The Flat Earth in Buddhist Cosmology

JackRT said:

It is embarrassing to admit that mine was not a convincing argument at all. Thank you for pointing that out.

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No worries.

gordonbennett said:

Firstly, thanks for playing. Some people are just no fun when it comes to having their most cherished beliefs questioned.

'The thing is, there's not really "up" or "down" in the universe...'

If I recall, that's just a line from 'What Everyone Should Believe' the book we were all made to read as children. I can see that you've taken it to heart but suffice to say, that doesn't make it true. I'm just wondering whether you've examined this belief or not. Obviously the reasoning appeals to you but that reasoning is all based on the assumption that we live on a ball which when it comes down to it is still only a belief. You can take any belief and make any other notion conform to it if you have a mind to. Does it make it real though? Nope, it just ends up confusing the issue if you ask me.

Now, I do believe in magnetic attraction as I've seen it at work but that's different to the belief that everything is magnetic and being pulled this way and that. You can't just take something like magnetism and assume that it applies to whatever you want. That seems to me to be the opposite of science. A good case in point is the common belief that because the moon is round it follows that our world must be the same shape as well. There's a problem with that sort of logic which will be obvious to you I'm sure.

'If there is up and down in the universe, what is holding Earth, or other planets, up?'

We know as much about that as anything else. Simply because we don't know the answer to questions doesn't give us the right to construct a reality on ideas we have about things. Let's start with what we do know, not what we don't and work from there.

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Gravity and magnetic fields are pretty basic physics. I don't know too much about it apart from what I learned in school.

But if the Earth is flat, that raises a lot more questions than it answers. For one thing, what does it rest upon? And do the other celestial bodies also rest on something? If so, how can they be moving in relation to each other? Is there a "bottom" in the universe?

Of course, it is possible that the Earth is flat etc. I try not to be too naive in my beliefs and examine my reasons for believing the things I do. But just because I can't personally verify that the Earth is a sphere doesn't mean any theory is as convincing as the other. Also, if the Earth IS flat, we can't know ANYTHING. I mean that. If in fact basically every single physicist, astronomer, geologist, space agency, every government and educational institution has really conspired together to fool the rest of us into thinking the Earth is a ball when it's in fact flat, then there's no reason whatsoever to trust any supposed authority on anything else. Vitamins? Who knows if they even exist? Why should I assume that the country of India exists? I've never been there myself, and if the powers that be can mislead us about the shape of our planet, then really, is there anything you CAN trust?

Also, there's the obvious question of exactly why all these people would want to lie about something like that. What would they get out of it? And how do they even manage a conspiracy that big? If they have that kind of power, why in the world would they use it for something like that?

In any case, I'd be happy to see a more reasonable theory of the shape of the Earth, and how physics would work in that case.

The other question this begs is, why do people want it to be flat? What does that gain and what is wrong with it being a ball?

So, everything we know about how water behaves changes according to size? Apart, from your obvious assumption that this is a reasonable viewpoint what are you basing it on?

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To some degree yes. You can't expect a container of water a few centimetres across to visibly curve when you look at it. The worlds curve is huge and gradual so nothing you see in a small area is going to appear curved to the eye. The only time you would see the evidence with your eye would be a ship disappearing on the horizon and only there because the distance is great enough.

Because something falls to the ground doesn't necessarily mean it's being pulled down by some force. It might just fall down because it's heavier than the air between it and the ground. You say there's nothing magical about it but with respect, your explanation sounds rather fantastic to me.

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But why should it fall at all in that case? Why not fall 'up'. Not that there is an up because that's all relative to where you are standing.

Talking of relative to where you are standing, if you catch a flight from Australia to the US (I know you're in Thailand) you gain a day and on the way back you lose it. Someone I know said they left on a 5pm Tuesday flight and arrived 4 pm Tuesday. It only does that because the world is spinning. How could it be night there and still day here if the earth wasn't facing the sun and spinning to create the day/night cycle?

Do you mean fly around the globe?

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Yes, its been done and likewise, ships don't sail off the edge or reach something that stops them. I am guessing flat earth people come up with something for that but isn't it simpler and more natural to conclude a boat can sail around it because it is round? Not as easily as aircraft but it's been done numerous times.

