1

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is there any work being done by the FE community to draw a map of the Earth?

« on: March 21, 2018, 11:45:36 AM »

Then you had no business trying to misrepresent him, or deceive me. It would have benefited your case not to have attempted it.

I didn't intentionally do so, I was just grabbing the shortest direct quote that showed he disagreed with the model. I do see how it was misleading now though, so my apologies to Thork on that, although the overall point on his stance towards it remains.

Not at all. There is plenty of space for disagreement and difference of interpretation in the sciences. It's how we make progress. The "truth" is a nebulous term, which is why it's generally not used in literature.

I disagree. The scientific method is designed as such to root out as much personal interpretation as possible, since all theories require so much hard evidence as backing. In new scientific endeavors with new hypotheses there is often disagreement, but over the years once a dominant theory forms there really isn't much room for personal disagreement. You'll be hard pressed to find a biologist that doesn't agree with the theory of evolution, for example.

No, I'm not. I'm treating it as largely unknown.

Which is bizarre to me. I'm asking for a map, not a grand unified theory of gravity. I'm really having difficulty figuring out why there's so much disagreement for something you'd think would be step 1 for a society like this.

Ah, yes, here we go again with the "It's wrong! I already told you it's wrong!" meme. Sorry, kid, this isn't how this works. Your "proofs" are as disingenuous as your attempt at painting Thork in a bad light. I am not interested in them.

Man, science would be so much easier if instead of proving your point you could just act smug and call the other side a meme.

I do my best. Doesn't mean I'll write content I don't personally support. In fact, this is because I try to be objective. Many smarmy, small-minded RE'ers argue the subject by stating themselves what they understand to be the Flat Earth assertions, and then dismantling them. More often than not, they either misunderstood or misrepresented the model.

You appear to be accusing me of a strawman here, which to the best of my knowledge I haven't engaged in. Care to fill me in on what about the North-azimuthal model I got wrong that makes 16-hour days in Australia possible?

I don't disagree with the premise that it could hypothetically be discounted. I disagree with the premise that it has been, or that your ilk have made any progress in that direction. At best, you've pointed out that there are some unknowns in the model.

Your demands are the equivalent of me demanding that you abandon General Relativity and look for a "less flawed model" because some anomalies have been found. It's a deplorable debating tactic, and the longer you insist on it, the more I'm thinking I should have carried on ignoring you as I had been before.

Ahh, here's where you're wrong. If you found some anomalies in General Relativity I would absolutely drop everything I was doing and look into it. And if I thought you were right I'd start documenting everything so I could brag that I was there when Nobel-Prize-Winner Pete Svarrior developed his ground-breaking theory that proved Einstein wrong. My main interest is learning about reality, and if you had some evidence that I had been misinformed, I'd totally change my position in a second.

2

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is there any work being done by the FE community to draw a map of the Earth?

« on: March 21, 2018, 10:12:02 AM »

I'm not sure what my stance has to do with it. Science should be a discussion of ideas, not a pissing match between two teams who are trying to trick each other to win.

Consider the following. I assert that gravity has been clearly disproved because it has been observed time and time again that ordinary apples don't actually fall down to the ground. My assertion is worthless. Similarly, your opinion that FET has been disproved is worthless, since it relies on RE strawmanning of the theory. I'm thoroughly disinterested in this tactic.

I actually like this example, but I think it applies more to the other side here. I'm genuinely not trying to be smarmy smug asshole here, try and see it from my perspective. There's been multiple threads recently where we discussed the seasons issue, and not once has an explanation been raised that could reconcile common observations and the North-azimuthal projection. In order to progress from this point, we need to be able cut hypotheses that don't fit reality. Continuing to support the North-azimuthal at this point is the same thing as insisting apples don't fall from trees, since you're claiming a position that both sides have found to not match the evidence, and not providing any additional explanation for why you're doing so (such as showing off the anti-grav apple you have in your pocket).

I'm genuinely interested in talking about the FE hypothesis further. I think it's fascinating there can be two wildly different models that provide similar tangible, observable results. But if we can never agree that even one possible model is wrong because someone out there might still insist on it despite reality, then no real discussion can be had.

in the last thread Baby Thork said the only reason it's still represented in the wiki is:

Because we're too lazy to change it.

You clearly took that answer far too seriously. You were unwilling to accept other responses, so he fobbed you off with a sarcastic one. Unsurprising, really.

