat Earthers did when a guy turned up with a picture taken from orbit by a totally independent source that NASA couldn’t doctor that clearly showed a curved horizon. When the flustered poster asked someone to explain to him how a flat planet could have a curved horizon, one poster simply responded “because circles are curved” and that was considered a satisfactory answer.

This gets to the heart of why we think everyone reading this should give serious consideration to believing Flat Earth Theory.

1. Believing the Earth is flat makes you special!

As far as we’re concerned the main reason to believe Flat Earth Theory over the thing we as a species have considered fact for 25 centuries is because doing so makes you really special. Believing the Earth is flat lets you simultaneously act intellectually superior to everyone you know while also not understanding anything you say on anything more than a superficial level. You can sit around in your exclusive club forums and look down your nose at other people, while never bothering to improve yourself in any meaningful way.

Like with other conspiracy theories, you can use believing the Earth is flat as an excuse to dismiss the opinions and feelings of anyone you’d normally have to treat like a human being as a necessary evil to educate them about the truth.

In short, the main reason you should believe that the Earth is flat is because once you’ve decided to believe it, you’ll never have to put effort into having a meaningful human connection ever again.

Editor’s note: To reiterate, this article is written as satire, a.k.a. a joke, like the Flat Earth Theory. 

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