As for the grenade analogy, that goes back to invoking conspiracy.
You’re saying the grenade represents your claim that there’s a conspiracy, and the “lighter” and me are therefore dangerous and not to be trusted. This is what you mean, no? Correct me if I’m missing something; I want to communicate effectively and be sure I understand where you’re coming from. I’m not here to fuck with you.
The analogy relates to the observation of the earth.
We look out the window and see that the earth is flat. Therefore the conclusion is that the earth is flat until evidence has been presented otherwise. If you are saying that the earth is actually something else, then the burden is on you to show that.
Evidence
has been presented otherwise. You're ignoring and dismissing it.
In the case of your assertion that the flat horizon contradicts the globe earth model, the horizon only appears that way UNTIL you understand the limits of your own perspective as a 6-foot tall bipedal fucked up monkey living on a giant ball.
Again, the observation says that the earth is flat. Your assertion that it might really be a giant ball, it's just that we can't see it, is a rationalization against an empirical observation. The evidence is still that the earth is flat.
I'm just going to assume that we can begin this conversation with your first scientific observation in defense of the flat earth model being "look outside, look at that horizon, it's flat out there," and we can hopefully progress from there. I hope that's okay with you, because so far you seem to be set on keeping us stuck here at the starting line for as long as possible.
First off, and for the last time, I'm not rationalizing anything. You clearly don't know what that word means, nor empiricism, or at the very least you don't care to know them or use them responsibly.
What I'm doing is to remind you of the simple, true, and correct logical principle that "it looks like X to me" does not mean "it is X in reality." That is a horrendously fallacious mistake for anyone to make, and you
need to comprehend that if we're going to have a productive dialogue.
Moving on, and more importantly, what I said neither contradicts the flat earth nor proves the globe earth model, it only demonstrates that
both observations about the horizon appearing flat are consistent with
both models. The point of this exercise was to demonstrate to you that there's an alternative explanation for
why the horizon
appears flat to you.
The real problems only start cropping up once we start digging deeper than that initial claim about the horizon. When you start asking questions like, "Why can't I see New York from France," or "Why do the bottoms of objects disappear first when traversing beyond the horizon," or "Why does the sun appear to 'sink' into the ocean," that's when the first claim really shows its true colors. Instead of talking about those, we're stuck here over some bullshit.
All my skepticism does is raise a reasonable doubt, Tom. It's really not that complicated. I demonstrated for you the principle - perspective - behind
why my doubt is reasonable. It's then up to you to demonstrate your claim to be true "beyond a reasonable doubt." One way you could do that is to explain
how you know that your perception of a flat earth
is distinguishable from what one would perceive on a globe.
If you can't explain that, then your claim about the horizon neither proves nor disproves either model and is therefore totally useless to determining which model is correct.If you could say, "No, that's not what you would see on a globe, you would see this," then we could make some progress, but we're not.
You can linger all you like on the horizon claim, but I'm not contesting your claim that it
looks flat, I'm contesting your claim that it
is flat
because it looks flat. Your claim isn't demonstrating
how one can know that it is flat because you aren't answering a very simple, and easily understandable question of
how you know that what you're seeing can't possibly be anything else. I demonstrated for you how it could be so. Rather than address that demonstration, you sidestepped it completely and instead attempted to shift the burden of proof to me for a claim I never positively made.
It
doesn't stand up to scrutiny, it's
not consistent with every other observation and measurement we can make, it's
not empirical, and I've
shown you why and how.
Stop being incompetent or stop pretending to be. I don't care which, just stop wasting everyone's time.
I ask once more, would you care to discuss the flat earth model and how it is or isn't consistent with reality? We can start with your first mention of looking outside, or the objection to the issue of limited perspective on a giant ball. It's really up to you. Submit your best, most compelling evidence, as much as you like, and we'll go through each exhibit one by one.
Well, I submitted something -- that we see that the earth is flat -- and so far your only remark is that it *might* be a giant ball or something. It *might* also be a giant torus. We don't give a hoot about "might". We care only about "is". The fact of the matter is that it is evidence that the earth is flat, and not evidence for any of those other things.
I didn't make a claim about what it might be, is, or anything resembling a positive claim, I only objected to your implied assertion that because it looks flat from our perspective, it can only be flat. I demonstrated, quite saliently, that there is more than one possible hypothesis. I took it a step further and provided you other measurements and observations we can take that
support that hypothesis.
What you are doing is off-loading the burden of proof to me before you've even allowed us to fitfully scrutinize your first proof claim about what you can observe at the horizon. Why I did is to make an observation and demonstrate why that observation is empirically consistent. Then you,
refusing to even recognize the legitimacy of my rebuttal, attempted to turn this into a confusing game of semantics over who bears the burden of proof at any given moment.
You're bloody well confused, man, and you need to realize that and stop wasting everyone's time. The rest of us would
thank you for being honest enough to recognize that for the sake of having a productive conversation. At least, I know I would.