As so many others, I have recently gained a lot of interest in the flat Earth hypothesis. This seems to be a place where people are free to ask those who believe in a flat Earth model, so I'm gonna try my luck here. Now, I do have to ask that trolls stay clear of the reply button; I'm not really interested in answers that contain less than 3 sentences ("Thanks for asking", "You're condecending and close minded", "No shit, Sherlock" and the like).
After watching countless videos and reading dozens of articles from both people who believe the Earth is round and flat, there is one thing that kind of sticks out. Neither the "round Earth theory" or the "flat Earth hypothesis" can be proven as fact. Your belief in either one seems to be driven by what seems easier, more logical, more natural or less problematic. To put it simply; if one sounds too ridiculous to be true, you believe the other one.
I am going to make a statement. There is one problem with the "round Earth theory". There are an insane amount of problems with the "flat Earth hypothesis".
Therefore, obviously, I believe the Earth is round. I cannot prove that it is, but out of all available models, this is the one that is easiest, most logical, most natural and by far least problematic.
The problem with the "round Earth theory" is actually dark matter. This is the only thing in the entire model of the universe that defies common sense. For those who do not know, dark matter is a bit of a wildcard that scientists use to explain why the universe is expanding faster now than it has previously. If you pop a balloon, the air inside will rush out quickly at first, and then gradually slow down as the pressure is equalized between the air that was outside, and the air that was inside the balloon. What we are seeing out there in the heavens, is that galaxies are actually accelerating away from each other at a growing speed. Since the Big Bang can be seen as a balloon popping, one would assume that the speed of the expansion would decay over time, until a point where it is overcome by the gravity of mass of the universe. From there, things would reverse. All galaxies would pull on each other, until they all crash into one single point in space (The Big Crunch). The problem is that we can clearly see that the galaxies are doing the opposite; they are picking up more speed outwards. What force is driving this action? That is what we call dark matter. It is "a something" that for whatever reason is pushing everything further appart. The idea itself is not that hard to grasp; it is a directional force like any other force we have observed; it is simply a problem of us being unable to find and examine a piece of dark matter. Until we can actually point at such a piece and say "this is dark matter and this is why it is increasing the expansion of our universe", this will for me remain a logical problem. But like I said, the force is linear and similar to any other force we can observe. I would argue, and I will, that such a force is a lot easier to accept than most of the "flat Earth model" hypotheses regarding gravity, the motion of the sun and moon and so on.
Someone will probably at this point be thinking "hold on there, are you seriously suggesting that there is only ONE thing we don't understand in our current model of the universe?" and well - no, there are more. Lots more. However, there are several good hypotheses that can answer for everything else, and better yet - they can be tested and verified. This is not conclusive evidence of course, but there are at least ways to test that the logic is sound. This is how real science works, after all. And when I say everything, I do mean everything. Feel free to ask me specific questions if there are some phenomenon that you want explained by the "round Earth model". Things like infinity. Gravity. Light. Relativity. They are hard to grasp, and I can to some extent understand that people would refute them as "too ridiculous", but most of these hypotheses actually go both ways. Light rays that are bending over the horizon vs. light rays that are bending upwards so that you can't see the end of the flat World from anywhere. Same basic principle, when you think about it.
I'm not going to go through all the holes in the "flat Earth hypothesis"; that would take way too long, and as many "believers" have said - it is not a unified hypothesis, like the "round Earth theory" is. I'm sure someone will find a way to argue with this statement too because there are things out there that scientists disagree on, but compared to the "flat Earth hypothesis", it is pretty much unified. What I mean is that there is a general concensus as to where certain objects are, where they are going, why they are going, what forces and particles are real and so on.
Instead, I have selected one fundemental problem with the "flat Earth hypothesis", that I cannot explain by any logic. I can follow you if you say the Earth is a disk, that there is a conspiracy going on, that gravity is not real and whatever - all of these things can actually in my mind be true. However, there is one well known and well documented phenomenon that does not fit the "flat Earth model" in any way, shape or form.
It has been questioned before, but all questions I have read fail to account for all the different hypotheses regarding the "flat Earth model". The problem is eclipses.