His further posts in that thread made it very clear he agreed the North-azimuthal view was flawed.

It's also very disingenuous of you to try to present this post without its follow-up. He provides you with a much more serious and detailed response just a couple of posts further on!

And I'm sure you can see I continued to participate with the discussion until the topic shifted to being about eclipses. I agree with his response about why no one has fixed the wiki, that's kind of what led me to make this thread to see if anyone here were doing more research despite the fractured climate.

And Tom responded on one of my arguments:

It is using a false premise by assuming that the earth is a Northern Azimuth projection.

Tom does subscribe to an alternative model of the Flat Earth, and that's fine. Not sure what you're hoping to achieve there tbh. Are you saying that he shouldn't be allowed to state his own views?

"Views" (the way you appear to be using them) are something you have about politics or religion. We're talking about physics and astronomy here. I'm not interested in "well, everyone is entitled to their opinion. Mine's different from Tom's and that's fine!" I'm interested in finding the truth.

So it looks like it's not just an REer who realizes it's been proven wrong.

Yes, people who do not subscribe to a certain model do not subscribe to a certain model.

See above. You're treating this like the answer is unknowable, which I eminently disagree with. There is a correct answer, and we have the tools to find it. Unfortunately for you, one of those tools is discounting failed models like the North-azimuthal one to focus on ones that still have a chance of being correct.

Unfortunately, most of the wiki pages still focus on the North-azimuthal projection and are thus woefully out of date. There's fairly little about other models.

It's not out of date, and it's not a projection. As for other models, it would have to be their proponents who'd have to document them - perhaps instead of complaining about it here you should reach out to them and encourage to draft something up? You don't expect me to play devil's advocate for models which contradict my own understanding of the world, do you?

No, but I guess I'd expect you to be objective about it given how you frequently post on the debate board and have publicly represented the Society to the press before. If you disagree with the premise that the model can be discounted, then post your reasons for believing so. If you don't have any counter-arguments then perhaps you should join in on looking for a new, less-flawed model.

3

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Is there any work being done by the FE community to draw a map of the Earth?

« on: March 21, 2018, 09:21:11 AM »

The most common one, based on the North-azimuthal equidistant projection of a globe (the one on the U.N. flag and logo of the F.E.S.) has been pretty clearly proven false. It can't explain relatively simple things such as seasonal day lengths, the southern celestial pole near Sigma Octantis, or flight lengths between destinations south of the equator.

That's a nice opinion you have there. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we will continue to not give a toss about whether a RE'er thinks FET has been proven false.

I'm not sure what my stance has to do with it. Science should be a discussion of ideas, not a pissing match between two teams who are trying to trick each other to win.

Regardless, no one has been able to offer any solutions to the glaring problems with the theory in the multiple threads we've had recently, and even in the last thread Baby Thork said the only reason it's still represented in the wiki is:

Because we're too lazy to change it.

And Tom responded on one of my arguments:

It is using a false premise by assuming that the earth is a Northern Azimuth projection.

I'm pretty sure we have said that the commonly used map and model is just a visualized example numerous times...

So it looks like it's not just an REer who realizes it's been proven wrong. If you're going to continue to argue for this position, shouldn't you either address the issues or look for a different model that doesn't have them? It just weakens your position unnecessarily to cling to a model that can't explain seasons without addressing it.

The wiki explains all those things.

Unfortunately, most of the wiki pages still focus on the North-azimuthal projection and are thus woefully out of date. There's fairly little about other models.

4

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 21, 2018, 02:34:29 AM »

For anyone interested in the original topic of this thread, which was about one certain FE model and the FE community's apparent lack of desire to improve it, I made a follow up thread over here (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9273.0) since we basically came to the conclusion "the north-azimuthal projection doesn't work" in this one.

For solar eclipse talk, by all means continue in this thread.

5

Flat Earth Theory / Is there any work being done by the FE community to draw a map of the Earth?

« on: March 21, 2018, 02:16:02 AM »

(This thread is sort of part 2 to this thread here: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9253.0 , which served its purpose and then devolved into arguing about solar eclipses.)