I don't think you need to believe in NASA to believe the earth is round.
I know you are a Buddhist but even the Bible says the earth is a sphere or round.
Isaiah
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth
The Hebrew word used here for circle is khûg (חוּג) which is better translated as ‘sphere’.
Job 26:7
7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

Then there was Pythagoras (c. 570–500 B.C.)who was known as the first person to assert that the earth is round. Even though the Bible dates much further back.

holo said:

But if the Earth is flat, that raises a lot more questions than it answers.

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How about, where's the edge?

Why aren't there any pictures or videos of it? It's not like you can hide something so big.
I would think anywhere along the edge would be a massive tourist spot and extreme thrill seeker destination. Social media should be mostly people taking selfies over the edge.

Who owns the land around the edge? I assume it would have to be land otherwise all the water would fall off into space.

holo said:

Gravity and magnetic fields are pretty basic physics. I don't know too much about it apart from what I learned in school.

But if the Earth is flat, that raises a lot more questions than it answers. For one thing, what does it rest upon? And do the other celestial bodies also rest on something? If so, how can they be moving in relation to each other? Is there a "bottom" in the universe?

Of course, it is possible that the Earth is flat etc. I try not to be too naive in my beliefs and examine my reasons for believing the things I do. But just because I can't personally verify that the Earth is a sphere doesn't mean any theory is as convincing as the other. Also, if the Earth IS flat, we can't know ANYTHING. I mean that. If in fact basically every single physicist, astronomer, geologist, space agency, every government and educational institution has really conspired together to fool the rest of us into thinking the Earth is a ball when it's in fact flat, then there's no reason whatsoever to trust any supposed authority on anything else. Vitamins? Who knows if they even exist? Why should I assume that the country of India exists? I've never been there myself, and if the powers that be can mislead us about the shape of our planet, then really, is there anything you CAN trust?

Also, there's the obvious question of exactly why all these people would want to lie about something like that. What would they get out of it? And how do they even manage a conspiracy that big? If they have that kind of power, why in the world would they use it for something like that?

In any case, I'd be happy to see a more reasonable theory of the shape of the Earth, and how physics would work in that case.

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• 'Gravity and magnetic fields are pretty basic physics. I don't know too much about it apart from what I learned in school.'

I seem to recall that what we were taught about gravity at school was the supposedly proven explanation and we accepted it as such. For that reason it's very dear to us but if it was as basic as we've been led to believe, physicists wouldn't be questioning the flaws in the theory and even debunking it. I'm also not a physicist but a brief search shows me that there are those who study these things and who don't go along with the theory. I think we were taught Newtonian physics at my school but apparently that was debunked by Einstein a while back (if what I'm reading is correct of course) - the point being the Newtonian theory of gravity is clearly not something that's carved in stone. In other words we shouldn't treat it as a law.

• 'But if the Earth is flat, that raises a lot more questions than it answers. For one thing, what does it rest upon? And do the other celestial bodies also rest on something? If so, how can they be moving in relation to each other? Is there a "bottom" in the universe?'

The simple answer is we don't know. If you've read 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' you'll understand that any answer is possible to this sort of question. It's just a case of how free your imagination is. We can assume things but it's not really very helpful as more likely than not you'll end up taking wrong paths and getting lost.

• …'But just because I can't personally verify that the Earth is a sphere doesn't mean any theory is as convincing as the other.'

I can't personally verify that the earth is flat but I think it's more likely to be flat than round and that to me--knowing what we do about how water behaves and how NASA operates--it's a little bit more convincing than the globe idea. I think it's safe to say though that it's either flat or round rather than say a cube or something.

• 'Also, if the Earth IS flat, we can't know ANYTHING. I mean that. If in fact basically every single physicist, astronomer, geologist, space agency, every government and educational institution has really conspired together to fool the rest of us into thinking the Earth is a ball when it's in fact flat, then there's no reason whatsoever to trust any supposed authority on anything else.'

