1

Flat Earth Q&A / DO NOT POST ON THIS FORUM IT'S ALL A SOCIOLOGICAL EXPERIMENT

« on: August 19, 2005, 07:10:27 AM »

No, I am the smart one, really.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Here's proof for you

« on: August 19, 2005, 07:09:23 AM »

RE: Ninja Hippy, "sphere of vision" is simply different terminology describing the same optics you attempted to describe. The fact that you've never heard this terminology before does not mean it doesn't exist. Terminology comes into existence to (get this) describe things, if there were people like you standing next to everyone who proposed a new term (not that it was my term) then we wouldn't have any terminology in the first place. Stop remembering and start thinking :!:

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Flat Earth Q&A / Here's proof for you

« on: June 29, 2005, 10:23:35 PM »

I was taking the piss I don't believe the earth is flat.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Here's proof for you

« on: June 29, 2005, 09:26:21 PM »

I thought I explained that rather well, oh well I guess I know nothing about optics.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 29, 2005, 04:01:48 PM »

I didn't come here intending to be a troll, but I must admit that I was pretty disappointed to find that either there aren't any genuine flat-earthers here or that they're heavily in the minority so I thought meh why not! It took me like an hour to come up with a response to that list of objections you posted so it was getting a bit out of hand for a joke. Ah well, if there aren't any genuine flat earthers out there have fun with the next troll.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 29, 2005, 03:49:39 PM »

To be honest, I was just taking that argument as far as I could take it. I don't believe the earth is flat, I don't really believe anyone on this forum believes the earth is flat because for over 2000 years virtually every educated person in the western world has believed the earth to be round (despite the commonly held belief that people in medieval England thought otherwise). Barely any Christians have believed the world was flat either for that matter, in fact if you went out there and looked for them you'd probably find as many people who believe in ghost pirates as those who believe in a flat earth - given that there are 6 billion of us, you're bound to have a few people out there with whatever bizarre belief you can think up.  

Anyway I gave it my best shot, but it was hard work thinking up all that crap I just argued in the above posts so I admit defeat. I had my fun.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / nobody argues from the Bible here!!??

« on: June 29, 2005, 11:59:55 AM »

some sort of deranged fundamentalist Christians of the kind who still believe in creationism.

careful buddy, you're talking about 44% of the USA, and probably lots more around the world.

and i don't understand these people who claim to be non-religious, but still believe in a flat earth. why would earth be flat when all the other planets are round? how would a flat planet possibly form from un-guided evolutionary processes? and how the hell would day and night, plus the apparent motion of the stars work on a flat earth, unless you envoke geocentrism, which then leads us back to the question of Why Earth, if nobody "picked" our little planet to be the special one. i don't understand how any non-religious person can possibly accept flat earth theories.

Well I don't want to post something anti-U.S, but I wasn't aware that 44% of the U.S still believed in creationism, that is quite a large percentage for a theory I find there is little evidence for (in my opinion).

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Announcements / Forums announcements, suggestions, etc..

« on: June 29, 2005, 11:56:52 AM »

How do we change our title to "round earther" or "flat earther"?

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Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 29, 2005, 11:45:23 AM »

Before I explain how ignorant of basic properties of science you are and how inconsistent your logic is, can you explain how the earth is set up in your flat model? Do you adopt the standard model where Antarctica the exterior of the earth? And what is in the center? Once you explain how "your" flat earth model is situated, I'll reply to your garbage.

I have already said that the burden of proof is on you (refer to the formula above - which you have not disputed) therefore you keep asking me what my model of the earth is - well I do not have some advanced model with 150 foot ice walls (that notion sounds equally ridiculous to me as it does to you I imagine) and to formulate such a model is a mistake in the context of this argument because the focus will instantly turn to my model - "how can that be the model?" you will say, "surely my round earth model is much more likely to be the actual model even though it is based on similar assumptions as your model". Which due to the stranglehold your faith in your assumptions has over you is an argument you would never accept - even if I had some "perfect" flat earth model that I don't profess to have (unlike the flat earth society).