For about four to five hundred years, mainstream science has been in fairly unanimous agreement on a globe model that would look familiar to the one in your 3rd-grade classroom. Obviously things like the size of the Earth were discovered millennia before that and the shape of the New World and far East hadn't been totally ironed out yet, but by 1507 Martin Waldseemüller had a globe that looked like this:
Clearly, by that point all the major elements were there. By the 18th century it was only the far north and Australia that look a bit off to modern eyes:


The flat Earth hypothesis, strangely, doesn't appear to have a universally-agreed-upon map. The most common one, based on the North-azimuthal equidistant projection of a globe (the one on the U.N. flag and logo of the F.E.S.) has been pretty clearly proven false. It can't explain relatively simple things such as seasonal day lengths, the southern celestial pole near Sigma Octantis, or flight lengths between destinations south of the equator.

The only other possible model I've seen, the bi-polar model, still seems pretty niche even among the community, and I've only seen it brought up as sort of the token "other possible model" rather than as a real hypothesis.


Is there any on-going effort by FE researchers to discover what a map of the Earth should look like under their model? If the Earth is flat, it should be easier to develop than a map of the globe model as they wouldn't need to accept the distortion inherent in making a 2D drawing of a 3D object like the RE cartographers have dealt with throughout history. So where is it?

6

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 20, 2018, 07:49:19 PM »

The ancients predicted lunar eclipses and such quite well (unsurprising when they're visible for half the world), but solar eclipses were not possible to predict properly until more recently.

How more recently? Is 2500 years ago more recently?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eclipse_of_Thales

Solar eclipses only became truly accurate in their predictions centuries after the Saros Cycles were created. https://www.popsci.com/people-have-been-able-to-predict-eclipses-for-really-long-time-heres-how

You just blew up your own argument.

You were linked earlier to no less than 3 ways we've attacked the three-body problem, so continuing to pretend it's 100% unsolvable is just splitting hairs at this point. I can go digging in the last thread this covered if you like more information on that front too, as I see Tom has forgotten the information presented there as well.

Sure, RET has attacked the 3-body problem. It hasn't solved it. In other words the round earth model was the hypothesis. It doesn't give the right results when modeled. The model descends into chaos and the results get more and more wild as you go further into the future. That's what chaos theory is. That's not proof the theory works. It is proof that the model actually doesn't work as presented right now. Maybe they should have put earth in the center of the solar system with the sun and moon on top for better results?

Here's the disconnect here. You're claiming mainstream science hasn't solved the three-body problem, which is categorically false and has been for over 100 years. Your evidence for this is not being able to predict solar eclipses indefinitely into the future, which is true. The further into the future you go, the less accurate these predictions get. The reason for this though isn't a failure to solve the three-body problem, it's that the Earth, Moon, and Sun only act as a three-body problem in the short term when other influences are negligible. In the long run it gets closer and closer to being an ∞-body problem because you have things like Jupiter's gravity and tidal forces slowing down the moon that have virtually no effect over 1,000 years but are noticeable over tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

However, I don't really see how this is an argument against RET, since in the short-term three-body models are magnitudes more accurate that Saros cycles, and I certainly can't see how this is an argument for the flat Earth hypothesis since it's not like using FE believers have been more accurate in their predictions based on the FE model.

7

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 20, 2018, 05:34:39 PM »

From the encyclopedia Britannica.

Three-body problem, in astronomy, the problem of determining the motion of three celestial bodies moving under no influence other than that of their mutual gravitation. No general solution of this problem (or the more general problem involving more than three bodies) is possible.

RET failed. It cannot use its ball-magic-maths to demonstrate accurately the movement of three globular bodies, and have that accurately predict what we actually observe. This isn't just a free pass for FET. It is absolutely damning for RET. Your maths doesn't work! You can't use it. You don't use it. There is no accurate RET maths used instead of periodic tabular info from historical records and extrapolation of that data. You just assumed and you know what happens when you assume?

There's something particularly apropos about taking a snowclone phrase that was already used to death by people who aren't clever enough to make original jokes, and then posting it in a meme. It's like the creator knew that memes were the lowest common denominator form of communication that are made to be "funny" through recognition and ad nauseum repetition instead of wit, so he cut out the middle man and just slapped on something that had already been repeated about a billion too many times.

