I recently watched a documentary on Netflix called Behind The Curve, which is about the growing 'Flat Earth' movement. I wish there had been a bit more of the science behind it, and more rationale for why people defend this kind of belief, but it was still really good.
A few things that I took from this film. First, the people who think themselves the truly enlightened ones cannot imagine that they are creating a new dogma. Near the end some of the people were asked about what would happen if they decided to leave, if they changed their minds, and the answer is that they can't. The implication was that they are now too invested in this new mindset to ever admit wrongdoing.
Second, the loneliness that brought many of these people into this movement is the glue that holds them together. Are these mainly single white guys who live in their parents' basement? Perhaps...but more than anything, these are people who want to be a part of something, to feel involved, to be accepted for their peculiarities.
Third, the sense that they are their own highest authority is their true polar star (for them, a projection on a Truman Show-like dome over the earth, but whatever...). In the end, they are not really searching for truth, they are seeking to confirm their biases. We can't feel the movement of the earth? Thus it's not real! Several of the defenders mentioned that they really trusted nobody but themselves in figuring all this out. Even when irrefutable facts come, they will not change.
And finally, the battle that these adherents fight are always against the 'them'. 'Them' might mean the CIA, NASA, the scientific dogmatizers, but more likely just a nameless, faceless entity that these freethinkers believe are hiding the truth. It's all one great big conspiracy, and someday it will all come crashing down and the masses will finally see through this.
In watching this I was struck by how similar these Flat Earthers are similar to some of the religious dogmatists I know. I'm not talking about people who have a genuine love for God, a faith in Christ, an openness to see what the Spirit will do. Rather, I'm talking about people whose particular Biblical interpretations must be 'sound', whose doctrine must be never-changing, whose opinions are taken to be absoulte truth. In their minds they are not dogmatists, only defenders of the truth. They only bind together to hide their loneliness, but even with that those relationships are fragile if somebody strays from what the newly accepted dogma is. They believe there are mass conspiracies against them to pervert righteousness, and though they name 'them' sometimes they're better off just creating a straw man.
I do feel somewhat in sympathy with the Flat Earth folks, because in a way we are all people who create our own worldviews and defend them with our dying breaths. Some of us will at times change what we have to believe, but more likely we will hold onto what we believe, no matter how far-fetched it is.
