[markjo]

Here's another question for Tom.  Rowbotham and others claim that Polaris can be seen as far south of the equator as the tropic of Capricorn.  Other than FE specific literature, do you know of any documented sighting of Polaris more than a degree or two south of the equator and if so, would you please provide the appropriate documentation?

[AMann]

I have been a Flat Earther for over 8 years. I have seen and debated it all. Ask me anything and I will provide an answer.

8 years... that is a long time. Longer than most kids live with the notion of a flat Earth. How exactly does one become a flat-earther? By that, what evidence actually convinced you that the earth was flat?

[Tom Bishop]

Are there any other questions for Tom Bishop?

If it makes the difference, this question was totally sincere:

Suppose you could have a one-hour conversation with any human being, alive or dead; he or she will answer any question you have with complete honesty; the conversation is only with you, and you can't record any of it; whom would you choose and why?

That would be Diogenes of Sinope.

http://classicalwisdom.com/diogenes-of-sinope/

Diogenes was constantly dirty, disheveled, and often smelled of filth. He urinated and defecated in public, and it was not uncommon for him to literally spit in the faces of those who disagreed with him. For this reason, Diogenes was sometimes referred to as “Diogenes the dog”.

Rather than being offended, Diogenes reveled in the idea of being more like a dog. A dog, he believed, was more in touch with nature and therefore more closely in tune with true happiness. The dog does not care for social status or material possessions; the dog does not make himself a slave to the superficial desires that so plague the hearts of men. The dog lives life in the present and does not concern itself with abstract notions that might damage the soul.

The philosopher believed very firmly that man is not above nature. We are inescapably a part of it, and the further we retreat from this truth, hiding behind our lavish houses and material treasures, the further we withdraw from true virtue.

A few antecdotes from theunboundspirit.com:

When Alexander the Great addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, Diogenes replied "Yes, stand a little out of my sunshine"

Diogenes was washing his clothes and dishes on a river, then Plato approached and said 'Diogenes, if you worked for the king, you wouldn't be washing your clothes and dishes' then Diogenes replied 'Plato, if you washed your clothes and dishes, you wouldn't have to work for the king'

Diogenes stood outside a brothel, shouting, “A beautiful whore is like poisoned honey! A beautiful whore is like poisoned honey! A beautiful whore . . . ” Men entering the house threw him a coin or two to shut him up. Eventually Diogenes had collected enough money and he too went into the brothel.

He is also purported to have said "Why not whip the teacher when the pupil misbehaves?"

A heckler in the crowd shouted out, “My mind is not made like that, I can’t be bothered with philosophy.” “Why do you bother to live,” Diogenes retorted, “if you can’t be bothered to live properly?”

“It’s my fate to steal,” pleaded the man who had been caught red-handed by Diogenes. “Then it is also your fate to be beaten,” said Diogenes, hitting him across the head with his staff.

Often when he was begging, Diogenes would be spat on by the people who passed him. Diogenes would ignore this and simply wipe his face with his sleeve. When ridiculed for his passive behavior, Diogenes said, “Since men endure being wetted by the sea in order to net a mere herring, should I not endure being sprinkled to net my dinner?”

A famous athlete was making his triumphal entry into the city after another successful games. As he was carried along, he was unable to tear his eyes away from the many beautiful women among the onlookers.
“Look at our bave victor,” remarked Diogenes, “taken captive by every girl he sees.”

“Why is it, Diogenes, that pupils leave you to go to other teachers, but rarely do they leave them to come to you?”
“Because,” replied Diogenes, “one can make eunuchs out of men, but no one can make a man out of eunuchs.”

[Tom Bishop]

Are there any other questions for Tom Bishop?

Yes.  What are your thoughts on Doppler shift in GPS signals?

Who measured this?

Three 'new' questions for Tom Bishop.

-1- How is it possible that some people are 100% sure that the earth is a sphere and
that some people are 100% certain that the earth is flat?

-2- Is there except for long distance observations another solid evidence that the earth is flat?

-3- Some say that as the dark side of the earth (night time) is facing a different part of the universe during December-January and June-July (in the heliocentric model) you can figure out what the shape is of the earth. Is this possible and did you check this?

1.The only people claiming 100% certainty are Round Earthers. The Zetetic philosophy back to Rowbotham holds the concept of truth as being subject to change, based on the best available evidence.

2. Our everyday experience suggests that the earth is flat, and this is not an unreasonable starting point. The Flat Earth Society has shown the holes in Aristotile's "3 Proofs" and has shown NASA's media to be questionable. Once a piece of evidence is shown to be credible and difficult to dispute, the Flat Earth Society will cease to exist.

If NASA were a honest and transparent organization they would open their research to third party peer review. For example, many question whether the Lunar Lander is actually a poorly crafted prop. NASA could alleviate such concerns by allowing a third party to inspect one of the allegedly real Lunar Landers sitting in a museum and authenticate that it is actually a 6 billion dollar space-worthy piece of engineering.

