8441

Philosophy, Religion & Society / Buying a home is a terrible investment

« on: September 10, 2016, 09:01:56 PM »

It is a common myth perpetuated in our society that buying a home is a good investment. Home ownership is seen as one of the best things you could do in your life. You purchase your home and at some time in the future it will greatly increase in value.

Lets say we bought a home in 1980. The average price of a home in the United States in 1980 was $68,714.00. If we hold onto it for 30 years on a mortgage and sell in 2010, the average price of a home in the United States is now $272,900. Huge profit!

It is 2010 and you sell your house. You now theoretically have $272,900 in the bank. But wait, you still need somewhere to live. You probably want to live in at least the same quality of house as the one you were living before, right? Who would want to downgrade their living experience? But those houses are now all averaging at $272,900, too. It seems that in the end you didn't really make anything in your investment.

The only advantage you would seemingly get is to put the new home on another 30 year mortgage from the bank, to be paid off in monthly payments, and enjoy your money in the present. But now you are merely living on borrowed money, not your own. Eventually you will need to have to pay off your new home with your money, old or new, or the bank will take it back and claim what is theirs, all profits from your home investment strategy eventually equaling zero.

8442

Flat Earth Community / How would you promote the society if we were funded?

« on: September 10, 2016, 08:38:37 PM »

This is an informational query for any Flat Earthers on this forum. Lets say that I found a way to get us funded. Lets keep the amounts ambiguous for now. If you were provided with some amount of money, what would you do with it to promote the society?

What experiments would you conduct, projects would you work on, or promotional activities would you organize?

Imagine that our budget was $10,000, $50,000 or $100,000.

Thank you.

8443

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Private space companies

« on: September 07, 2016, 10:20:24 PM »

The signals are deployed through an assortment of terrestrial methods, such as ground based antennas and stratellite dirigibles.

A contracting company building a rocket for NASA isn't evidence of anything. The rockets used are real.

8444

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Why to sunlight reflect under the clouds??

« on: September 07, 2016, 10:10:08 PM »

The entire far end of the cloud nearest the sun is being illuminated, top to bottom, not just the bottom of the end facing the sun.

You are under the cloud, so you only see the bottom far end of the cloud being illuminated.

8445

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Ander's Earthrise???

« on: August 24, 2016, 02:51:00 AM »

Actually it just says that he was shown the vault where the negative was kept.

Actually, it has William Anders recounting his experience, briefly of taking the photo as well as him saying he visited the vault where the negative is kept.

Yes, it doesn't say anywhere that he examined the negative.

8446

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Apollo 8 astronaut William Ander's Earthrise???

« on: August 22, 2016, 04:44:50 PM »

Actually it just says that he was shown the vault where the negative was kept.

8447

Flat Earth Community / Re: Meet the People Who Believe the Earth Is Flat (Mic.com article on FET)

« on: August 09, 2016, 11:05:08 PM »

But most believe in one simple principle: that NASA and everyone involved in space exploration are liars and that there is a massive conspiracy to hide the fact that the Earth is flat.

I wish they looked a little further into it. I've always held that NASA is simply ignorant of the truth, and this is explained in the Wiki's conspiracy section.

8448

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: "Soft" Merger

« on: July 06, 2016, 11:34:48 PM »

I propose that we combine the site and the forums and work civilly to further the society as a team.

8449

Flat Earth Community / Police, firefighters called in after flat Earth debate turns heated

« on: June 27, 2016, 03:21:09 AM »

Apparently a Round Earther threw a fit when he was unable to champion his own model, becoming so enraged that he violently lost control. Seems typical.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/flat-earth-debate-leads-to-fire-police-call-1.3634692

A family argument over whether the Earth is flat or round became so heated that one of the participants threw a propane cylinder onto a campfire, prompting an intervention by firefighters.

The dispute over a question most considered resolved centuries ago boiled over around 10:30 p.m. Monday at St. Lawrence Park in Brockville, Ont.

