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Flat Earth Debate / Do You See What I Sea?

« on: June 23, 2007, 11:05:24 PM »

Question:

Does anyone have any projections for how large the Earth's major oceans/seas are on an FE vs. RE model? I tried to bring this topic up in the Google Earth thread but was ignored.

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The Lounge / RE'er Famous Quotation Thread

« on: June 22, 2007, 09:54:32 AM »

Saint Augustine, you're my favorite saint.


"In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it."

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he hold to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion."

- Augustine of Hippo

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Flat Earth Debate / Fixed FE Theory

« on: June 20, 2007, 09:19:28 AM »

In light of the glaring holes that have been pointed out with the current "Oxford" and "Cambridge" theories of a Flat Earth, I thought I would do everyone on the FE side a favor and construct a working model that fixes these problems. It requires a slight expansion of the conspiracy theory involved, but it's much more internally consistent.

Note that I am not personally advocating a belief one way or another. I'm simply proposing a model of events that explains the phenomena we see in the world around us and maintains internal consistency. If you see any holes in this theory, feel free to point them out.


Question: So what is the Harvard Flat Earth Theory?

Answer: The Harvard Flat Earth Theory is a lot like other theories of the Earth's flatness put forward; in this model, the Earth is a more or less perfectly flat disc, being accelerated upwards at a constant rate, producing an effect that people confuse with gravity.

There are two main differences between this and preceding theories, that make this theory much stronger.

1) In this theory, instead of being tiny discs that hover over the Earth somehow, the Sun and Moon are arbitrarily large sources of energy that are circling the known Universe at an arbitrarily long distance from us. This explains why the Sun and Moon rise and set, and why the Earth is able to continually accelerate- the energy lost from the acceleration is being exactly replaced by the energy from the Sun and Moon, absorbed by the gigantic Earth-Mushroom.

Question: Wait, mushroom?

Answer: Oh, yes. In this theory, rather than being some random cylinder of rock, the Earth is actually supported by a mushroom. Well, it doesn't have to be a mushroom per se, but some plant-like form of life. This leads us to the next big difference:

2) Unlike in other FE theories, which are actually insidiously subtle attempts to conceal The Truth, only most of North America exists under the Harvard Theory. This explains why every real person sees the Sun arcing across the sky in the same direction. Of course, being the top of the Mushroom, the Earth is actually slightly raised, so that some will see the Sun sinking behind the Horizon a little earlier than others.

Question: All of North America?

Answer: Good question. Well, most of North America, certainly. I've been to Canada and the East and West Coast, and Hawaii, so I know at least those are real. I'm not so sure about Mexico.

Question: What about all the people who claim to have been to Europe, Asia, etc.?

Answer: They're all part of the conspiracy to hide The Truth. Things like photos of Prague or Shangai are usually photoshopped or made in Hollywood studios.

Question: Wouldn't it be hard to keep a conspiracy this size a secret?

Answer: Actually, it wouldn't.

Answer #2: To be more precise, the conspiracy isn't a secret. Lots of people know about it. Think of all the people you know who claim to have been to London. They just never told you about it.

Question: Wouldn't there be some evidence of the giant mushroom wall holding in the Earth's oceans?

Answer: No. Giant eskimos live on top of the world and throw rocks at any approaching ships. The very fact that no known photos of these giant eskimos have ever emerged is a grim testament to the thoroughness of this conspiracy.

Question: What does this conspiracy have to gain?

Answer: The first, obvious impulse is to say money, but alliances based around greed are notoriously difficult to maintain, especially over such a large network. I think the more logical explanation is that the conspirators are all members of a secret race of wombat-people whose only goal is to enslave the human race into complacency to harness our psychic energy.

Question: What about the other stars and planets?

Answer: They're just stars and planets. Duh. Do I have to explain physics to you?

Question: What about tides?

Answer: The giant eskimos enjoy swimming and splashing each other playfully. That's what causes tides.

Question: ...Radio waves?

Answer: Everyone who works at or knows how to operate a so-called radio is part of the conspiracy.

Question: No one's ever seen the eskimos swimming from their ship? Seriously?

Answer: Well, it is a little unlikely. It's highly probable that most people who own boats are part of the Conspiracy, however.

Question: But if the Moon is arbitrarily large, what causes it's shadow? Also, wouldn't we still be going at a speed many, many, many powers the speed of light by this time?

Answer: You tell me, wombat-person. You're the one that's so hot for my soul.

Question: Congratulations on discovering our plot, puny human- little good though it may do you. How did you ever uncover our sinister agenda?

Answer: Logic, my friend- and a little thing called American Sticktoitiveness.


Viva la resistance!

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Flat Earth Debate / A noob and his gravity.

« on: June 18, 2007, 06:19:57 PM »

No, the point is: If the earh is a globe it can't be flat. And the earth is a globe. If you want to doubt that, you need something that shows that it isn't. Explanations how it could be another shape are worth n o t h i n g.

I disagree. There are plenty of doubts on either side of the argument. The Round Earth Theory, however, relies on a completely biased argument, running on theories that have just been assumed to be correct for hundreds of years without re-tests. The Flat Earth Theory relies more on a zetetic outlook, discarding all previous assumptions and testing results with an unbiased objectivism.

People have been putting the theory of a round earth to practical tests repeatedly for thousands of years, since the Ancient Greeks (One of the earliest proofs was simply that the top of a ship in the distance was still visible after the bottom had disappeared from view). In terms of navigation and astronomy, it has been nearly perfect; we had to adjust it for the Earth actually being slightly wider towards the middle. It has provided adequate explanations for most phenomena, and been useful in navigation, flight, and eventually space travel; however, it is impossible to "prove" these things to you, because you will dismiss any evidence that disagrees with your theory as being part of some giant conspiracy that is incredibly competent, loyal, and tight-lipped, beyond any understanding of human nature.

Would it be too obvious to point out that, were everything to accelerate upwards at an equal rate, nothing would actually be moving and it certainly wouldn't produce an effect anything like gravity, with nothing to push against?