Are you sure? There's a lot of evidence I've seen. I think. I don't know. It's an interesting proposition. Thank you.
I believe the flat earth thing was created as a sort of insult to people of the past so like people would say "people back then were so primitive they probably thought the earth was flat!" and then the joke was used so often it became accepted as historical fact. (quite similar to blur's "song 2" being a parody of the american music scene becoming so popular its now taken as a serious song) in fact, there's evidence of the ancient greeks and egyptians understanding taht the earth was not flat and devising techniques to calculate its circumference using sun dials and shit to quite a respectable degree of accuracy for the time.
The truth? I'd like to know how to reconcile quantum theory with relativity theory, in order to come up with ONE theory that predicts the behavior of everything from giant things like galaxies to tiny things like subatomic particles. I want to know the holy grail of physics. (Also, how to travel faster than light! I have some exploring to do!)
Is there life after death? If there is, you can screw up your life here and you'll have another chance. Or there isn't, you can screw up your life here because whatever you do, you'll still end up dead. Mind you, I suppose that's not 'history.'
You guys are doing this wrong. You are asking questions that probably have an answer of no like if the moon is really made out of cheese so then you waste your one question on an unsatisfying answer. You have to ask something that benefits you. For example, if you ask if there are any aliens you can currently see evidence of in the night sky and then get a location of the closest aliens out of that, you can point a telescope in that direction and if you are really lucky discover the first aliens. You'd be a famous figure for all of history after that instead of just figuring out jfk being assassinated wasn't a conspiracy or that god doesn't exist. I don't know, the god one seems to be the dumbest one because if you get an answer of no nothing happens and if you get an answer of yes you are probably going to hell because that seems like its breaking the rules. You are supposed to have faith, not ask some omniscient being for the answer. That would defeat the purpose so I don't know how your admission to heaven would go after that. They might laugh at the fact you outsmarted them and congratulate you for your ingenuity or they might be mad and send you somewhere else. The second seems more likely, but maybe that's just me. It seems similar to asking if you are going to get an incurable disease. No doesn't really benefit you and yes really hurts you.
I'd like to know the truth of how the universe began. No theory. Fact. Yes please. Or was Armstrong the first man on the moon, because I'm more inclined to believe that conspiracy over 9/11 personally. Oh and am I missing something from the OP? It is Area 51 right not 52... Or is there a super super secret base?
Of course not all of them. That's the thing. European nations were more technologically and socially advanced but the West was often more regressive and simple-minded to a degree. There's something far more enlightened about Egyptian or Greek mythology to me than the Abrahamic narrative which kinda feels like an excuse to advocate it's unitary moral code. But anyway, I still think people did believe in the flat earth because there is pretty strong evidence and it's not really any different from an earth only a few thousand years old or the sun going around the earth.
As sure as I can be without time traveling. There's no evidence they thought the world was flat, but lots that says they knew it to be round.
Um, what about all the stuff that is normally proposed? Maps. Books. Scientists journals. Records of discussions. The practices of sailors. And anyway, why do people all of a sudden seem to think it's obvious and it's clearly propaganda to make people look stupid? Considering the people who are recorded as understanding it as round first are not Europeans like the people you suggested as the manufacturers of this tale. And he things that could point to the earth being flat, like the horizon, are more obvious than the stuff that points to round.
I suspect you're right. I wonder about a lot of other things like that, too. The Baghdad battery, for instance, was ignored for decades before it was discovered to be an actual battery. Even now, a lot of people refuse to accept that ancient people might have come up with something so technologically advanced. So, now I wonder what else we're overlooking about ancient societies. If it took the western world less than 300 years to go from hand-crank everything to cell phones and turbo chargers, who's to say high technology didn't develop and then disappear during the last 50,000 years and we're too ignorant or condescending of our ancestors to recognize it? Or maybe it's all rotted away, leaving no evidence whatsoever. Perishable artifacts need very specific climate conditions to survive.
I'm not going to argue about it here. The only thing I can suggest is go do some research beyond the popular media (and especially beyond the Internet).
there's a good Vsauce video on the flat earth theories. about 2 and a half minute in he starts to talk about how the people of the past actualy accepted the Earth to be spherical: it's quite an interesting video, Vsauce is on point as always.
Well, wow. As time goes on, I find myself less and less confident in the truths I've come to know throughout my life. And now I'm no longer convinced the earth is round. I'm not convinced it's flat either, but I no longer have confidence in the 'fact' of Earth's roundness. And he used physics to explain it, too. It's like which shape Earth has is like observing light—particle or wave depending on your preconception—round or flat depending on what you expect to find. Love it. Five stars.
A lot of knowledge has been lost from ancient times. The collapse of great empires or disasters has caused untold damage to learning. Alexandria in Egypt once had a great library that was destroyed in a fire. The making of Greek Fire is still a mystery. We still question how the Pyramids and Stonehenge were made. For people that we now consider primitive or barbarians they done a lot of stuff that we still cannot work out despite being able to walk on the moon.
now that you guys got me thinking I also find myself wondering if the stories of witch doctors with leaches are exaggerated I mean they somehow managed to survive and erradicate black death without even understandibg the concept of germs yet. humans are amazing creatures really.
Who said they eradicated it? They didn't understand it they just eventually lucked upon the idea of increasing hygiene which helped them endure. But it's still actually around.
...and even if Europe and Asia were totally wiped out by the Plague, you got your Native American, Pacific, and African civilizations. The Plague couldn't touch any of them.
I always wondered what really went on at the Oak Island site. (NOT referring to the cheesy TV show. The original mystery as explained in books 50 years ago)
That's not the point of the video. The point is that Occam's Razor works for science. You can either say the Earth is spherical afterwards to explain all of the evidence that exists or come up with fifteen different things to counter specific pieces of evidence and fulfill a preconceived notion the Earth is flat. Then the pieces that don't fit even after all that, blame it away on conspiracy. Its not like light being a particle and a wave at all.
I'm confused. Are you all saying that all of these guys are wrong? http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/ (I realized, the fact I had to try hard to post that link means I'm probably not allowed to. I can't delete this, but a mod should feel free.)