Police said a 56-year-old Brockville man was at a campsite with his son and his son's girlfriend when the woman began insisting that the Earth is flat.

The older man insisted the Earth is round.

It's not clear if anyone at the campfire put forth the argument that the Earth's equatorial bulge makes it not perfectly round, but instead a shape known as an oblate spheroid.

Nevertheless, police said the man became so enraged he began throwing objects into the campfire, including a propane cylinder.

Brockville firefighters were called to put out the campfire. By the time police arrived at the scene, the man had left.

Brockville police are looking for the man and say they expect to charge him with mischief.

8450

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Ships over the horizon reappear when you look at them through a telescope

« on: June 24, 2016, 05:03:41 PM »

The complete lack of evidence in support of the flat-earther claim does not prove the claim to be false. However, it is a strong indication that no evidence exists, and therefore there is no reason to believe the claim to be true.

Except that there is significant experimental evidence in Earth Not a Globe.

Rabinoz pointed out that Robotham's logic is wrong. This is true.
Woody pointed out that we need some solid modern evidence of this occurring. This is true.

A third problem with your statement is that Rowbotham does not provide any experimental evidence for this phenomenon. I read the pages you linked me to in the other thread. If you think I am wrong, and that there really is experimental evidence for this phenomenon in that book, please quote the exact passage where it can be found. This should be a trivial task if you are correct.

Numerous experiments are performed in the text. A lot of them. Are you in denial?

8451

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: "Soft" Merger

« on: June 24, 2016, 03:11:41 PM »

I'm not particularly interested in contributing to any Ask Me feature on the main site, or contributing to any Flat Earth articles, or collaborating with anyone on the .org unless the forums can be combined. A benefit to joining the societies is that you get Tom Bishop.

The .org userbase is mostly RE'ers, so I wouldn't hold it in high esteem that they don't care about merging. There is no reason why the admins of this site and the admins of the other site can't work together co-manage the site and the forums. The more hands we have, the more that can be done. I posted a suggestion that we should host Earth Not a Globe on the site. If there were more admin and technical resources to go around, that could happen.

Why do we need two societies?

8452

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Ships over the horizon reappear when you look at them through a telescope

« on: June 24, 2016, 03:50:19 AM »

The complete lack of evidence in support of the flat-earther claim does not prove the claim to be false. However, it is a strong indication that no evidence exists, and therefore there is no reason to believe the claim to be true.

Except that there is significant experimental evidence in Earth Not a Globe.

8453

Suggestions & Concerns / Re: Lets host Earth Not a Globe

« on: June 21, 2016, 04:31:52 PM »

I would have thought, the fact he made stuff up and was a religious nut, is relevant.

The comments made by the digitizer are completely false.

Religion is only mentioned at the very end chapter of Earth Not a Globe, where Rowbotham discusses the philosophical ramifications of a Flat Earth.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za66.htm

This is a plain, simple, and in every respect demonstrable philosophy, agreeing with the evidence of our senses, borne out by every fairly instituted experiment, and never requiring a violation of those principles of investigation which the human mind has ever recognised and depended upon in its every-day life. The modern or Newtonian astronomy has none of these characteristics. The whole system taken together constitutes a most monstrous absurdity. It is false in its foundation; irregular, unfair, and illogical, in its details; and, in its conclusions, inconsistent and contradictory. Worse than all, it is a prolific source of irreligion and of atheism, of which its advocates are practically supporters. By defending a system which is directly opposed to that which is taught in connection with the Jewish and Christian religion they lead the more critical and daring intellects to question and deride the cosmogony and general philosophy contained in the sacred books. Because the Newtonian theory is held to be true they are led to reject the Scriptures altogether, to ignore the worship, and doubt and deny the existence of a Creator and Supreme Ruler of the world.

The above statements are generally true, as even today the scientific purveyors of hypothesis and theory of astronomical natures beyond human experience are mostly irreligious and athiest.