As I have already shown however, the fact that you find one more likely than the other does not matter when the actual model is concerned - if ghost pirates did exist then you would not think they existed and favour a much more likely (in your opinion) guess as to why a ship would "vanish". Nevertheless the fact would remain that the ship's disappearance was the result of ghost pirates - to treat your guess as 100% accurate simply because you happen to think it more likely than other guesses is absurd. I'm trying to ask you to open your mind and consider why you think you know the earth is round, why you know for absolute certain 100% that it is round and once you consider this you will see that your "proof" is in fact not incompatible with a flat earth as you would like to think but based on a whole series of assumptions - like the perfect nature of navigational equipment (an example of your masochist tendencies concerning science - I could list thousands of inventions that were deemed to be "perfect", the first clocks for example, which lost seconds over the course of a year but were presumed "perfect" because their inventors said so). Therefore, what I am attempting to show you is not an alternative model (based on different assumptions to yours - which nevertheless are assumptions) but to show how your "proof" is not incompatible with a flat earth.

So let me get this straight. Astronauts from over 30 countries have been in space. There are currently 16 countries working on the International Space Station. and thousands of people. There are countless more involved in these and other activities - companies which provide satellite services, and control their own satellites, for example. So according to you: Thousands if not millions of people are keeping the biggest secret in the history of mankind. Never has anyone spilled the beans and claimed the millions of dollars and fame, never has a shred of evidence been left, never has anyone in the 30 years of spaceflight figured it out. Thousands of people's salaries are paid by the government just to give the image of a space program. Which is more likely: A) all of that B) It's all real. I think B is the obvious choice.

Well I certainly don't feel like repeating myself so I will ask you to read the first section of my post again. You are getting bogged down arguing over my example as to how your proof is not incompatible with a flat earth (not to mention the historical precedent concerning issues such as these - the fairies are clearly not the only example). Again you say your guess is more likely than my example as if this is somehow proof that your guess is 100% accurate. This is of course absurd as I have already said, simply because you only see two options in front of you explaining a certain event and happen to favour one of these options over the other (though many people might favour the other option and this is entirely a guess on your part - more than likely based on some minor misunderstanding that is influencing your decision subconsciously) does not make your guess (and only your guess, not the guess that all humans would go for - as I have already said, in an original position without prior knowledge, the majority would undoubtedly reject the counter-intuitive theory of a round earth) 100% true, it only makes your guess the guess that you personally happen to think is more likely. I have already went into great detail concerning this problem with your logic so I ask you again to read what is written in the first section of this post.

You are badly misinformed here. We know exactly how fast light travels in a vacuum. How do you think we know anything at all about space? We disect the light that shines in from above. Light is the most important entity in astronomy. Putting that aside, your explanation for this is basically "There might be something else going on". That is not an explanation, that is a complete admittance that you have no idea. A round earth, and the current laws of physics explain it perfectly. Your "Something else might be occuring" is hardly a more convincing account.

No, I happen to know your theory of what space consists of, I was clearly alluding to the idea that we have never been in space to formulate such "concrete" theories of what space consists of and even if we had been in space to formulate such theories that would not give them the concrete proof that "this is how light travels" in space. I refer back to the example of the sea, given a sample of water from the dead sea (having never had a sample of sea water) we would come to the conclusion that "all of the sea naturally has the same salt content as this sample" this would be taken on as dogma by the likes of yourself and anyone who disagreed with this would be ridiculed and attacked for daring to question the assumption that the individual or small group of scientists who made this proclamation may have in fact got it wrong - and in this case did get it very wrong. If we can't get it right about our own oceans then how can we trust theories concerning something as vast as space - and of course this is if you assume that human beings have ventured into space in the first place.

Um...why exactly would we see the ship sink? You say it is so, but that does not make it so. It seems to me that on a flat surface you'd see the entire object shrink until you can no longer see it. Which is exactly what happens with smaller objects and smaller distances in everyday observation. I've never seen an object "sink" away in the distance. Except, of course, on the horizon. Your answer is completely unsatisfactory.

I have given an explanation of how a ship (or any object) disappears from vision when it reaches a certain distance from the viewer - it is amazing how many people seem to think that humans are blessed with the incredible eyesight to be able to see something in front of them even if it is thousands of miles away. What you are discussing here however (and I misread this at first so apologies) is the phenomena of a ship appearing to disappear from the bottom up - i.e. the bottom of the ship disappears - the top remains the same size then disappears completely as if it were travelling over a hill. Well at the risk of parrotting you here, I am going to say that just because you say it is so does not make it so - I have never once stood on a beach and watched a ship disappear from view in this way, I challenge you to provide video footage or some other evidence to prove this because whenever I have stood and watched something disappear in the distance it has been the result of it becoming hazy in amongst cloud etc - on a dull day, on a perfectly clear day the only way I have seen a ship disappear from sight has been in the manner I described before - with the gradual shrinking out of view as it gets farther away.

