It's quite alright. I don't really care what you think of me.
That's fine. I'm just trying to have you understand the difference between thinking something baselessly (what you do) and making an observation (what most humans do). So far it's an uphill battle, but you've made some concessions. We'll get there eventually.
Yeah sure SW. I may get there when dementia sets in.
Just a few comments and questions about the Zetetic "masterpiece."
First up, is this just historical or is this considered current FE fare?
Let the practice of theorising be abandoned as one oppressive to the reasoning powers.
After which various experiments are presented to establish the "theory" that the earth is flat.
How, then, when the waters are drawn up by the moon from their bed, and away from the earth's attraction,--which at that greater distance from the centre is considerably diminished, while that of the moon is proportionately increased--is it possible that all the waters acted on should be prevented leaving the earth and flying away to the moon?
It's called superposition. It's why well founded theories work and zetetic "thinking" fails.
However great such operations may seem to the mind of present man, all the vast structure of the physical world, and its innumerable myriads of organic beings, were the work of only a few hours. It is easily demonstrable that so rapid and intense were the processes and chemical changes, that a few days--such as we now understand by the word--were ample time to bring out of invisible, imponderable chaos, all the tangible and varied elements which now exist, and to develope every possible form of beauty and elegance, and every condition of happiness and wisdom. All opinions to the contrary which are held by philosophers of the present day, are the result of insufficient perception of the whole subject, which insufficient perception is again the result of self-imposed hypotheses, which bias the judgment and confuse the understanding. No man, however learned and accomplished he may be, is able to understand the simple processes of creative effort unless he is himself a simple and humble observer of phenomena, free from the prejudices of education,...
There goes the claim that FE is not religious right down the drain. More anti-education, anti-knowledge, anti-science rant. Must stay away from hypotheses because they leave no room for the pixies.
FIRST. The earth floats on the waters of the "great deep."
That it thus floats is concluded from the fact that it is surrounded with water, in which it fluctuates; and that if limited in extent, water could not surround it without also gathering underneath it. If not limited in extent, then it extends downwards for ever. If so, it could not fluctuate in a limited mass of water. It does fluctuate, therefore it floats, and hence there must be "waters under the earth."
Okee dokee. Thinking zetetically, why don't we feel these bobbings up and down?
SECONDLY. What supports the waters?
If the waters are limited in extent there must be some-thing below them; if not limited in extent then they extend downwards for ever. Then indeed would the "great deep" be the "mighty deep," the "fathomless deep" the "great abyss of waters," the "illimitable depths;" and further inquiry would be useless, for the earth simply floats on the surface of the illimitable fathomless deep. It is in fact and literally
"Founded on the seas, and
Established on the floods."
More religious supposition?
IT has often been urged that the earth must be a globe, because the stars in the southern "hemisphere" move round a south polar star; in the same way that those of the north revolve round "Polaris," or the northern pole star. This is another instance of the sacrifice of truth, and denial of the evidence of our senses for the purpose of supporting a theory which is in every sense false and unnatural.
Unnatural??
Here, however, we are met with the positive assertion that there is a very small star (of about the sixth magnitude) in the south, called Sigma Octantis, round which all the constellations of the south revolve, and which is therefore the southern polar star. It is scarcely polite to contradict the statements made, but it is certain that persons who have been educated to believe that the earth is a globe, going to the southern parts of the earth do not examine such matters critically.
Yes, let us examine the matter "critically." /sarcasm
To remove every possible doubt respecting the motions of the stars from the central north to the most extreme south, a number of special observers, each completely free from the bias of education
Of course, can't be expected to buy into any of this if you are educated.
IF the earth is a revolving globe, moving rapidly in an orbit round the sun, with its axes of revolution inclined to the plane of the ecliptic, as the Newtonian hypothesis affirms, there may be six months' continued light alternating with six months' continued darkness, at both the northern and southern axial or central points. That such is the case in the northern centre is matter of certainty, but that it is so in the south there is no positive evidence.
Nowadays there is. So FEers what's your excuse?
MOON TRANSPARENT.
Wow. This wouldn't even make a good scifi movie. It'd be about as popular as Zu Warriors.