A Round Earth is contradictory to Christian and Jewish teachings, which is also true. Since many people of the time period were Christian or Jewish, the philosophical ramifications have a place for discussion within the text. ENAG by no stretch argues that because the bible is true the earth must be flat. It argues that there is a plethora of evidence showing that the earth is flat, and the general reader should be inclined to agree with the evidence presented, which also agrees with the thousands of years of beliefs and teachings of our ancestors.

8454

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun and Moon floating above us - I don't get it

« on: June 21, 2016, 07:36:10 AM »

I can provide you with a pretty conclusive justification that explains the paths of the sun and moon...
I doubt you'd listen though.

Don't bother. We likely know much, much more about Round Earth Theory and the history of astronomy than you do.

8455

Suggestions & Concerns / Lets host Earth Not a Globe

« on: June 21, 2016, 06:59:28 AM »

The sacred-texts.com version of Earth Not a Globe is public domain and may be used for any non-commercial purposes.

NOTICE OF ATTRIBUTION
scanned at sacred-texts.com, June 2005. Proofed and formatted by John Bruno Hare. This text is in the public domain in the United States because it was published prior to 1923. These files may be used for any non-commercial purpose provided this notice of attribution is left intact in all copies.

I would like to scrape the book from the site and host it directly here on this website. The person who digitized the book left various disparaging comments on the index page such as:

"To make his system work he had to throw out a great deal of science, including the scientific method itself, using instead what he calls a 'Zetetic' method. As far as I can see this is simply a license to employ circular reasoning (e.g., the earth is flat, hence we can see distant lighthouses, hence the earth is flat)."

These sorts of comments have no place in an informational resource. It could equally be argued that Rowbotham found the methods used by astronomers to come up with the theory of a round earth to be seriously lacking in evidence, and so Rowbotham adopted a much more empirical approach to determining the shape of the world.

The digitizer also comments that Rowbotham's motivations are mainly religiously motivated, when this is clearly not the case. The comments should be stripped out entirely and the book should be a source hosted on this site, where we could quote and link to freely in the Wiki and in the forums, without having to quote from a website called "sacred-texts".

8456

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun and Moon floating above us - I don't get it

« on: June 21, 2016, 06:25:44 AM »

The sun is observed to be in the sky. However, the answer for the mechanism which keeps the sun in the sky will be along the same lines with how Rowbotham answers why the sun travels North-South through the year:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/earth/za/za25.htm

That such is the sun's annual course is demonstrable by actual observation; but if it is asked why it traverses such a peculiarly concentric path, no practical answer can be given, and no theory or speculation can be tolerated. At no distant period perhaps, we may have collected sufficient matter-of-fact evidence to enable us to understand it; but until that occurs, the Zetetic process only permits us to say:--"The peculiar motion is visible to us, but, of the cause, at present we are ignorant."

We would never hear anything like this from a Round Earth scientist or scientific journal.

8457

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun and Moon floating above us - I don't get it

« on: June 21, 2016, 05:20:03 AM »

Unknown.

Come on Tom!  You can do better than this.  You are one of the most vocal proponents of FE theory making valid predictions.

Seems to me that one of the most important tenets of FE theory would be able to make predictions on how everything, other than the FE, is affected by the force which keeps everything in place on the FE.

We work from experiment to experience here. We have standards. Whatever keeps the sun up is not testable or observed, and making a prediction of something so beyond the range of human experience is antithetical to the empirical tenets of Zeteticism, and is more in line with Round Earth ramblings about gravitons and black matter.

8458

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun and Moon floating above us - I don't get it

« on: June 20, 2016, 11:47:56 PM »

Again, the matter is unknown.

8459

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun and Moon floating above us - I don't get it

« on: June 20, 2016, 02:30:57 PM »

As I said, the matter is unknown.

8460

Flat Earth Theory / Re: Sun and Moon floating above us - I don't get it

« on: June 20, 2016, 02:48:34 AM »

Unknown.