In fact I'm going to assume that you yourself have never seen a ship disappear in this manner and are in fact using a rather circular justification for this. You haven't seen a ship disappear (because even if a ship did disappear in this way you would have to either have a vantage point that was hundreds or thousands of meters above sea level to see it or an advanced telescope) in this manner but have instead supposed that this is how ships disappear because of your theory about the shape of the earth - "ships must disappear in this way because the earth is round, therefore as ships must disappear in this way the earth must be round". Provide some evidence - video footage for example - and I shall argue against each point of evidence in turn, I do not accept that this is how it happens just because you say so however.

For your explanation to be the case, the sun would have to obviously violate all known laws of stars. The laws of physics would have to be violated with this sun, and you'd have to throw the entire field of astronomy pretty much out the window as well. So you want us to basically throw decades of science out the window, for no reason? I don't think so. You need a little thing called evidence. How does this sun work? How does it exist, being far to small to actually be a star? What is its mechanism of motion? You have no details. Also, what happens when the sun gets to the "end" of the flat earth? Why isn't it dark all over the earth when the sun is on the "other" side, working it's way back to the starting point?
I can give a more convincing and detailed criticism once you explain exactly how your flat earth is arranged. Please do so. I'm going to repeat myself here because I don't want you "forgetting" to give this detail. How is your flat earth arranged?

This is the exact same argument you are making that I addressed in the first part of this post, I have already clearly answered this with that response so I'm not going to repeat it again. However, my point is that for seasons and timezones to exist, all that is required is that the sun move in two directions to the earth at the one time - the shape of the planet being round is not a fundamental requirement for timezones and seasons to exist as you want it to be. I offered an illustrative example of this (that is all that was an illustrative example). The problem with the "sun being at the other side of the world" is rectified by simply adding a slight rotation to the earth - because I do not believe like some of the more naive "flat earthers" have believed that the earth is 100% stationary.

So again...what is your model exactly. Kind of an important detail.

Read the first part of this post again (for the fifth time).

So when the sun is "all the way" north, lighting up the north pole for 3 straight months...why isn't it the hottest place on earth at that time? According to you, it seems like amount of sunlight = amount of heat. After all, that's how you are explaining the seasons. So it seems to me that the north pole, during it's summer, should be the hottest place on the earth. Ditto for the South Pole. But that is certainly not the case. Again, give me your flat earth model and I'll go into more detail as if your glaring inconsistencies aren't enough. You are very vague here, as usual. So once again...why accept this "theory" when a spherical earth explains it IN DETAIL, and so easily?

I did not say that the amount of sunlight = the amount of heat at any given moment. Temperatures on the earth are far more complex than simply - more sun = hotter. The North pole may have the most sunlight at a given point in the year - it does in your round earth model too I hate to tell you  :roll: - but that does not mean it is the hottest place on the planet. Two reasons are that firstly a great amount of heat in our planet comes from the earth itself - the amount of heat absorbed by the ground being released or for example, phenomena like the gulf stream which keeps the UK much warmer than countries further East of it (which if the only cause of temperature on earth were the position of the sun at that moment should surely be exactly the same temperature as the UK). As the North Pole is not exposed to the greatest aggregate amount of sunlight over the course of the year but rather the countries on the traditional "equator" are, then naturally it is not the warmest place on the planet. Secondly, as the sun would move in two directions it is entirely plausible that the North pole at a given point will be exposed to sunlight for 24 hours a day, however at an intensity less than points on the planet which are exposed to the sun for 12 hours for example - and consequently receiving more heat though less sunlight. I expect you will scoff at this suggestion but this is after all how things are supposed to work in the round earth theory - the North Pole receiving 24 hours of sunshine does not make it the warmest place on earth.

Your reason is completely unsatisfactory. Explain how exactly both instrumentation and direct visual contact with the skies can be "mistaken" to fool someone into thinking they've gone around the world, when in fact they haven't. You said something about compasses may not work right; well, that isn't going to get someone around the world.