Everyone is working from the assumption that we live on a ball therefore all the people you listed conform to that belief and our 'science' is built around that assumption. Just like when you were at school and were told things were a certain way you didn't think to question it, you just modelled your outlook from that understanding. Everyone is doing that I reckon. Those who do question the globe are laughed at and ridiculed so even if you did have doubts you wouldn't be able to say anything for fear of being marginalized. So, it's not that everyone is in on the conspiracy they're just operating from a flawed understanding of how things are (if it actually does turn out that the world is a globe that is.)

• 'Vitamins? Who knows if they even exist? Why should I assume that the country of India exists?'

This is why we should keep an open mind and not be so sure of ourselves I suppose in our daily life we have to have faith in others just to get by. Perhaps if enough people said India is an illusion and that in reality there was no such place your faith would be challenged and you might research and try to work out the truth of the matter. Until then I think it's fairly safe to say that India does exist.

• '...and if the powers that be can mislead us about the shape of our planet, then really, is there anything you CAN trust?'

The question is: why would they mislead us? But just because they're misleading us in one direction doesn't mean we must mistrust everything. We mistrust those who've shown themselves worthy of being mistrusted, it doesn't mean all information we've ever received is to be rejected though.

• 'Also, there's the obvious question of exactly why all these people would want to lie about something like that. What would they get out of it?'

I think it's safe to assume it has something to do with power and control. I could be wrong though.

• 'And how do they even manage a conspiracy that big?'

Not very well since the advent of the internet it seems. If the world is not a globe then there must be those who know this but for whatever reason feel a need to keep the deception alive. For argument's sake, let's say they do exist. They know they don't have to do much to protect their secret as our conditioning is such that like the matrix we're too much a part of it to see it. Those who do question things can be easily dismissed using various psychological methods - mainly ridicule and the fear of being ostracised. They really have every weapon at their disposal when it comes to protecting their secret.

• 'If they have that kind of power, why in the world would they use it for something like that?'

Who knows? Perhaps they don't want us to go wandering off on our own

coffee4u said:

The other question this begs is, why do people want it to be flat? What does that gain and what is wrong with it being a ball?



To some degree yes. You can't expect a container of water a few centimetres across to visibly curve when you look at it. The worlds curve is huge and gradual so nothing you see in a small area is going to appear curved to the eye. The only time you would see the evidence with your eye would be a ship disappearing on the horizon and only there because the distance is great enough.



But why should it fall at all in that case? Why not fall 'up'. Not that there is an up because that's all relative to where you are standing.

Talking of relative to where you are standing, if you catch a flight from Australia to the US (I know you're in Thailand) you gain a day and on the way back you lose it. Someone I know said they left on a 5pm Tuesday flight and arrived 4 pm Tuesday. It only does that because the world is spinning. How could it be night there and still day here if the earth wasn't facing the sun and spinning to create the day/night cycle?


Yes, its been done and likewise, ships don't sail off the edge or reach something that stops them. I am guessing flat earth people come up with something for that but isn't it simpler and more natural to conclude a boat can sail around it because it is round? Not as easily as aircraft but it's been done numerous times. View attachment 265328

I don't think you need to believe in NASA to believe the earth is round.
I know you are a Buddhist but even the Bible says the earth is a sphere or round.
Isaiah
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth
The Hebrew word used here for circle is khûg (חוּג) which is better translated as ‘sphere’.
Job 26:7
7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

Then there was Pythagoras (c. 570–500 B.C.)who was known as the first person to assert that the earth is round. Even though the Bible dates much further back.

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This reply didn't turn up in my inbox for some reason. I'll try to give it a read later and reply.

coffee4u said:

The other question this begs is, why do people want it to be flat? What does that gain and what is wrong with it being a ball?



To some degree yes. You can't expect a container of water a few centimetres across to visibly curve when you look at it. The worlds curve is huge and gradual so nothing you see in a small area is going to appear curved to the eye. The only time you would see the evidence with your eye would be a ship disappearing on the horizon and only there because the distance is great enough.


But why should it fall at all in that case? Why not fall 'up'. Not that there is an up because that's all relative to where you are standing.

Talking of relative to where you are standing, if you catch a flight from Australia to the US (I know you're in Thailand) you gain a day and on the way back you lose it. Someone I know said they left on a 5pm Tuesday flight and arrived 4 pm Tuesday. It only does that because the world is spinning. How could it be night there and still day here if the earth wasn't facing the sun and spinning to create the day/night cycle?