Anyway, you're wrong, and your lack of scientific and mathematical literacy is showing. Three-body problems aren't unsolvable, it's not like there's some law of the universe that says "you can model two objects perfectly, but as soon as you add a third the laws of nature break down." The problem is that the interactions aren't possible through standard calculus. The problems are complex enough that you can't write a simple algebraic equation to solve them, but that's a far cry from mainstream mathematics not being equipped to solve them. The first (admittedly pretty inefficient) method of accurately solving three-body problems was devised in 1906 by Karl Sundman, and since then additional methods and supercomputers has made solving those problems trivial today. It's with these advanced models that NASA can get far more accuracy than Saros could ever hope to get.

Last thing, your Columbus example doesn't really work because it's a lunar eclipse rather than a solar one. Solar eclipses are incredibly geographically constrained and last 2 minutes at most, lunar eclipses last hours and are visible to anywhere on Earth that can see the Moon. It's really not impressive, nor that indicative of accuracy, that he predicted there would be an on-going lunar eclipse when the Moon rose that evening.

8

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 20, 2018, 12:34:15 AM »

Here you go Tom, here's a post I went in depth on that topic with multiple primary sources: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9082.msg143298#msg143298

Your sources say "according to this source, it will happen", not "it did happen". Do you understand the difference between a prediction and an observation?

When it comes to sunrise and sunset, I think we can trust a major newspaper wouldn't have gotten it multiple hours wrong in 2016. Someone would have noticed in a city of 5 million people that the paper reported the sun would set at 9:45 on a Summer evening and it ended up setting at 6.

Also, long southern days do not discount a bi-polar Flat Earth model or other types of models.

And once again, I know. My point has been to show that the most common FE model is nonsensical (which it sounds like is a conclusion everyone posting here is coming to). I never claimed that this means all FE models are wrong (and in fact have said the opposite multiple times).

9

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 19, 2018, 11:26:07 PM »

Do you really not see it as a problem that there are such gaping holes in your "theory"?
You have no idea what a flat earth looks like - in the real world the globe has long since been mapped.
You don't even know if there is one pole or two - in the real world both have been explored, there is a research base at the South Pole which you can pay to visit.

The fact is there is no flat earth map which can match observations. The one in the Wiki doesn't. Either there's one pole in which case there is no way the 24 hour sun in the Antarctic circle can be explained and you're calling every single Antarctic explorer a liar. Or there's 2 in which case your entire model of the sun's movement falls down.

The reason for this is that the premise it is based on - a flat earth - is wrong. It's weird that you never consider this. Instead you start with the premise of a flat earth because of...reasons. You then try and fit everything around that but it doesn't fit. You are trying to fit a too big carpet in a room, soon as you flatten one corner down another one pops up.

There are holes in every theory, including RET. Not that you ever remember any of those. They just get ignored and on you go.

I know it would be very convenient if there were, but there really aren't, at least not in the same way. The things FE believers frequently bring up as holes (e.g. the atmosphere should escape Earth's gravity, the ocean shouldn't look flat if the Earth is really spinning, I can't see the curve from this skyscraper/mountaintop/plane) don't actually contradict mainstream science. For example, if you plug in the data into Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation and classical mechanics, you'll quickly see it only predicts objects on a spinning equator will be 0.3% lighter due to centrifugal force, but not flying off into space. If you measure each molecule in the upper atmosphere, you'll see none of them ever reach escape velocity and so classical mechanics doesn't predict they'll escape.

I'm not saying this automatically makes all FE hypotheses wrong and Newtonian mechanics right, just that mainstream physics are all consistent with each other. You will be extremely hard pressed to find physicist that disagrees with any of the basic premises of modern science, or that a model globe accurately represents the Earth. Where they sometimes disagree is on new areas of study where there hasn't been a lot of experimentation yet, or on the cutting edge of science like string theory and dark matter and all that, where our tools aren't sophisticated enough to draw real data and so all hypotheses are totally theoretical and untestable.

On the other hand, FE hypotheses generally do contradict each other fundamentally, on things that should be easily testable, like building a simple map of a known and inhabited area which cartographers have been able to do for 9,000 years.

I largely agree with the rest of your post, but I wanted to point that out.

One model may explain seasons but can't explain the 24 hour sun in Antarctica. Another model may explain the 24 hour sun but can't explain seasons. All the models have holes in you could drive a truck through. They're trying to explain something which can't be explained because the earth isn't flat.

Seeing as you guys have trouble providing records showing that the sun behaves as if the earth were a globe, I don't see why we would need to conform to your hypothesis.