Explain why you think that human beings are capable of inventing "perfect" (nothing less, only perfect will do for the purpose of the example) navigation tools which can guarantee that you travel in a straight line. Consider also the historical precedent of supposedly "perfect" inventions that were proven to be far less than perfect - the clocks I have already mentioned for example and just as an amusing sidenote which perhaps says something about human nature, there was a theory circulated at the time of these first clocks which stated that the problem was not with the clock being wrong but that time itself had in fact shifted and we were losing seconds every year! The proof of this was of course that the clock showed it had shifted (clocks taken to be perfect inventions which were never wrong because their inventor said as much). The cult of the perfect clock is exactly the same as the cult of the perfect navigation tools and as with time, the scale of the task carried out with less than perfect tools can have very significant consequences (like losing seconds over a full year or straying vastly off course).

I'm not talking about the movements of the stars from a fixed point. I'm talking about how they move as you travel north/south, and how they are UPSIDE DOWN depending on which hemisphere you are in. You see the bodies upside down in opposite hemispheres because you are ACTUALLY STANDING upside down relative to where you were before. It has nothing to do with the "earth's movement" as you state. The rise and fall of them as well...you are walking along a curve, and the heavens rise/fall as you traverse the curve. So again...a phenomenon easily explained with a spherical earth you propose to replace with "We don't know the exact movements". Hardly a convincing reply.

I stand by what I have previously stated, you are attempting to apply your rules of astronomy (which are all based on a fundamental assumption that the earth is round and not at the center of the universe) to an entirely different system. Every major astronomical study from which you base your "knowledge" has worked under the assumption that the earth is round since around the 3rd century BC. Were the earth flat these theories would mean absolutely nothing. To apply your astronomical rules to an earth where entirely different astronomical rules would have to be formulated and then be shocked when they don't fit in the new system is ridiculous. Of course they don't fit in a flat earth system because every astronomical study for over 2000 years has been conducted under the assumption that the earth is round and therefore the findings of such studies all stem from this assumption. Were the assumption in every astronomical study that the earth were flat then the findings would be entirely different.

If you do not believe this then it is simply another symptom of your naivety concerning the objective nature of science, however an example comes from science itself which proves the point that the assumptions made by the scientific observer drastically alter the findings of the study - the debate over whether light travels in a wave or as particles. Here depending on the way in which experiments were set up it could be proven that light travelled in a wave in one experiment, yet proven that light travelled as particles in another experiment - despite it previously being "proven" that light travels as a wave. As this example shows (and I urge you to read more about this debate if you haven't already because I have only touched on it) the assumptions of a scientist (or in this case astronomer) are of huge influence to the eventual findings - even if this inquiry is carried out with the most objective of intentions. As such, it would be utterly impossible for the astronomical rules devised under the assumption that the earth is round to fit perfectly in a system where the earth is flat, only someone who naively believes that scientific enquiry can be carried out in an objective manner where the assumptions of the scientist have no bearing on the findings could possibly believe this.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 28, 2005, 09:53:34 PM »

I think I've already explained that the burden of proof is on you, you haven't said anything to refute my little equation so that is still the situation. Now I'm glad that you have decided to try and prove your theory so I will address each of your points.

1) We have photos of the earth. Space travel happens these days you know, and pictures of the earth show it to be a sphere. As well, there are thousands of satellites in ORBIT around the earth.

For a brief period in the early twentieth century we had photos of fairies, as it stands today we have photos of the planet Coruscant in Star Wars showing it to be a sphere also. Does this mean that fairies exist or that the planet Coruscant exists and or is a sphere? A photograph is only an expression of the person who took the photograph, there is a long line of hoaxes and "ghosts in the lens" hysteria throughout human history and the existence of a photograph says very little given the technology humans currently possess. Now, why would somebody fake such a photo?

As I've stated in another thread on this subject in such a position it would be impossible to know, but one theory that has been put forward is that these are not so much created in order to dupe us into believing that the world is round when it is really flat, but rather, if someone were to fake a photograph for other reasons (say for example, that we are really not capable of space travel and governments use this to account for missing funds) then a hoax photograph would naturally be of a round world - given the popularity of this theory.

