by Jrjw 315 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
Question for Kairos.
The flat earth map seems to show, for example, Sydney and Johannesburg on opposite sides of the world, and a straight line between the two would go somewhere near the North Pole. Yet Qantas is selling flights between the two cities that take a little ove 11 hours. How do they do it?
North polar azimuth:
South polar azimuth:
https://www.popsci.com/10-ways-you-can-prove-earth-is-round
10 easy ways to prove to yourself that the earth is round.
I'm going to debunk the proofs of every single point from that PopSci article in just a few hours. PopSci is known for yellow journalism and its no different here.
Oh yeah, did I mention enough times that I'm not even a flat earther?
And I suppose your'e going to debunk the hundreds of satellites, millions of professionals, hundreds of astronauts and dozens of weather balloons showing irrefutably that the earth is round. And you can keep saying you aren't a flat earther all you want. No one believes you.
Mr Roboto is not a flat earther, but he insinuates he can prove their claims, but never does. so, in the meantime he is acting like a manipulative husband that is convincing his wife that she is insane, now,
who would want that to happen among the people that have seen through the wt works? proven wt wrong?
who would want us to feel that our absolutely right arguments, proofs are futile?
DJS - I'm not going to debunk the satellites, professionals astronauts or weather balloons. What I'm going to do is refute the things that people say they can use to prove a round earth. Sounds funny right - but you cant use satellites to prove anything - YOU cant. Have you built one, launched one, seen it in operation? No. So the common person can't actually use those things. That's not in your realm of knowledge and experience. Even those who work with such things don't actually see them in action. That's all just assumption on our part that they do what/where we have been told.
Trusting what we have been told because those in authority told us so... well if that's where your low bar of evidence is, then I suggest you go back to Watchtower and the 7 Kings.
Waton, I don't insinuate that I can prove their claims. What I have explicitly said is that I will debunk PopSci's bogus "10 ways YOU CAN PROVE earth is round" because YOU can't PROVE that with what they gave. Also, I welcome your "absolutely right arguments, proofs" but all I've seen so far is the same ole garbage "science."
Don't worry, It's coming.
But for whatever your belief system is, Admiral Byrd really has some interesting things to say about Antarctica - you should definitely have a go at his interviews. Don't worry, he doesn't promote a certain shape/view but he has some amazing observations that most of us never knew about.
PopSci rebuttal: "10 easy ways you can tell for yourself that the Earth is not flat"
(from https://www.popsci.com/10-ways-you-can-prove-earth-is-round)
Keep in mind, they say that YOU can tell for YOURSELF. Let's see if that's true about these "proofs" or if they are just interesting observations that could support a round earth THEORY, or if its just strawman, or just assumptions.
Some of these will hurt to consider, but be objective, dont make assumptions.
1. Lunar Eclipse
a. You cant personally prove that the sun is actually what causes the moon's illumination
b. even if it was, you can't personally prove that the earth is the object casting the shadow
2. Ships / horizon "he reason ships appear as if they “emerge from the waves” is because the world is not flat: It’s round."
a. actually, they reappear if you zoom in with a camera -quite interesting. you can prove that for yourself and this appear as if they “emerge from the waves” thing actually would work the same on a flat plane or a round earth of the size we are told our earth is. so no proof either way here, though flatters take the zoom in / reappear effect to mean its flat.
3. Varying star constellations based on your location
a. this can be observed directly by simply going somewhere else far enough away. here the problem is interpretation of data because with a flat plane of sufficient size, you would not be able to see the entire sky and would see different parts of it depending on where you are.
4. Shadows/Sticks I like this one but again it's a matter of interpreting the data. there's a reason that flat-earthers believe the sun is "close" and to a flat earther, these sticks/shadows is proof. whether its a close sun/flat eath or a round earth of about 250,000 stadia, the result is the same so there's no "proof" here either since multiple models explain the same data.
5. seeing farther from higher works same on flat earth or round earth. look it up. do the math.
6. Ride a plane
a. point 1 was vague and without enough details to be worth them mentioning
b. there's a great mythbusters episode where the blond guy gets in a U-2 spyplane and goes to 67,500ft where he mentions the definitive curve of the planet, yet when they are switching to the various cameras (the one pointing directly towards him for ex.) you can see the flatness behind him. ironic that they show the flatness at the same time he's making the comment. also they are using fisheye lenses for most of the cameras but not all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0bwlQMch3s
7. Look at other planets well, all we can personally do is look.. at the lights.. in the sky. we can zoom in a bit too if we have a nice telescope but still it's just lights in the sky from where we are. where's the proof in that?
8. Time Zones "This can only be explained if the world is round, and rotating around its own axis" actually no that's not true either. If there is even one other explanation for timezones (there is), then this argument is flawed. Also, they are throwing in some "sun as a spotlight" strawman nonsense.
9. Gravity While their treatment of gravity on a sphere is fair, they make some assumptions about gravity on a flat plane. "The center of mass of a flat plane is in its center, so the force of gravity will pull anything on the surface toward the middle of the plane" This sounds ok at first but then you have to remember that you don't know the shape of whatever is beneath the flat plane so you really cant model how the gravity should be. If you reverse engineer it and model the shape of mass beneath based on gravity and a flat plane, you would be able to compute a certain shape for that underworld mass, but that doesn't mean its accurate. Assumptions are not proof and border on strawman arguments.
10. Images from space
a. we havent personally taken them so we cant "tell for yourself" based on these
b. many NASA photos are faked, and obviously so. this you CAN tell for yourself if you are willing to put in the time, maybe one or two hours of looking at (official) nasa photos and doing research.
I'm not a flat earth proponent but they do have some valid observations and refutations of many of the common "proofs" that are given for round earth. Be skeptical, about ball earth, about flat earth, about everything - prove it to yourself but use solid reasoning and personal observation and experiment. If you don't like anytihng I've said here, research it yourself. If the "proof" is personally unverifiable, then you can't use it to "tell for yourself" and if multiple explanations match a given "proof" then it's not a proof at all, but simply an observation that might support your theory.
I've spent many hours researching, experimenting, observing. If you haven't, then that could explain the different perspective we have. Sounds alot like "apostates" talking to JWs. (edited for clarity after posting)
Things appear differently from different perspectives. How you describe something depends on how you look at it and the reason for the description. The trouble is we simply cannot see things from a perspective that is not our own. For some people this inability to see from other perspectives leads them to conclude that other perspectives in some sense are not real or that they are inferior in some essential respecf.
Cofty you illustrated this the other day when you said about someone singing in a Quaker meeting:
That must have been agonisingly uncomfortable.
I guess what you meant to say is that for you it would have been "agonisingly uncomfortable". For people who are accustomed, and open to it, in fact welcome it, then obviously it is not "agonisingly uncomfortable" for them.
