I was intrigued by the mention of people who continue to believe the Earth is flat. I assume we’re not talking about Zulu tribes here (and maybe they know better, I don’t know), so who are these people and what are their arguments? What do they think about all those programs that Michael Palin does for the BBC?
Virtually all flat-earth belief is Biblically based. See http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm for an excellent article about Hebrew cosmology and flat-earth beliefs.
Also of interest: http://www.skeptics.com.au/features/links/slnk-f.htm#x64247
which has links to five flat-earth webpages, although www.flat-earth.org appears to be a parody website.
I assume you’re referring to this statement
in this mailbag column, “Was the Apollo moon landing a hoax? (31-Mar-2000)”.
As they say, “the earth is obviously flat! For proof, look out the window.”
“Photos showing a round Earth are hoaxes because the Earth is flat.” A two dimensional photo has no bearing on this. I’m not seeing the logic here. Why wouldn’t the flat-earthers just say the photo only proves that we are floating through the cosmos on a giant flat disk.
Simple. If we can truly get to space, we can fly around the earth, right? Therefore we can prove or disprove that the earth is flat… therefore, in order to maintain the belief that the world is flat, it is necessary also to maintain the belief that we cannot get to space.
Any similarities between your reality and mine are purely coincidental.
Folks, let’s get some logic working.
It is true that photos are two-dimensional. Thus, from the photo, you can’t tell if the earth is round or flat (ignore for a minute the difficulty of explaining a curved terminator line on a flat surface). BUT, you also can’t see all the land-masses of the Earth on the ‘side’ of the ‘disc’ facing towards the picture, so either the rest is on the other ‘side’ of the disc, or else the Earth is not flat.
Therefor, the pictures must be hoaxes.
Besides, on my map, Greenland is about as large as South America, larger than Australia. And on all those so-called “pictures from space”, Greenland is much smaller.
Further evidence: I can’t see the Great Wall of China in those so-called “pictures from space” but everyone knows it is the only man-made structure visible from space.
WARNING: Sometimes sarcasm sneaks into my posts, all unbeknownst to me. Conspirators who fake the photos from space probably alter my posts from time to time. You can’t be too paranoid when they really are out to getcha.
I’d have to say I really love the flat-earth.org site. They go into a lot of detail, very amusing. They no longer believe that the Earth is flat, only that it should be flat in a state of nature and it has been mankind’s bad effects that have made it round. In a state of nature, Earth would have five corners (one in the middle), with North pointing towards the middle and the South Pole as an infinitely long line around the perimeter.
The South Pole is infinitely long, but the Earth has finite area? Is that possible? Sure it is. England has an infinite border, without having finite area. Of course England does not exist, but that’s a different matter. (I couldn’t find their doctrine on Scotland and Wales.)
Anyway, parody groups can be pretty fun. Thanks for the link, Opus.
Am I reading Hippocrates right?
He’s not just a big box for storing large semi-aquatic mammals, is he?
Opus, that site http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/ has a load of excellent links, thanks
As strange as the flat-earth idea (I don’t think it rises to the level of hypothesis), there are even stranger ideas out there. Search the web for “hollow earth” and you’ll find loads of people who think that the earth is hollow, and supports life inside. One of the stranger web sites I have seen suggested that aurora can be explained by planets being hollow – and not by charged particles from the sun.
I have heard of those people and in order for them to believe it they believe everything is a hoax from airplains flying around the world to the space program. They believe an ice barrior is at the edge of the earth and the heavens extent about 6,000 miles being contained in some type of bubble. It makes me think about a snow-ball paperweight thing. That of course is just rediculous. I don’t think 6,000 people believe this in the US. The guy has 6,000 members to his newsletter. I considered subscribing as a novelty to show my friends and laugh. However, much evidence does support a young earth age. Don’t confuse the two ideas. One has nothing to do with the other. I believe the earth is very young because an old earth age has the problem of atmospheric decay by now and the problem with the moons distance, lack of huge amounts of dust on the moon, radio carbons existing in granite rock, and the fact that radio active dating for very old objects is an utter failure. Reciently a living salt water creature was tested and came out to appear dead for a million or more years by the dating process of carbon dating. Carbon dating assumes the atmosphere didn’t change much, the diet of the test subjects was about the same, bones have always contained the same amount of the test element (carbon in most cases) and such. If someone could go back in time and bring us a fresh sample or if someone measured the amount back then and recorded it we would be okay. They didn’t though so we have no idea. Since salt water effects radioactive dating a universal flood would have messed everything up for scientists.
Eric Wilson eric_tkdai@yahoo.com
QUOTE"(In fact, the flat-Earthers are one of the groups claiming the moon landing is a hoax–after all, the astronauts took photos showing a round Earth, and they know that isn’t true, so it must be a hoax "
Actually many groups believe this pretty obsert arguement. I don’t however I wouldn’t want to say it is completely impossible. I mean really how can we know for 100% certainity? I believe strongly we did go to the moon though.
Eric WIlson
Eric Wilson said:
And then listed some bogus creationist rhetoric.
If you’re interested in backing up your claims (or, actually, having them shot down, because we’ve seen them all before and, well, they’re wrong), please hop over to Great Debates, where we can discuss them more fully, as they really aren’t pertinent to this discussion.
Just a quickie here, in case ERIC WILSON doesn’t feel like taking it to GD (and on the off-chance that he’s still reading this thread), the Earth isn’t dated by carbon-14, which, indeed, would be nearly useless on that timescale. Rather, it’s dated using uranium, thorium, and other rare-earth elements, all of which agree, and which require no a priori assumptions about conditions at the time, only measurements of current amounts of their abundances and those of their daughter elements.
I shouldn’t even bother with trying to denounce the Flood, but I’m in a stubborn mood today, so just tell me, where did all that water come from, and where did it go afterwards?
“There are only two things that are infinite: The Universe, and human stupidity-- and I’m not sure about the Universe”
–A. Einstein
In The National League Story (1961), baseball historian Lee Allen mentions a player named “Deacon” White, with the old Detroit Wolverines, then a National League team that won the 1887 World series (from the AA St. Louis Browns, no less). Allen wrote of White, “Certainly he was one of the last people who believed the earth to be flat.” His teammates constantly ridiculed him over this, but then one stepped forward and asked Whiote to try to convince him. The Deacon used an argument more suited to the hypothesis that the earth doesn’t move, including: How can an outfielder catch a fly ball if the earth is moving? The ball would sail away. All the same, White convinced the other player, named Jack Rowe.