There is actually a documented hoax image which Aristotle mentions on this subject (I'm sorry I read this in the "critical assessments of Aristotle" so I don't have a website to link to) where a man professed to have travelled into the heavens and painted the image of the world from his vantage point as proof (detailing various made up continents that did not actually exist, but were given as proof that he had seen something not possible to see from the ground during this period). Naturally however, the world appeared to be flat in this painting - had it been round, then given the dominant theory in those days, the chances of convincing anyone that he had in fact painted this from the heavens would have been virtually nil. The point of this story is that in attempting to convince people of a hoax, human beings will naturally pander to the most popular theories of the day - this is why alien hoaxes always seem to feature flying saucers and aliens who look exactly like a guy in a rubber suit despite the infinite possibilities for what an alien spaceship or alien might look like. I should also state that I don't believe in the Loch Ness monster either despite various images existing which have not yet been proven to be hoaxes.

The shadow of the earth on the moon is always a curve during an eclipse, no matter the relative position of the moon to the earth. The only geometric shape which casts a curved shadow (with roughly equal curvature) in ALL directions is a sphere.

Never having entered space it is impossible for us to know how light travels in space. Consequently this phenomena may be the result of some other factor - for example some sort of warped light diffraction which occurs in space as a result of the unique environment. For example, if we had never been under water before then we may expect sound to travel in exactly the same way under water as it does out of water, this is obviously not the case however. The environment in which light or sound travels can affect how it travels (as we have seen from examples of different environments on earth) so not knowing what the environment of space consists of it is impossible to make such a blanket statement that the only shape that can result in the pattern on the moon is a sphere. We know that light diffracts and that the movement of waves changes given different environments, it is entirely possible that this accounts for the spherical appearance on the moon. Perhaps (as is a very prominent theory that exists in the flat earth literature of the ancient greeks - the idea of a round earth has had prominence since about the 3rd century BC incidentally, despite what we are told, so this is why the flat earth/round earth debates are focussed on ancient greek writers) all light travel within space (not knowing what space consists of) results in light appearing as spherical much in the same way that sound waves in water appear muffled to the human ear or the way a perfect spherical rainbow is created. This also accounts for objection 8.

We see the ship (or any other object) disappear, bottom to top, down the horizon.

I've stated this in another thread, but even if the world were entirely flat and a ship sailed in a perfectly straight line away from you, we would still see the ship disappear bottom to top because the area of our sphere of vision occupied by the ship would gradually shrink vertically until it became too tiny to see.

We have time zones. If the earth were flat, we would not.

Time zones are created by the sun moving across the earth (or in round earth theory, the earth spinning so that each area is exposed to the sun on a different point). Regardless, time zones are not incompatible with a flat earth at all, were there a theory that the sun and earth stayed in exactly the same position at all times then there would be no time zones. However the sun moving across the earth would create time zones in much the same way that it would in the round earth theory - the sun moves so therefore it is further away from certain points than others at any given point, naturally therefore timezones come into existence because there are different levels of light on different areas of the earth at any given moment.

We have seasons. Not only do we have seasons, but they are opposite in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. If the earth were flat, we would not.

You are making the assumption that my conception of a flat earth is the conception of a flat earth put forward by the flat earth society. I do not agree with this model, I am not a flat earth society member and to my mind it appears that this model would be incompatible with seasons (I'm sure they have some justification for it, but to my mind it seems like they've just copied the UN logo). As with timezones a flat earth is not incompatible with seasons because the sun will always be a different distance away from two given points on the earth at any one time.

This is exactly the same with time zones, the only difference is that either (whichever argument you prefer) the sun is moving in two directions to the earth at one time - which it would be practically impossible for it not to - for example it is moving across the earth horizontally, but also slightly to the "north" each day for the first half of the year and across the earth horizontally but slightly to the "south" each day for the second half of the year - or the earth is also moving. Regardless of what the actual system is, all that is required for timezones and seasons are that the sun moves in two directions at once to the earth, something which it would be practically impossible for it not to do if it moved at all (and you took the earth to be stationary, which I don't, but for argument's sake I will) therefore on any given hour the sun would be a different distance away from each point on the earth in one direction and on any given day the sun would be a different distance away from each point of the earth in another direction. Seasons and timezones are not therefore incompatible with a flat earth - though this argument seems to get banded about a lot for some reason.

An extention of #5, the poles experience 3 months of relatively complete light or darkness in their summer/winter months. This effect lessens as you approach the equator, where you have roughly 12 hour days year round.