"Not this again!". I can hear people sighing, but stay with me.
(Most of) the "flat Earth model(s)" say that the Earth is flat and the sun and moon are objects very close to us, that are going around in circles. They always stay in front of the Earth's plane, and the reason we can't always see them is that they get too small (perspective) and the sun shines like a spotlight, not an omnidirectional light source.
To explain why the sun shines like a spotlight, we have two possibilities. The sun could shaped in such a way that light only ever escapes in a very specific direction. Think of it like a huge rock with a hole in it, and a molten core that emmits light. The light from the core would only escape through the hole, and thus it shines like a spotlight. This idea would be very similar to how a volcano on Earth works, in the sense that we have a light emmiting, molten core that "shines" through the Earth's surface in some specific places. Lava is not quite as bright as the sun, but it might still be possible.
The problem with this model is that we can actually see that the sun emmits light in all directions. If the surface of the sun was 80% non-light emmitting material, then we would not be able to see stars in close proximity to the sun, as they would have been blocked by this "rock-like" material. I mean, the material blocks sunlight, so obviously it would also block starlight. Unless you are suggesting that there are more than one type of light, which again is way too problematic to be plausible. If you think of the sun as an actual spotlight, it is simply not possible that you won't see any of the non-light emmitting spotlight material at any given time, when the sun is rising or setting. It cannot be aimed at the whole Earth at once, so somewhere, someone would have noticed that the sun has "dark spots" where it is not emmitting any light.
The other possibility, is that something else is blocking the sunlight. The "flat Earth model" refers to a sort of invisible vortex that lies somewhere up in the heavens, and it is riddeled with holes. The material itself does not allow light to pass through it. Thus, the holes in the material is what causes the sunlight to act as a spotlight. It is the same basic principle as what I said earlier, but in this scenario the sun itself is an omnidirectional light source (which is what we see when we look at it).
And this is where we arrive at the problem with eclipses. In the "round Earth model", and eclipse is explained as a phenomenon where the Earth and moon are blocking each others line of sight to the sun. All objects involved in this process are moving at a (sort of) fixed tradjectory, and there is no random, magical force that somehow puts this in motion. Using this model, we can predict when and where it will happen, and it has never once been wrong.
In the "flat Earth model", this phenomenon is not really explained. A solar eclipse is easy enough, the moon blocks the sun. End of story. There is still the monumental problem of explaining the relative size and position of the sun and moon to make this happen, but that's not what I'm interested in (but do draw me a picture, if you think you can).
My beef is with lunar eclipses. Like I have explained, there is talk of a material out there that is causing the sun to act like a spotlight. It does not allow light to pass through it, but it does have holes in it. My best guess would be that lunar eclipses happen when the moon is supposed to be visible, but this material in the sky is somehow not properly aligned. It is partially blocking our view of the moon, bending the light to make it red. Well - why does this effect only happen during an eclipse, and not every single time the moon is covered, partially or otherwise, during the day? Many sources also claim the moon is a light source of it's own, which only serves to make this problem bigger. The sun glows red when it sets and rises, but the moon never does. The moon is only red during an eclipse. Another thing I have to point out is that the "flat Earth model" cannot predict when a solar or lunar eclipse happens. With the model that I believe in, I can make accurate predictions from now until the end of time, but no one can actually use the "flat Earth model" to do the same. If, for some reason, the "flat Earth model" happens to fit, if the invisible vortex in the sky has holes that make everything line up the way we actually see it, then yes - it could be true - but you still would not be able to make any predictions, because you cannot measure that this vortex is present.
But disregarding all that, the main problem and question is still present; if the moonlight is blocked both at regular daytime, nighttime (partially) and during an eclipse (completely), why does the light only bend during the eclipse? Why isn't the moon red more often?
And yes, I did say that I can follow you if you say the Earth is a disk and gravity is not real - and maybe even that there is a dome over our heads - but if you seriously suggest that the sun and moon are merely holographic projections created by the goverment, you might just be too dumb to deserve life. (Did I say that out loud?)