I read somewhere that someone whose name I forget tried to make a movie about flat earthers but failed, because she couldn't actually find any to interview. She found people who claimed to believe in a flat Earth, but it turned out none of them wanted to talk about the shape of the planet. Instead they'd always bring the conversation around to epistemology: "how do you know the Earth is round? did institutions tell you that? why do you trust them? how can one truly know what is real?" etc. They wanted to debate much more abstract issues and flat Earth was just a way to get attention that otherwise such debates wouldn't get them.
I know a family of flat earthers and for them they'll just appeal to the Bible as an authority on the subject. Apparently there are some verses that imply the earth is flat.
I found this out when the 10-year-old son attempted to lecture me on how I should "do my research"--by which he meant, study the Bible.
That sounds like some creative interpretation.
It was well known in antiquity that the earth was round, they even managed to calculate it‘s radius. (as well as the size and distance of the noon and the sun).
The idea that everything was made up of 4 elements (or a rather a combination of those) also assumed a round earth. Early things are heaviest and sink to the bottom, water is lighter than earth, air lighter than water and fire is lighter than air (that’s why the stars, made up of fire, are at the very top)
The church never disputed the earth being round.
They were pretty adamant about it being the center of the cosmos though, with the sun orbiting it.
FE “theory” often contains biblical references such as “the firmament” which if you try to ask what that is you won’t really get a clear explanation. I can’t stress enough that zero of it is remotely coherent.
Part of the reason for this is there's really no "unified" flat earth theory, or really any kind of coherent argument at all - so all that's left really is epistemological trolling while taking the guise of being intellectually skeptical and "curious" (ironically from the most credulous people that have ever existed).