3. The stars passing by overhead from east to west only suggests that they are passing by from east to west. The stars moving northward or southward in the sky over the course of the year only suggests that they are moving that direction in the sky over the course of the year.

The interplay of the movement of the stars have not "proven the earth to be round". It must first be proven that the earth is actually rotating, otherwise the path of the stars can be attributed to other causes. The works of astronomers Tycho Brache and Giovanni Riccioli show many tests which suggests the earth does not rotate.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1012/1012.3642.pdf

VIII. Tycho also argues that if the cannon experiment were performed at the
poles of the Earth, where the ground speed produced by the diurnal motion is
diminished, then the result of the experiment would be the same regardless of
toward which part of the horizon the cannon was fired. However, if the experiment
were performed near the equator, where the ground speed is greatest, the result
would be different when the ball is hurled East or West, than when hurled North or
South.

The form of the argument is thus: If Earth is moved with diurnal motion, a ball fired
from a cannon in a consistent manner would pass through a different trajectory when hurled
near the poles or toward the poles, than when hurled along the parallels nearer to the Equator,
or when hurled into the South or North. But this is contrary to experience. Therefore, Earth is
not moved by diurnal motion.

If Tycho is to be believed, experiments have shown this to be correct. Moreover,
if a ball is fired along a Meridian toward the pole (rather than toward the East or
West), diurnal motion will cause the ball to be carried off [i.e. the trajectory of the
ball is deflected], all things being equal: for on parallels nearer the poles, the ground
moves more slowly, whereas on parallels nearer the equator, the ground moves more
rapidly.7

The Copernican response to this argument is to deny it, or to concede it but claim
that the differences in trajectory fall below our ability to measure. But in fact the
argument is strong, and this response is not.

See the bolded above.

Riccioli concludes in the pdf with:

None of the above examples of what should happen if the Earth moves are in
accord with what we see. Therefore, the Earth does not move with diurnal, much less
annual, motion.

[markjo]

Are there any other questions for Tom Bishop?

Yes.  What are your thoughts on Doppler shift in GPS signals?

Who measured this?

First of all, are you suggesting that Doppler shift should not be present in any satellite originating signals including, but not limited to GPS signals?  If so, then you might be interested to know that such Doppler shift from a satellite was used to help determine the approximate flight path of flight MH370 before it completely disappeared.
http://theaviationist.com/2014/03/27/inmarsat-helps-finding-route/

Secondly, as for who measured this shift...  Well, it seems like pretty much anyone who works on designing the nuts and bolts of GPS navigation.
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.518.619&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://www-research.cege.ucl.ac.uk/GNSSsig/pdf/Doppler_Draft_V1_MBahrami.pdf
http://math.tut.fi/posgroup/DopplerPositioningwithGPS.pdf

[markjo]

If NASA were a honest and transparent organization they would open their research to third party peer review.

Tom, did you know that NASA does open their research to third party peer review?
https://informal.jpl.nasa.gov/reviewer/Process
https://pds.jpl.nasa.gov/documents/qs/peer_review.html
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2014/12/05/NASA_Plan_for_increasing_access_to_results_of_federally_funded_research.pdf

[geckothegeek]

Are there any other questions for Tom Bishop?

Here is one question that I think has not been brought up.:

What is your opinion of the horizon ?

I believe the flat earth version says that the horizon  is an indistinct blur that fades away in an infinite distance.

The round earth version says that the horizon is a distinct line where earth and sky meet on the land (or sea and sky meet on the ocean.) And that the distance to the horizon depends on the height of the observer and can be determined by a simple formula.The higher the observer is, the farther he can see to the horizon.

[geckothegeek]

Gary, I hope you won't be any more outraged that you already are if I tell you that your pathetic attempts at making yourself look sincere aren't achieving their purpose. If you come back with an honest argument, I'll take you up on that, but until then you'll have to satisfy yourself with my advice of "talk to somebody else".

Who said anything about outrage?  I've been polite and reasonable throughout this whole conversation.  As I've mentioned every other time you do this: all you have to do, at any time, in any conversation with me, is say, "Hey, that's not my position.  My position is this and this and this."  Without fail, my reaction will be something like, "My mistake; with this corrected understanding, here's what I now think."

As I often do, I've tried multiple times in this thread to concede outright that you are correct that I have misstated your position and move forward from there; you are only incorrect about the cause of the misstatement.  Nevertheless, you continue to fixate counterproductively on the latter over the former.

So, your answer as I understand it now still seems like a bit of hand-waving, and its specifics are unclear.  Can you elaborate on what you mean when you say that "The satellite fantasy was designed in such a way that it fits observable data"?

Would you also say  that "The amateur radio "Moon Bounce" fantasy was designed in such a way that  it fits observable data." ?
Or would you also say that "The fantasy of astronauts having placed laser reflectors on the moon and the astronomical observatories fantasy of reflecting laser beams off these reflectors to measure the distance from the earth to the moon was designed in such a way that it fits observable data." ?

