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That was the original intent behind the Flat Earth Society. It was an exercise in defending the indefensible. It's supposed to be about honing your debating skills, but has now taken on a life of its own.

A lot of the arguments are actually rather brilliant and you can tell someone very clever who actually understands the concepts came up with them. Most of them prey on a common misconception or misunderstanding.

A good example of a well-made argument is the whole "shouldn't it be midnight at noon on the opposing soltice?" On the face of it, it's a solid argument if you assume a 24 hour day measures one 360 degree rotation of the Earth. But it doesn't. Solar time isn't the same thing as sidereal time, just like clock time isn't the same as real time. It takes 24 hours for the same spot on earth to do one full revolution BACK TO FACING THE SUN (eg. Less than 360 degrees). A sidereal day (eg. An actual full rotation of 360 degrees) is longer than 24 hours. The trick is that most people don't understand/know the difference.

Clock time is an abstract mathematical idea that attempts to average out the whole day, at any time of year, into equally sized hours. But you have to understand that isn't real time in the way it was always measured. Consider that on a sundial, sunrise and sunset always happen at the same time. So when the sun sets at 4pm "of the clock" (that's where the term o'clock comes from) in the winter and 10pm in the summer, on a sun dial it's always a 12 hour day and a 12 hour night. It's the length of the hour that changes. This was even a problem back in Roman days when the peasants realized they were working stupidly long "hours" in the winter vs summer.

Anyways I could go on forever, but my point is that you're correct. The arguments were all constructed by people who knew they were false arguments. Figuring out what the trick is is half the fun.

Most of the people pushing the flat earth theory are just jaded and distrustful of the goverment and authority (with good reason). I assume they're mostly well-meaning, and I don't bother engaging with them on the topic, because the OP is also correct - they aren't looking for the truth as much as they are looking for an alternative to an authority who has betrayed their trust one time too many.