Again this is not incompatible with a flat earth, were a system like the one I previously mentioned in place where the sun moved in one direction for half of the year and in another for the other half then this would make complete sense and is entirely applicable to a flat earth - in fact I dare say it's more convincing than the "alternative" theory you subscribe to. Though as I have already mentioned I am merely pointing out why these objections are not incompatible with a flat earth rather than saying that my objections are actually how the earth exists - they are merely objections that disprove the notion that these items (seasons, timezones etc) could not exist with a flat earth - they can and as such these points do not amount to proof of a counter-intuitive theory.

----

Edit - I seem to have missed some, but it's late here so I'll forgive me.

9 - I've already argued against this from the original post, I haven't received a suitable answer to my objections as of yet so I will consider this point unproven.

8 - I argued against this in my answer to number two.

7 - This is not incompatible with a flat earth as we do not know the exact movements of stars if we reject the assumption that is made when we say the earth is round. The star's movement in your theory states that the primary source of their movement (though they may be moving of their own accord, but this is barely noticeable from the earth) stems from the earth's movement. In my theory this account of how the stars move (or in your theory "appear to move") obviously cannot exist with a flat earth, therefore another explanation for the star's movement must exist were the earth flat - which I will attempt to answer if you like, but the purpose of my posts here are to prove how your objections are not incompatible with a flat earth. Therefore we cannot take the rules of the game were things to exist under your system and place them into my system, because they existence of a flat earth would fundamentally alter all our astronomical theories concerning the movements of the stars as the main assumption of astronomers for around 2000 years has been that the earth is round.

11

Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 28, 2005, 08:11:15 PM »

The burden of proof is on you because your theory is counter-intuitive. The world appears flat to the individual (be it round or flat, it appears flat to you if you look out of your window). The only reason you say the burden of proof is on me is because it so happens that the majority believe in your theory. As we are merely discussing this between ourselves the opinion of the majority of people do not enter this conversation in any way. I'll write you a little equation of sorts.

IF.... The world appears to be flat to person A and person B.
AND.... Person A says the world is indeed flat.
AND.... Person B says the world is round.
THEN.... The burden of proof is on person B to prove his theory.

ALL THE EVIDENCE POINTS TO A ROUND EARTH across many, many, many avenues. There is so much evidence for this "theory" - INCLUDING PHOTOS OF THE EARTH, satellite orbits, round the world cruises and flights, time zones, seasons, eclipse shadows, the horizon, and SO ON - that it is beyond any REASONABLE doubt. The burden of proof has been met, met again, and surpassed.

Feel free to prove your theory then, the only "proof" that has been offered so far is the argument in the first post which I have argued against and personally find inadequate because for it to be regarded as proof requires a hugh amount of faith in the assumptions that scientists/inventors have made with regards to a whole number of things - notably astronomy and navigational tools - and what's more that these scientific assumptions must be 100% correct for them not to affect the direction of the ship.

See the part in bold? To turn ENOUGH for this effect to cause people to think the earth was round if it were indeed flat you'd have to turn a heck of a lot. You don't veer 1 degree off course and end up back where you started.

If you want to perform the exact mathematical equation as to how far off course the ship would have to go then feel free, though as the first poster made this entire scenario up I don't think that is possible. As far as I'm concerned we are having a completely hypothetical argument and as such I have answered the argument adequately.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense to claim those reasons as favorable to a spherical earth in the face of all the OTHER evidence. And 1+1=3 now, too.

What you personally think is the most likely reason for the ship going off course matters little to the actual reason why the ship went off course. If there were in fact some invisible ghost pirates out there capturing ships and making them disappear then you and I would not believe that were the reason for the ship disappearing in fact we would both find the idea incredibly silly. Nonetheless if the ghost pirates existed that would be the reason for the ships disappearance - your own personal opinions (and mine) about which was more likely wouldn't matter in the slightest.

Nonetheless, as we are talking about which is the more likely theory I maintain that were we to arrive at (to borrow John Rawls' terminology) an "original position" where neither of us held any beliefs as to the merits of navigational equipment, the shape of the earth or whatever, the majority would more than likely select the theory that the ship did not in fact travel in a straight line over the idea that it did travel in a straight line on a round earth, simply because the round earth theory is counter-intuitive.

