I wish I'd read it first, certainly. It's a great idea to challenge people to question beliefs. But it's done very dishonestly under the guise of sincerity by many who falsely purport to believe in a Flat Earth.
But a number of people who post here do sincerely believe in a flat Earth. As for the rest of us, well, how exactly are we supposed to "challenge people to question beliefs" if they aren't led to take the notion seriously in the first place?
Dishonest debate sucks when only one person knows he doesn't actually believe what he's arguing for.
I disagree. I think a good debater convinces his opponents that he really believes what he's arguing. Haven't you ever played Devil's Advocate in an argument just for the intellectual exercise of arguing for something with which you don't agree, or to try to understand things from the perspective of the other side? Or are you one of those people for whom everything is black and white, and all that matters is what you are convinced is right?
People who do it and feel good about it could have a great career in politics.
Now that's just hitting below the belt!
What attracted me to this site was the notion that yet another well funded government lie and coverup might exist, among so many others. The American government was in on the Oklahoma City bombing, the first World Trade center bombing, 9/11 and more, so I would not put anything past the U.S. government.
Do you have any tangible evidence of these allegations or are you just parroting what you've heard others say?
But having a bunch of liars pretending to believe something they don't believe just to toy with people who are trying to be serious for having taken the site at face value (a.k.a. believing a host of lies passed off as the truth) is clearly deeply disturbing to many new people -- with good reason.
Nobody does it "just to toy with people". For me and many others it's mostly about the intellectual stimulation provided by the debate. Others, as I pointed out before, do honestly believe in a flat Earth. You may not believe it but Tom Bishop is a genuine Flat Earth advocate, and there are several others.
In other words, the flaming by newbies should be expected and in some ways seems to be intentionally created and harvested for amusement value alone.
It's an amusing side effect of the forums, to be sure, but to suggest that it's in any way intentional seems like a stretch to me. Judging from comments he's made in the past (some in areas of the forums to which most people don't have access) I can say pretty positively that it wasn't what Daniel had in mind when he created the site. It's just something that was unavoidable because people tend to flame what they don't understand, particularly on the internet.
But to each his own.
You know how to leave if you don't like it. Just hit that "X" at the top right of your browser. If you wish to hang around and enjoy the debate that provides the rest of us with so much amusement, or even to continue on your crusade to show the truth to the noobs, feel free. The dozens of times that I myself have "come clean" without any prior provocation to do so should demonstrate how little it matters to me.