Yes, its been done and likewise, ships don't sail off the edge or reach something that stops them. I am guessing flat earth people come up with something for that but isn't it simpler and more natural to conclude a boat can sail around it because it is round? Not as easily as aircraft but it's been done numerous times. View attachment 265328

I don't think you need to believe in NASA to believe the earth is round.
I know you are a Buddhist but even the Bible says the earth is a sphere or round.
Isaiah
It is He who sits above the circle of the earth
The Hebrew word used here for circle is khûg (חוּג) which is better translated as ‘sphere’.
Job 26:7
7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

Then there was Pythagoras (c. 570–500 B.C.)who was known as the first person to assert that the earth is round. Even though the Bible dates much further back.

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• 'You can't expect a container of water a few centimetres across to visibly curve when you look at it.'

Perhaps not, but you should be able to see a curve on a lake if it's large enough. Beyond a video by the Discovery channel (I think it was) I haven't. There's a number of videos available where teams of people have gone out searching for the curve using lasers and what-have-you but ended up finding no curve at all. I wasn't present at the filming so I only have their word for it, still I think the tests were legitimate enough.

• 'The worlds curve is huge and gradual so nothing you see in a small area is going to appear curved to the eye.'

We have the measurements of the globe so we can work out where a curve should be.

• 'The only time you would see the evidence with your eye would be a ship disappearing on the horizon and only there because the distance is great enough.'

We now understand that the horizon line has nothing to do with there being a curve but more to do with things such as atmospheric refraction, the laws of perspective, light and the shape of our eyes. The ship going over the horizon simply cannot be used to prove the curve when with the use of a zoom lens one can bring a ship back into view once it has supposedly vanished over the curve of the earth. If indeed the ship really had gone over the curve that would be impossible.

• 'But why should it fall at all in that case? Why not fall 'up'.'

Perhaps it's a natural law of the universe, things that are heavier than air descend and that which is lighter ascends. To me that's more plausible than the theory of gravitation which is certainly not a law yet.

• '…Not that there is an up because that's all relative to where you are standing.'

According to the globe idea but not according to what we know about the world.

• 'Talking of relative to where you are standing, if you catch a flight from Australia to the US (I know you're in Thailand) you gain a day and on the way back you lose it. Someone I know said they left on a 5pm Tuesday flight and arrived 4 pm Tuesday. It only does that because the world is spinning. How could it be night there and still day here if the earth wasn't facing the sun and spinning to create the day/night cycle?'

I'll have to leave flight paths to people cleverer than myself. I always have trouble trying not to drift off whenever I listen to a podcast or watch a video on the subject.

• 'Yes, its been done and likewise, ships don't sail off the edge or reach something that stops them.'

This idea that there is an edge is also only an idea and imo a rather silly one.

• '… or reach something that stops them'

You'd have a hard job getting into Antarctica because of the ice wall, in some places 14,000 ft high.

• 'I am guessing flat earth people come up with something for that but isn't it simpler and more natural to conclude a boat can sail around it because it is round?'

It makes more sense to you perhaps but to people who have never seen water bend and stick to an object an ice wall containing the oceans makes more sense.

• 'I don't think you need to believe in NASA to believe the earth is round.'

I can't remember claiming you do need to believe in NASA. I think I was making the point, or trying to say that with the information and pictures from NASA it has sort of cemented this view that most people share. Something like that anyway.

• 'I know you are a Buddhist but even the Bible says the earth is a sphere or round. Isaiah It is He who sits above the circle of the earth The Hebrew word used here for circle is khûg (חוּג) which is better translated as ‘sphere’. Job 26:7 7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.'

I wouldn't be surprised if throughout history mankind has been alternating between round and flat.



"Job 26-10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to an end."

Not that the Bible is anything to go by imo, it being written by fallible men, I'm just making the point that you can probably find quite a few verses in the Bible to back up whatever claim you're making.

• 'Then there was Pythagoras (c. 570–500 B.C.)who was known as the first person to assert that the earth is round.'