[geckothegeek]

Are there any other questions for Tom Bishop?

Yes.  What are your thoughts on Doppler shift in GPS signals?

Who measured this?

Three 'new' questions for Tom Bishop.

-1- How is it possible that some people are 100% sure that the earth is a sphere and
that some people are 100% certain that the earth is flat?

-2- Is there except for long distance observations another solid evidence that the earth is flat?

-3- Some say that as the dark side of the earth (night time) is facing a different part of the universe during December-January and June-July (in the heliocentric model) you can figure out what the shape is of the earth. Is this possible and did you check this?

1.The only people claiming 100% certainty are Round Earthers. The Zetetic philosophy back to Rowbotham holds the concept of truth as being subject to change, based on the best available evidence.

2. Our everyday experience suggests that the earth is flat, and this is not an unreasonable starting point. The Flat Earth Society has shown the holes in Aristotile's "3 Proofs" and has shown NASA's media to be questionable. Once a piece of evidence is shown to be credible and difficult to dispute, the Flat Earth Society will cease to exist.

If NASA were a honest and transparent organization they would open their research to third party peer review. For example, many question whether the Lunar Lander is actually a poorly crafted prop. NASA could alleviate such concerns by allowing a third party to inspect one of the allegedly real Lunar Landers sitting in a museum and authenticate that it is actually a 6 billion dollar space-worthy piece of engineering.

3. The stars passing by overhead from east to west only suggests that they are passing by from east to west. The stars moving northward or southward in the sky over the course of the year only suggests that they are moving that direction in the sky over the course of the year.

The interplay of the movement of the stars have not "proven the earth to be round". It must first be proven that the earth is actually rotating, otherwise the path of the stars can be attributed to other causes. The works of astronomers Tycho Brache and Giovanni Riccioli show many tests which suggests the earth does not rotate.

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1012/1012.3642.pdf

VIII. Tycho also argues that if the cannon experiment were performed at the
poles of the Earth, where the ground speed produced by the diurnal motion is
diminished, then the result of the experiment would be the same regardless of
toward which part of the horizon the cannon was fired. However, if the experiment
were performed near the equator, where the ground speed is greatest, the result
would be different when the ball is hurled East or West, than when hurled North or
South.

The form of the argument is thus: If Earth is moved with diurnal motion, a ball fired
from a cannon in a consistent manner would pass through a different trajectory when hurled
near the poles or toward the poles, than when hurled along the parallels nearer to the Equator,
or when hurled into the South or North. But this is contrary to experience. Therefore, Earth is
not moved by diurnal motion.

If Tycho is to be believed, experiments have shown this to be correct. Moreover,
if a ball is fired along a Meridian toward the pole (rather than toward the East or
West), diurnal motion will cause the ball to be carried off [i.e. the trajectory of the
ball is deflected], all things being equal: for on parallels nearer the poles, the ground
moves more slowly, whereas on parallels nearer the equator, the ground moves more
rapidly.7

The Copernican response to this argument is to deny it, or to concede it but claim
that the differences in trajectory fall below our ability to measure. But in fact the
argument is strong, and this response is not.

See the bolded above.

Riccioli concludes in the pdf with:

None of the above examples of what should happen if the Earth moves are in
accord with what we see. Therefore, the Earth does not move with diurnal, much less
annual, motion.

1. Only about 99.9999% of the earth's population know that the earth is a globe. This has been known for centuries. Geodetic surveys alone are enough evidence of a globe.

2.Why anyone would believe that the earth is flat is a mystery to 99.99999% of the earth's population. Geodetic surveys have been made of the entire earth. If the earth was flat the so-called "ice ring" would have been discovered. Anyone believing in a flat earth would have to deny all reality .

[geckothegeek]

1. Only about 99.9999% of the earth's population know that the earth is a globe. This has been known for centuries. Geodetic surveys alone are enough evidence of a globe.

2.Why anyone would believe that the earth is flat is a mystery to 99.99999% of the earth's population. Geodetic surveys have been made of the entire earth. If the earth was flat the so-called "ice ring" would have been discovered. Anyone believing in a flat earth would have to deny all reality .

This is a thread Tom Bishop started for people who have questions about the Flat Earth.
It is very rude of you to try to (mis)use this thread for your propaganda.

I will re-phrase my questions for Tom Bishop:

1.What is your opinion of the measurements of the distance from the earth to the moon ?

2.What is your opinion of the description of the horizon and the distance to the horizon from the observer ?

[geckothegeek]

1. If this is trolling, more than one can play the game.

2.Of course I know the answers. I would just like to see what Tom Bishop's answers would be. The questions were just "Ask Tom Bishop" to see what his answers would be.

The thought in asking these questions was that maybe some persons - maybe new visitors to this website - haven't seen those questions before and would be interested in seeing Tom Bishop's answers.