12

Flat Earth Q&A / Here's proof for you

« on: June 28, 2005, 07:55:18 PM »

You wouldn't be able to see a continent (unless we're talking about a continent exceptionally close to your position - like if you stand on the southern tip of Spain and look towards Morocco - which you can obviously see) even if you were standing on a perfectly flat surface. If you stood in some massive room (say 10 miles long) then you would not be able to see a ball lying on the ground 7 miles from where you're standing for example. The reason is that on a perfectly flat surface you view everything from the angle that your head is at to the ground - i.e. for the first meter or so the angle is fairly steeply above the ground, every meter away from you that you go the angle from your head to the point you wish to see gets smaller until the changes in angle are minimal. Therefore in your sphere of vision (yes I do believe the eye is round  :wink: ) you have a large area of your eye looking at the first meter or so away from you, with less and less of the sphere of your vision for each point that is further away from you. As such when you get to say 2,000 miles away from you, the object is so ridiculously small - or more accurately, occupies such a ridiculously small area of your sphere of vision - that it is not visible.

Seriously, this is one of the silliest objections I've heard. Unless you think that all people are blessed with some incredible super hero-esque ability to see things tousands of miles away from their vantage point then it's obvious you wouldn't be able to see a continent thousands of miles away - on a flat surface or otherwise.

13

Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 28, 2005, 07:35:09 PM »

First of all that was a typo I know it's magnetism and how a compass works, apologies for the typo. Secondly, we are not talking about some sort of incredible mistake that has resulted in a compass pointing North when we're actually going South, we were talking about potentially minor flaws in our assumptions about a compass that may send us ever so slightly off course (which over many thousands of miles becomes significantly off course). Stars in this instance would be of limited use - consider for example, you were in some incredibly long swimming pool (say 100,000 meters). Now imagine that you were to swim the back stroke for the entire length of the pool (assuming that this was actually possible - I don't think anyone could swim that length). To make sure you go in a straight line you use your own sense of direction and gauge your journey by looking at the roof of the building (this pool is indoors) while you swim.

If your sense of direction is off by even a slight margin, and if the pattern on the roof is not 100% straight then you will veer way off the straight line you intend to swim. Why is it so difficult to entertain the thought that the same may happen to a ship? Perhaps the compass that we assume allows us to travel in a perfect straight line is in fact not completely perfect. Perhaps the assumptions we make about the stars movement which allows them to be used as a navagation tool are misplaced also. If this is the case even to a tiny degree, then travelling in a straight line would be virtually impossible. I do not place 100% faith in the theories of the day - paradigms - because human history has proven that what has at one time been considered "unquestionable truth" was in fact demonstrably false - everyone used to believe in a flat earth you know! Therefore, as someone who is not a masochist to the theories and assumptions of a select few humans who call themselves scientists I do not think it is outwith the realms of possibility to consider that what we assume about navigational tools is not in fact 100% correct (and even a slight fault in them will result in a large mistake over a large enough distance).

As for the other theories I am not going to list a series of my own personal theories on why a ship would "disappear" from the horizon, the point is not that I have some alternative world view that can dispell all of your beliefs, but that to assume to know everything is to live in complete ignorance. To be a masochist to the assumptions of an individual or group of scientists and assume 100% truth in their theories and the accuracy of their inventions is absurd and ignores all the lessons of history in my opinion. So what other explanations could be given? Any explanation - space aliens, invisible mirrors, bizarre vanishing ships, ghost pirates, it doesn't matter, yours is the counter-intuitive theory, the burden of proof is on you.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 28, 2005, 07:09:11 PM »

You misunderstand the point of my post, I was not saying that the one compass that happened to be used in this example may be faulty so the ship may have went of course. I was saying the science behind the assumptions we make about a compass - i.e. that if a compass is always pointing in the same direction on a ship then you are going in a straight line for the whole duration of the journey - is based on assumptions itself. The only reason we believe that a compass can be used in this way is because it was assumed that there is a gravitational pull towards North that is so accurate that from this we can guage direction perfectly.

This is itself an assumption, therefore you can make a choice as to which assumption you want to make regarding this example, did the ship disappearing stem from a round earth or from our assumptions on the workings of a compass being misplaced? Why is the automatic assumption that the earth is round when there can be many different reasons for the ship disappearing from sight? Don't you think it's a tad odd that the immediate reaction of almost the entire world is to cry that the earth is round - a pretty bizarre theory itself at one time and were we in a neutral circumstance (i.e. where neither of us held a belief about the ability of compasses or the shape of the earth) it would almost certainly seem to both of us one of the more bizarre and strongly counter-intuitive (though probably possible) theories that we could come up with to explain the disappearance of the ship.

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Philosophy, Religion & Society / nobody argues from the Bible here!!??