Born at a time the Buddhists, Hindus and Jains all believed the earth was flat. Just because we hold Pythagoras in great regard in our culture, it doesn't mean he was correct.

gordonbennett said:

I seem to recall that what we were taught about gravity at school was the supposedly proven explanation and we accepted it as such. For that reason it's very dear to us but if it was as basic as we've been led to believe, physicists wouldn't be questioning the flaws in the theory and even debunking it. I'm also not a physicist but a brief search shows me that there are those who study these things and who don't go along with the theory. I think we were taught Newtonian physics at my school but apparently that was debunked by Einstein a while back (if what I'm reading is correct of course) - the point being the Newtonian theory of gravity is clearly not something that's carved in stone. In other words we shouldn't treat it as a law.

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For all practical purposes, we can talk about it as a law. Throw something up and it'll inevitably fall down. It's not so much that Newton's theories were wrong, but they were incomplete, and there are cases where they don't apply. So Einstein comes along with a more complete theory, which in turn is supplemented by even fancier theories, or "laws".

gordonbennett said:

The simple answer is we don't know. If you've read 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' you'll understand that any answer is possible to this sort of question. It's just a case of how free your imagination is. We can assume things but it's not really very helpful as more likely than not you'll end up taking wrong paths and getting lost.

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Sure, we can't truly know anything. But when scientist have universally agreed for centuries that Earth is a sphere, and it makes sense in every way you look at at it (weather systems, the tides, the rotation of stars, seasons, the way it'll be night here and day on the other side of the planet etc etc etc, it makes pretty good sense. Good enough for me at least, and if someone wants to challenge that, they'll have a lot of explaining to do. They can't just say "we don't know", they'll have to come up with better explanations for the things that are perfectly explained by gravity and the planets being round.

gordonbennett said:

I can't personally verify that the earth is flat but I think it's more likely to be flat than round and that to me--knowing what we do about how water behaves and how NASA operates--it's a little bit more convincing than the globe idea. I think it's safe to say though that it's either flat or round rather than say a cube or something.

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I don't believe in the NASA conspiracy theories, and every time I take the time and effort to look into the claims, they are unvariably debunked. Often I don't even have to look for the real explanation because the guy who made the video so obviously has no idea what he's talking about. I mean stuff like "how could the flag be waving on the moon when there's no atmosphere there" when you just have to zoom in on the pictures to see that the pole has a crossbar to stretch the flag out

It strikes me as an extremely weird conspiracy, with extremely weird ways to carry out, and as usual, the supposed reasons for it are all over the place and not very convincing.

But I wouldn't want to take that whole debate here. If you believe in conspiracy theories, you believe in them and we're not going to change each other's minds.

gordonbennett said:

Everyone is working from the assumption that we live on a ball therefore all the people you listed conform to that belief and our 'science' is built around that assumption. Just like when you were at school and were told things were a certain way you didn't think to question it, you just modelled your outlook from that understanding. Everyone is doing that I reckon. Those who do question the globe are laughed at and ridiculed so even if you did have doubts you wouldn't be able to say anything for fear of being marginalized. So, it's not that everyone is in on the conspiracy they're just operating from a flawed understanding of how things are (if it actually does turn out that the world is a globe that is.)

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But the thing is, so much of science today wouldn't even work if we were wrong about stuff like the shape of the Earth. Weather forecasts, for example, simply wouldn't work. They would have to be built on completely different science. That's one of the reasons a flat Earth is so easy to debunk, because if it's flat, that changes everything. A round Earth explains millions of things, a flat Earth explains none.

gordonbennett said:

This is why we should keep an open mind and not be so sure of ourselves I suppose in our daily life we have to have faith in others just to get by. Perhaps if enough people said India is an illusion and that in reality there was no such place your faith would be challenged and you might research and try to work out the truth of the matter. Until then I think it's fairly safe to say that India does exist.

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Yes, if people began saying it's an illusion I might look into the arguments and the evidence. And in the case of the shape of the earth, it's very easy to find debunkings of all those claims.

gordonbennett said:

The question is: why would they mislead us? But just because they're misleading us in one direction doesn't mean we must mistrust everything. We mistrust those who've shown themselves worthy of being mistrusted, it doesn't mean all information we've ever received is to be rejected though.