Here you go Tom, here's a post I went in depth on that topic with multiple primary sources: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9082.msg143298#msg143298

10

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 19, 2018, 08:51:58 PM »

Why is it in the logo of the Flat Earth Society itself? It's not that this is "just a visualized example," it's clearly and objectively incorrect.

This old chestnut again.

I'm being trolled right now, right? No one could possibly in good faith read that post and think the central point that needed a response was me complaining about the logo.

The longer these constant deflections and straw men and deliberate misrepresentations go on, the more I'm being persuaded that every FES member is just in on the joke and this whole thing is a bit. I just don't want to think people could be so close-minded that they'd fabricate complete non-sequitors just to derail conversations they don't like.

I'll spell out my real question this time for you: if the azimuth projection map doesn't work, then why is it still in the ostensibly educational wiki?

11

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 19, 2018, 06:32:16 PM »

I took a look through the threads you linked in your first post where you assert that there is a lack of participation and found the following quote:

He states that the FE Map is as shown on the UN Logo - actually there is no agreed map although that is admittedly the one commonly shown.

It looks like the thread was answered to me. It is using a false premise by assuming that the earth is a Northern Azimuth projection.

I'm pretty sure we have said that the commonly used map and model is just a visualized example numerous time, enough times that even Round Earthers are parroting that information back to you. This is also expressed in the Wiki that states that there are multiple possible models, and across the literature. The problem isn't that no one is participating. The problem is that you aren't listening.

I am very aware that there is some disagreement with in the FE community on what the map looks like. My point has always been to argue against the most common model, which by the way is the one that's used to explain seasons by both the wiki (https://wiki.tfes.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#How_do_you_explain_day.2Fnight_cycles_and_seasons.3F) and Rowbotham. I never claimed "if the spotlight model shown on the seasons page of the FE wiki is wrong, then all possible FE models are wrong," it was "if the spotlight model shown on the wiki is wrong, then FE supporters should update it." Hence why I specified "'spotlight' model" in the title of my first topic.

If you already know that model is wrong because it can't explain something as simple as the seasons, why is it all over the wiki? Why is it so frequently posted here? Why is it in the logo of the Flat Earth Society itself? It's not that this is "just a visualized example," it's clearly and objectively incorrect. This also isn't a matter like a Mercator projection, where concessions and distortions have to be accepted since it's impossible to draw and entire 3D object on a 2D plane. If the Earth is flat and a piece of paper is flat, the paper should be able to show a map perfectly so there's literally no reason to put up with an outdated, incorrect model. It's OK to update the wiki to just say you don't know what the map looks like instead of peddling models you know are wrong, if that's going to be your defense whenever someone points out issues.

It's pretty intellectually dishonest as it stands, since the wiki uses that model to describe many things, but whenever someone brings up problems and inconsistencies with the explanations their critiques are suddenly not valid because you already knew the model was wrong. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

12

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 19, 2018, 04:13:17 PM »

OK, good, so two believers Tom and Baby Thork. Would you care to share with us that which was primarily instrumental in your decision to accept FE theory

I discovered the site over 10 years ago. I read it for a bit and thought ... mmm. Proving that the world is round seems a bit easy. Why don't I prove its flat instead? Got to be more fun.

Anyhoo, that means learning FET, making the arguments and finding flaws in RET. After a while, FET became easier to make a case for than RET, even in my own head, and the rest is history. I'd accidentally red-pilled myself.

So still no response to my point here: https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9253.msg144528#msg144528 ? The constant evasion on this topic really doesn't look good for the FE hypothesis. One might even start to think there are glaring logical holes that none of the supporters can explain so instead they just deflect and ignore.

13

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 18, 2018, 02:26:17 PM »

Well look at the topics you highlighted in the OP. Both spotlight sun.

We've all had that debate to death. We're bored of it. We know where the conversation goes, we know your objections, we have a wiki with the info and hundreds and hundreds of threads about it.

We aren't an automated bot service that can just do this conversation again and again for every single person that visits the site. If you want to know, search the forum, read those threads, and then once you are further along in your understanding of FET, come back to us. Maybe we can talk about vines wrapping around trees anti-clockwise in the southern hemisphere or monkeys exhibiting flat earth assumptions or sun dogs only appearing towards the poles. But spot light sun or gravity again ... yeah, you will find it hard to get someone to go through all that for the 300th time.

