The Earth looks flat. And I've never seen solid evidence to suggest otherwise. Even Mars and the moon appear to be flat; while further study myst be done, I think there's sufficient reason to consider the possibility that flatness is the natural state of large objects, and that even the sun is flat.
What would the Moon and Mars have to look like to appear flat? Obviously they look flat (Mars at least) because we're looking at them from one angle.
The Moon however is clearly round, if you look at it through a telescope you can see that the craters only appear circular towards the center, and they appear distorted and stretched towards the edges. Wouldn't this suggest that you are looking at those craters from the side?
Wouldn't the shadow on the moon also suggest that it is round? How would the Sun cast a round shadow on the Moon unless the Moons surface was curved?
You misunderstand me, but I can see where I was a little vague in what I was getting across so that's okay. Mars and the moon both appear round from Earth; any lunatic can see that (even one who's in that state because he's been exposed to the moon's rays).
It's the images of the moon and Mars up close that strongly suggests that these bodies are actually flat. If we are to take NASA at face value, and assume there is no Conspiracy to hide the shape of the Earth, then we have photographic evidence that these bodies are actually flat. They just appear round when seen from very far away, through the medium of space.
This is, of course, consistent with what we observe of the Earth, as well; from very far away, the Earth's surface appears to curve, until you get so far away that it appears to curve back onto itself, into what appears for all the world to be a ball.
So as you can see, the evidence is quite compelling that the Earth isn't the only flat body we observe in the universe, and we can safely extrapolate that the universe is likely lousy with them.
But when you look at them up close, they do not appear flat. If you take a telescope in your backyard, and point it at the Moon, the craters become more eliptical and curved around an axis as you get closer to the edge.
What could make such a crater? Or how can vacuum alter light to make it "seem" round? How does Flat Earth Theory explain the phases of the Moon and Venus? How does it explain the rotation of Jupiter's cloud belts and the red spot?
Also, when you get farther away from a planet, it "appears to curve back onto itself" because you are viewing the edges from a sharper angle. You can see it's features warping around the center.
If you view a flat surface, nearly every point should have the same angle, or the warped features would be parallel rather than curved and perpendicular to the center. Mars may still appear flat, because it doesn't have many prominent figures for reference.
But even it was flat, how would it look any different (from this distance) being a sphere?
You can replicate the effect with a ball and a small camera. Up close, it would appear flat, but as you got farther away, the camera would be able to see the edges from sharper angles and see that it is spherical, not because of a trick of light, but because of simple geometry.
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