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Not to be rejected per se, but definitely not reliable. If billions of people can simply be fooled about the shape of the earth, for centuries, then why should I assume that anything else I've been taught is true? It may be true, it may not, and I would have no way to find out, because even the educational institutions would be in on the lies.

gordonbennett said:

I think it's safe to assume it has something to do with power and control. I could be wrong though.

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I'd have to see a pretty convincing reason why it would be best for whoever is really in charge, that people think the world is a sphere

gordonbennett said:

Not very well since the advent of the internet it seems. If the world is not a globe then there must be those who know this but for whatever reason feel a need to keep the deception alive. For argument's sake, let's say they do exist. They know they don't have to do much to protect their secret as our conditioning is such that like the matrix we're too much a part of it to see it. Those who do question things can be easily dismissed using various psychological methods - mainly ridicule and the fear of being ostracised. They really have every weapon at their disposal when it comes to protecting their secret.

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Does it seem likely to you though?

gordonbennett said:

Who knows? Perhaps they don't want us to go wandering off on our own

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Haha
Yeah, but for real I can't even imagine what the reason could be.

holo said:

For all practical purposes, we can talk about it as a law. Throw something up and it'll inevitably fall down. It's not so much that Newton's theories were wrong, but they were incomplete, and there are cases where they don't apply. So Einstein comes along with a more complete theory, which in turn is supplemented by even fancier theories, or "laws".

Sure, we can't truly know anything. But when scientist have universally agreed for centuries that Earth is a sphere, and it makes sense in every way you look at at it (weather systems, the tides, the rotation of stars, seasons, the way it'll be night here and day on the other side of the planet etc etc etc, it makes pretty good sense. Good enough for me at least, and if someone wants to challenge that, they'll have a lot of explaining to do. They can't just say "we don't know", they'll have to come up with better explanations for the things that are perfectly explained by gravity and the planets being round.

I don't believe in the NASA conspiracy theories, and every time I take the time and effort to look into the claims, they are unvariably debunked. Often I don't even have to look for the real explanation because the guy who made the video so obviously has no idea what he's talking about. I mean stuff like "how could the flag be waving on the moon when there's no atmosphere there" when you just have to zoom in on the pictures to see that the pole has a crossbar to stretch the flag out

It strikes me as an extremely weird conspiracy, with extremely weird ways to carry out, and as usual, the supposed reasons for it are all over the place and not very convincing.

But I wouldn't want to take that whole debate here. If you believe in conspiracy theories, you believe in them and we're not going to change each other's minds.

But the thing is, so much of science today wouldn't even work if we were wrong about stuff like the shape of the Earth. Weather forecasts, for example, simply wouldn't work. They would have to be built on completely different science. That's one of the reasons a flat Earth is so easy to debunk, because if it's flat, that changes everything. A round Earth explains millions of things, a flat Earth explains none.

Yes, if people began saying it's an illusion I might look into the arguments and the evidence. And in the case of the shape of the earth, it's very easy to find debunkings of all those claims.

Not to be rejected per se, but definitely not reliable. If billions of people can simply be fooled about the shape of the earth, for centuries, then why should I assume that anything else I've been taught is true? It may be true, it may not, and I would have no way to find out, because even the educational institutions would be in on the lies.

I'd have to see a pretty convincing reason why it would be best for whoever is really in charge, that people think the world is a sphere

Does it seem likely to you though?

Haha
Yeah, but for real I can't even imagine what the reason could be.

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• '...For all practical purposes, we can talk about it as a law.Throw something up and it'll inevitably fall down.'

That I would agree is a law. On saying that, it may not be because of some force pulling it down though. The explanation of a phenomenon is known as a scientific theory. A law in physics is something else, evidently a description of something, (according to Professor Google at the University of livescience.com.) My understanding of the word--perhaps it's yours also--is how the word's generally used by English speakers. You'd think the scientific community could get their own words rather than changing the meaning of those that have already been defined since time immemorial already!