« on: June 28, 2005, 07:02:12 PM »

Well I'd just like to emphasise a point that "flat earthers" are not necessarily Christian's (I'm not) but are often those who believe the earth is not round, the point of my phrasing being to highlight that "flat earthers" do not necessarily believe in a theory stemming from one man as those who believe in a round earth do, it is better to think of "flat earthers" as those who do not believe the world is round rather than some insane cult who follow the teachings of one man literally. No doubt there are members of the flat earth society (I'm not a member so I wouldn't know) who do base their beliefs on Charles Johnson or the bible or some other entity/book but I do not.

To be honest I believe you can split "flat earthers" into two categories, one side believing in a flat earth because they are so attached to their dogma - Johnson's or Christianity's or whoever's - that they cannot believe scientific claims that go counter to it - i.e. the earth is said to be flat in these theories so they can't bring themselves to accept that their dogma is wrong and thus object to the idea for no real reason other than that they are most likely too old to consider that the beliefs they have held for such a long period of time may be incorrect.

On the other hand there are the kind of people I referred to earlier, who do not believe in the theories of one man religiously, but rather disbelieve in the theory of one man - the theory that the earth is round. I am in no way a Christian - I'm strongly anti-Christian and to be frank (and perhaps a touch disrespectful - which if I am I apologise for) I don't believe anything that I've read stemming from the flat earth society either. I found this site recently and though I have occasionally read some flat earth newsletters, I have found that I have nothing in common with the group itself (despite my belief - or "disbelief" as I like to call it) and frankly a lot of them seem like some sort of deranged fundamentalist Christians of the kind who still believe in creationism.

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Flat Earth Q&A / Prove this wrong, Flat Earth Society.

« on: June 28, 2005, 06:48:55 PM »

If we imagine your scenario then yes, it may well be the case that the ship can sail off into the distance until it reaches a point where it can no longer be seen. However, why is the automatic assumption that the ship can no longer be seen because the earth is round and it is now on "the other side" of the planet? This phenomena could result from an infinite amount of other reasons, for example, the earth may be flat in the sense that it is not round, but that does not mean that the earth is not contoured - in fact virtually none of the earth is flat in the literal sense for any great area. This is one of the main problems with objections to the flat earth theory in my opinion - they conceive of the world as some sort of literally flat item like a tabletop when in fact the world is contoured.

That isn't even touching on various other reasons. Now I want you to consider this properly, how do you know that the reason the ship is no longer visible stems from the world being round? Is it possible that our conventional navigation equipment relies on nothing more than assumptions and that, for example, the ship was not travelling in a perfectly straight line (as it's compass said) and was instead travelling at a slight angle? If this were the case then the phenomena of a ship sailing in one direction and arriving at it's starting point is not explained by the assumption that the earth is round (all that is is an assumption) but from the fault of navigation equipment which tells the ship it is travelling in a straight line when it fact it is travelling at a slight angle. I want you to seriously consider (don't just pass this off as some ramble) why you "know" that a ships navigation equipment and a compass are capable of giving a ship the cast iron truth that it is travelling in a straight line. Isn't this assumption about the merits of the compass based on a whole series of assumptions about gravity and "magnetic north" amongst other assumptions?

Once you seriously consider the situation you realise that what we think we know about the world in fact stems from a large amount of assumptions - we assume the compass is 100% accurate so when we sail in what we perceive as a straight line and arrive back at our starting point, we assume that this was the result of the earth being round. We could just as easily assume however that the compass was faulty, that our assumptions about how a compass works were misplaced and in fact when we thought we were sailing in a straight line we were in fact sailing at a slight angle.

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Flat Earth Q&A / What conspiracy????

« on: June 28, 2005, 06:32:01 PM »

I'm not sure why a conspiracy would exist and I'm not sure anyone is, however I have to ask you a question. If for argument's sake there was a conspiracy that had managed to convince the whole world that the planet was round (the flat earth society and a few small tribes excepted) then given the incredible power of those who had carried out and enforced this conspiracy (convincing the entire world) how could we, in a situation where information is witheld from us to such an extent that we can actually be convinced that our planet is a different shape from what it actually is even begin to think that we can answer the question of why this conspiracy would have originated in the first place?

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Flat Earth Q&A / So, how did you end up on this site?

« on: June 28, 2005, 06:19:09 PM »

I followed the link from Wikipedia.