Genuinely, thanks for the response.

However, I have to disagree on that explanation because despite it being a common question, I've never see the an FE explanation for it anywhere I've looked. There's nowhere on the wiki that explains it and I've searched some older threads and not seen it — there doesn't seem to be a counter argument anywhere.

The closest thing I've seen is this chapter from the great Rowbotham himself: http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za26.htm. However, he doesn't explain any of the evidence, he just compares day lengths across wildly different latitudes and then flat out rejects the possibility that days and nights are the same length for equivalent latitudes north and south of the equator, but seasonally swapped. This is an attempt at an explanation at least, and shows he thought through the logical consequences of his model, but is now so patently absurd today where someone at 34° N can phone up someone at 34° S and verify that their seasonal daylight times are a perfect match. We're now well past the point where anyone who's not being intellectually dishonest can doubt the reported sunrise and sunset times across the world, so clearly a new FE explanation is needed.

If this has been answered before, I'd truly be curious to see it, but I haven't found it anywhere. Would you mind even just linking to an explanation?

If I spend 5 hours in a thread to bring you up to speed on a subject, you guys will just make another thread on the same topic the next week.

So why is our time better spent debating with you than improving the wiki, making a youtube video, or writing a book?

Even just a link to the wiki page explaining this phenomenon would be great! I promise, at least speaking for myself, that I scoured the wiki for an explanation before making my thread and couldn't find it anywhere.

14

Flat Earth Theory / Why do Flat Earth believers decline to engage with certain FE debates?

« on: March 18, 2018, 04:59:52 AM »

@Junker: Sorry if this doesn't go in this forum, but this is something that's been frustrating me and I believe has been really detrimental to the quality of debate on this site.

I've been posting here for a month, and at first I was really excited about this forum. At the offset it seemed like one of the few places on the internet where people were actually looking at the evidence and attempting to test hypotheses scientifically on this subject rather than just scream past each other like on Twitter and Facebook.

However, there seems to be a pretty alarming trend here that's hurting discourse, and that's that while every single thread has its fair share of heliocentrists arguing their case, many FE believers seem to completely avoid certain topics of debate.

If it were just random threads it would be one thing, but it appears to always be threads where Rowbotham/ENAG/other standard FE beliefs don't appear to have any explanation for the counter-argument brought up.

The best example are the two recent threads asking about the discrepancy between the FE model's predicted daylight-hours for the Southern Hemisphere versus actually observed hours:

https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8995.0
https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9178.0

The first got only a couple responses from FE believers with no follow up, while the second didn't even get a single FE response.

Why are certain topics not being discussed? Shouldn't an apparent weak spot in the FE model be the most interesting new topic to debate and hash out? If someone showed me a large inconsistency in my worldview, my first priority would be to closely examine it and experiment until I figured out the problem or changed my view to something that works, but here many FE believers seem to be avoiding these topics. Is there a reason these aren't being discussed?

15

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Orbiting International Space Station visible from Telescope

« on: March 10, 2018, 09:58:34 AM »

You lost me. What is the logical fallacy?

These two, which are pretty closely related and I can never remember the difference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

Basically any argument that's set up as
If P then Q
If Q then P
Therefore P and Q

Ok. I'm still not clear how you think I have committed that logical fallacy though.
My argument is simply this. If I think that
1) The Bible is inspired and therefore correct and
2) My understanding of scripture is that it teaches the earth is flat (note the emphasis) and
3) Increasing amounts of evidence shows that the earth is not flat

Then there are two possibilities.
1) All the evidence for a round earth is faked or wrong - as more and more evidence mounts up this becomes a less and less logical stance.
2) My understanding of scripture is wrong. Note, again, understanding. Not that scripture itself is wrong, more my understanding of it.

The people in the FE community who use the Bible (use it incorrectly, in my opinion) to back up their beliefs never seem to consider option 2. The believe that God's word says the earth is flat so the earth is flat, and that is the end of the matter. Why not consider that your understanding of scripture is wrong? Do you really think you understand it perfectly and that the most important message in the Bible is the shape of the earth? Even the Catholics, who I generally think believe some pretty weird, non-Biblical stuff, admitted that they got it wrong when they put Galileo under house arrest for suggesting that the earth goes round the sun.