But whether this idea of gravity that you have is a real thing or not it still doesn't prove the world to be one shape or the other. Perhaps you can use it to give weight to your hypothesis but in my view, it isn't proof that we live on a sphere since there are other explanations as to why objects fall to the ground. Einstein's theory of relativity for one. The respected string theorist Erik Verlinde maintains that gravity is an illusion and resides only in the head of a believer. Perhaps he's right, what it certainly isn't is a law as we understand the word.

• 'Sure, we can't truly know anything. But when scientist have universally agreed for centuries that Earth is a sphere, and it makes sense in every way you look at at it (weather systems, the tides, the rotation of stars, seasons, the way it'll be night here and day on the other side of the planet etc etc etc, it makes pretty good sense. Good enough for me at least, and if someone wants to challenge that, they'll have a lot of explaining to do. They can't just say "we don't know", they'll have to come up with better explanations for the things that are perfectly explained by gravity and the planets being round.

People have believed all sorts of things if we look back in history - large numbers of people don't make things true either, especially when they're all singing from the same hymn sheet. You are content with the globe model because it makes sense to you but making sense also doesn't mean something is correct; in the world of quantum physics remember, there are things that don't make much sense at all but are accepted as true all the same.

• 'I don't believe in the NASA conspiracy theories, and every time I take the time and effort to look into the claims, they are unvariably debunked. Often I don't even have to look for the real explanation because the guy who made the video so obviously has no idea what he's talking about. I mean stuff like "how could the flag be waving on the moon when there's no atmosphere there" when you just have to zoom in on the pictures to see that the pole has a crossbar to stretch the flag out '

They debunk what is easy to debunk not what is difficult. An astronaut not knowing about the Van Allen belts for one. Out of necessity he would have had to fly through them on his way to the moon. It's inconceivable that he wouldn't know where they were. People try to debunk it but other than saying he's old and forgetful during the interview in which he unintentionally admitted his ignorance or attacking the credibility of the interviewer there is no satisfactory answer. A trained astronaut would know about the belts and would know he'd have to fly through them if he really was going to the moon.

Then there's the clip of the Apollo team getting caught out faking an image of the earth from space in 1969 when they were obviously only in low earth orbit, that's another one the debunkers never seem to tackle. It appears that if you get a large number of videos debunking what is easy to debunk it gives the impression that everything is debunked when it's really not the case at all. How about the masses of filmed fakery going on in the International Space Station - that seems to go unchallenged also. The use of wires for example to stage a gravity free environment or the slept-upon wet hairdos to try and give the impression that in a zero-g environment hair would act in that way when we know it doesn't at all if one has seen film of women on a zero-g plane. How about the incongruous sudden appearance of a scuba tank when astronauts are supposedly outside the ISS fixing something or other. Again I never seem to come across a satisfactory debunking video for that either for some reason.



Anyway, I'll leave it there for now. Got to sleep!

Not that the Bible is anything to go by imo, it being written by fallible men, I'm just making the point that you can probably find quite a few verses in the Bible to back up whatever claim you're making.

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Not to you maybe, but to me as a Christian, it is the word of God.

coffee4u said:

Not to you maybe, but to me as a Christian, it is the word of God.

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As I said, you can probably find anything in the Bible to support whatever it is you're claiming. People read into it what they want, a bit like the I-Ching. On saying that, I'd prefer you believed in Christianity than other belief based religions, just so long as you remember that it is belief based and therefore not necessarily true.



Genesis 1:14, NIV: "And God said, 'Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,"

Genesis 1:14, ESV: "And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years,"

Genesis 1:14, KJV: "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:"

Genesis 1:14, NASB: "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;"

Genesis 1:14, NLT: "Then God said, 'Let lights appear in the sky to separate the day from the night. Let them be signs to mark the seasons, days, and years."

Genesis 1:14, CSB: "Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night. They will serve as signs for seasons and for days and years."

Not that the Bible is anything to go by imo, it being written by fallible men

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just so long as you remember that it is belief based and therefore not necessarily true.

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I don't have to remember anything. For me, it is completly true and scripture is breathed by God. Notice I said nothing about Buddhism so please learn to have the same respect back. Since you keep making jabs towards Christian belief I am done here.

I can't believe we need to have this conversation in 2019.