Sorry, I think we crossed some wires here. I was largely agreeing with you. The bit that I was saying was an example of begging the question were my examples here in this post:

"The Earth is flat, therefore any evidence to the contrary must be fake.

There's no real evidence of a curve, therefore the Earth must be flat."

and

"We know the Bible is true because it is God-breathed, we know the Bible is God-breathed because it says so in 2 Timothy,"

I'm in total agreement with you that scripture isn't meant to be a source of scientific knowledge. My go-to example is Jesus saying "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's." If a Biblical literallist saw that they'd think it meant all Governments are still secretly controlled by the Roman Empire and rule under Caesar's name. Instead I think it's pretty clear that Jesus was using the language of His followers to teach a moral lesson and the specifics beyond that aren't really useful. You can imagine it wouldn't have meant as much to His audience if He'd said "please pay your federal income taxes to the IRS in a timely manner." Therefore, similarly a story in which "God then stopped the Earth from spinning around the Sun, but also mitigated the effects of momentum and overheating this would cause," in Joshua 10 would have just been confusing the the 12th century BC Israelites that were first reading it.

16

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun over a flat Earth

« on: March 10, 2018, 09:00:56 AM »

....but unfortunately for them, the map is not wrong. Anyone can draw this map just by looking up daylight hours across the world.

Distances are wrong on that map.

The distances are wrong, but just looking at the sunlight it's exactly accurate to what we see on timeanddate.com (as well as local weather stations) for each individual location which is what we're talking about in this thread.

The point is that, even taking the standard FE model on its own terms, we reach a huge contradiction when looking at the length of daylight in the southern hemisphere. Either the "spotlight" sun shines in bizarre non-elliptical shapes (which completely contradict Tom Bishop's hypotheses on perspective required to make the sun set below the horizon) or everyone south of the equator is unable to tell time accurately. The standard FE theory requires you to believe one of these two nonsensical ideas, and therefore should be thrown out as it's unable to accurately describe reality.

17

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Orbiting International Space Station visible from Telescope

« on: March 09, 2018, 11:55:21 PM »

You lost me. What is the logical fallacy?

These two, which are pretty closely related and I can never remember the difference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning

Basically any argument that's set up as
If P then Q
If Q then P
Therefore P and Q

18

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Orbiting International Space Station visible from Telescope

« on: March 09, 2018, 11:45:02 PM »

"The Earth is flat, therefore any evidence to the contrary must be fake.

There's no real evidence of a curve, therefore the Earth must be flat."

It's truly the "We know the Bible is true because it is God-breathed, we know the Bible is God-breathed because it says so in 2 Timothy," of our time.

I actually do believe the Bible is true, I just don’t believe it should be read like a science book or that it teaches a flat earth

https://answersingenesis.org/astronomy/earth/does-bible-teach-earth-flat/

If evidence (and there is plenty) of a round earth contradicts your understanding of Scripture then rather than shouting “FAKE!” at all of it with now basis, how about re-examining your understanding of Scripture? Scripture may be inspired, your understanding of it is not and should be open to change as you learn more.

I do as well, but that's the classic example of begging the question and circular reasoning. Plus, if your sole reason for believing in the Bible is a huge logical fallacy like that, I can't imagine your faith is very strong.

19

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun over a flat Earth

« on: March 09, 2018, 11:20:35 PM »

Sorry friend, I've been banging this drum for a while (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=8995.0) and have yet to get a response beyond "every local newspaper and weather station that reports daylight hours is either in on the hoax or misinformed." (https://forum.tfes.org/index.php?topic=9082.msg143412#msg143412)

The problem with this evidence is that it's too good and there's no real counter-argument, so FE believers refuse to engage. It might actually challenge their worldview if they did.

20

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Orbiting International Space Station visible from Telescope

« on: March 09, 2018, 10:37:48 PM »

This is where it's impossible to win the argument

FE: I don't believe 'x'. Show me photographic proof.
RE: OK, here.
FE: FAKE!

Where do you go with the argument after that? One can always prove oneself "right" if one ignores or dismisses any evidence to the contrary.

It's confirmation bias writ large.

"The Earth is flat, therefore any evidence to the contrary must be fake.

There's no real evidence of a curve, therefore the Earth must be flat."

It's truly the "We know the Bible is true because it is God-breathed, we know the Bible is God-breathed because it says so in 2 Timothy," of our time.