This wasn't news in 1400, 500, or even -240 CE.
(Back then, astronomer Erastothenes made the first good measurement of the Earth's size by calculating the angles of shadows at different locations at the same time.)

The sheer number of conspiracy theories necessary to uphold the notion of a flat earth should already tell you everything you need to know about it.

coffee4u said:

I don't have to remember anything. For me, it is completly true and scripture is breathed by God. Notice I said nothing about Buddhism so please learn to have the same respect back. Since you keep making jabs towards Christian belief I am done here.

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I do apologise, but why so touchy? You can say what you like about Buddhism, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Is your faith that shaky that you can't abide having anyone criticise your precious beliefs? (not that that was my intention) I was just stating what I thought was an obvious fact - the books of the Bible were written by fallible men. What's disrespectful about that? I thought that fact was commonly understood by Christians today! Are you saying the authors were acting as secretaries of God or something? If that were the case why are there so many inconsistencies and contradictions within various books? Why would God say one thing to one writer and another thing to another writer? I'm curious to know. Or would you just prefer me not to address these obvious questions?

If I'd known how precious you were, I would have indeed been more careful what I said. It's just that I was under the impression that Christians were rational people. When I think about it, I guess that's probably just because I was brought up in the bosom of the Church of England.

Whoops!

Jane_the_Bane said:

I can't believe we need to have this conversation in 2019.

This wasn't news in 1400, 500, or even -240 CE.
(Back then, astronomer Erastothenes made the first good measurement of the Earth's size by calculating the angles of shadows at different locations at the same time.)

The sheer number of conspiracy theories necessary to uphold the notion of a flat earth should already tell you everything you need to know about it.

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If the earth was indeed a globe the Apollo team of 1969 wouldn't have had to fake a picture of it on their way to the moon. If the ISS was really in space they wouldn't have to fake zero gravity by using wires or use a scuba tank when out on a spacewalk. These aren't conspiracy theories, they're just the facts that anyone can search out and examine for themselves. The conclusion after taking a closer look at the claims made is that NASA has lied too much already for them to be trusted anymore. That's why we're having this conversation today; an increasing number of people are questioning the space agencies and their tales that we took to be real all our lives. People are beginning to realise that if NASA is lying about certain things to do with space perhaps they're lying about other things as well.

Now I understand that being firmly embedded within the matrix like you are, you will have a hard job processing this new information but I assure you we've all been at that stage and hope you try and keep an open and enquiring mind going forward. This is the age of information remember, which is another reason why this debate is taking place now. Information is available to us now that wasn't available to us before.

Regarding the great man Erastothenes, he wasn't trying to prove the shape of the earth. The famous shadow experiment he carried out was simply for working out the size of the earth. He may have thought he was working out the circumference but that's only because he--like Aristotle--assumed the earth was a sphere. In actual fact, he was just working out the diameter of the earth which is the same on the flat or globe earth. The heliocentric community throughout history have tried to present this experiment as being proof of a globe. It really isn't.

Jane_the_Bane said:

I can't believe we need to have this conversation in 2019.

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We don't.
Given the low post count, scope of participation, outrageous claims, and passive aggressiveness, I believe this is nothing more than trolling.

Until pictures and videos of the perimeter and provided, why bother?

awitch said:

We don't.
Given the low post count, scope of participation, outrageous claims, and passive aggressiveness, I believe this is nothing more than trolling.

Until pictures and videos of the perimeter and provided, why bother?

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Ya. It has kinda seemed to run its course. Maybe the flat earthers finally got on an airplane.

awitch said:

We don't.
Given the low post count, scope of participation, outrageous claims, and passive aggressiveness, I believe this is nothing more than trolling.

Until pictures and videos of the perimeter and provided, why bother?

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No one has yet requested pictures or videos. Why should I bother spending time hunting down links if no one is interested?

'Passive aggressiveness' teehee, sounds like an sjw buzzword. We used to just call it having a dig, busting balls etc. Mind you, I guess we live in much more serious times than we used to!

TheOldWays said:

Ya. It has kinda seemed to run its course. Maybe the flat earthers finally got on an airplane.

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Well, if you wish to remain in the dark that's up to you. Nothing much we can do about it.