Using general relativity to defend the flat earth theory? Wow, that's just brilliant!

Your video, A Serious "Documentary" Defending Flat-Earth Theory, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Must be part of The Flat Earth Society.

arguement, flag on boat taken from 1 bridge to another 6 miles away... on a curved earth the flag at that distance should have dropped 16ft, but a telescope placed 18 inches above the water at the first bridge didn't need correction to still see the flag

followed immediately by, astronauts in space seeing the Earth from orbit, taking pictures of a spherical planet... yet this isn't disproving a flat earth, it's proving because gravity affects light thus that is what you are seeing, the curvature of the light

sounds like when something fits your theory, its used
and when it doesn't, its not used
hmmmmmmmmmmm

Yay, Vielen Dank!

In reply to this comment by TheGenk:
*quality

>> ^kymbos:

Those fish forums are pretty intense. I once went there asking for advice, and someone basically told me that any baby fish born into my tank would be retarded. Finding that rather comical, I embarked on a trolling campaign pretending he had basically accused me of intentionally breeding genetic retards, but after a while I realised no matter how wild my comments got, they would always be considered genuine. Those people are out there.


That's just the Internet in general. Any topic you can think of has a dedicated forum packed with the exact same mix of people that had simply picked a different passion.

Politics, economics, books, science, math, xkcd rules, xkcd sucks, (xkcd sucks) sucks, martial arts, dolphin sex, video games, sports, cars, fish, medicine, homeopathy, astrology, UFOs, mole men, moon men, Nazis in Argentina, Nazis on the Moon, flat Earths, hollow Earths, the Electric Universe...

>> ^shinyblurry:

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.
What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"
John 6;39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.
>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)



Since you continuously miss the subtleties of my critiques while avoiding the actual questions that are being posed, I will spell it out as simply as I can. (Note that my intellectual condescension, which you are right in spotting, is based entirely on your unintelligent responses and childish emotional reactions, your disregard for logic, your circular reasoning and your incessant ad hominem attacks. But please, don't let my "nasty and sarcastic attitude" get in the way of your reasoned and logical argumentation... for which we are still waiting.)


1. On the literal reading of Scripture: My question as to whether you took the Adam/Eve/Eden myth as factual and historical truth is crucial, and since you continued to base your argumentation on the assumption that it is, I followed up with questions pertaining to other literal readings of the Bible, i.e. YEC, geocentrism and flat earth theory. In later comments you dance around the issue of the Earth's age, but refuse to address one of my first questions: is all humanity the actual descendants of the fabled Adam and Eve? If not, the whole theory of original sin crumbles. You might argue, as the begrudgingly-evolution-accepting catholic church does, that "original sin" is equivalent to "human nature", which completely voids the whole "created in His image" and "free will" things.

2. On hypocrisy and cherry-picking: I wish I could say how surprised I am at you being oblivious to your hypocrisy and self-contradiction, but it is all too common among religious apologists. You accuse me of "narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant" interpretation, of arrogance, ignorance and condescension (I fully own up to that last one), and in the very same lines are guilty of all of the above. What makes your interpretation correct, and mine - which is based directly on the actual text - incorrect? Oh yes, your dogma, which declares that there is only one correct reading of the Bible, i.e. the Christian one, no matter how contrary to the text it is. You assume that any one who contradicts your creed with the help of your holy book "has no understanding" of it... and I'm the arrogant one? I could be a theology major for all you know, and while I am not, I have read the Bible thoroughly enough to know it for what it is: a collection of myths, romanticised history, laws and poetry, written by men.

Concerning the "blasphemy challenge", if I understand your reasoning cherry-picking logic, there is no need to believe in God, the Bible or any Christian creed, since we're all going to heaven anyway, right? But then, in a later comment you proclaim that only some are chosen ("many are called..." I know). What happens to those who are not and, more importantly, how will you get out of that without contradicting yourself?

3. Please do not skirt the questions: note that the "answers" to my earliest questions, repeated here, were unintelligible due to your use of terms (see below) which need clarification.

>>"So the story of Adam and Eve is not just a myth, and we are all descendants of incestuous sex (twice, if the story of Noah is taken into account)?

So God values blind obedience higher than natural curiosity, and expects Adam and Eve to obey without knowing that disobeying is "bad" (since they don't yet have the knowledge of good/evil)?

So it is moral to punish an infinity of generations of humans for what their ancestors supposedly did? And then present the "gift" of forgiveness if you submit to the god who caused you to be "sinful" in the first place??"


>>"You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:

God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit."

Haha Rottenseed, I was going to respond with a response almost exactly the same as yours (the flat earth comment), but I gave up after having too many problems with trying to quote the damn post!

>> ^rottenseed:

FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING COMMENT QUOTING BULLSHIT!
Whose dick do I have to suck to get this shit fixed?

So based on no evidence you are taking the bible as a 100% trustworthy factual literal document ?

you believe a person 2k years ago rose from the dead ?

If the news is going to let nuts on the tv like this then surely u have to let the Flat earth people or cultists if you are going to admit that you will interview sumone thats cultraly relivent but bassing everything on no evidence then you have no grounds to dismiss other people who r bat shit mental.

Personally, I'm wary of any attempt to define a universal morality. As I see it, morality is something a person must subjugate their own ethics to. Any universal moral code would be very scary to me, since it would require people to stop thinking for themselves. This kind of thinking has backfired too many times - just a cursory glance at what happened in the last century alone should be proof enough of that.

>> ^eventualentropy:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/rebuilder" title="member since May 7th, 2009" class="profilelink">rebuilder
The main issue is that people have a tendency to give way too much credit to any other given person's views on what's moral and good and what isn't (as you just demonstrated). As harris states in his talk, this does not apply to other realms of knowledge (eg. we have less respect for the 'opinion' of a member of the flat earth society than we do for a physicist).
We could argue semantics about the term objective morality but all we're really trying to do is come up with a working definition so that we can talk about these subjects in a more meaningful way. All Harris is saying is that this definition must relate to the well-being/suffering of conscious creatures. If we can accept that then we can start seeking actual, scientific answers to these questions instead of just having a mish-mash of everyone's random biases.

@rebuilder

The main issue is that people have a tendency to give way too much credit to any other given person's views on what's moral and good and what isn't (as you just demonstrated). As harris states in his talk, this does not apply to other realms of knowledge (eg. we have less respect for the 'opinion' of a member of the flat earth society than we do for a physicist).

We could argue semantics about the term objective morality but all we're really trying to do is come up with a working definition so that we can talk about these subjects in a more meaningful way. All Harris is saying is that this definition must relate to the well-being/suffering of conscious creatures. If we can accept that then we can start seeking actual, scientific answers to these questions instead of just having a mish-mash of everyone's random biases.

Transcript:

If I oppose health care, I'm against the poor; if I oppose their ridiculous climate change bill, I hate the planet and I'm a flat-Earth, moon-landing denier; if I oppose illegal immigration, I'm anti-Hispanic; if I oppose the stimulus package, I'm against the president because he's black; if I oppose the massive deficit increasing exponentially by this administration, I loved it the previous eight years; if I support the troops, I'm a war-monger; if I attended a tea party, I'm crazy; if I favor traditional marriage, I'm a homophobe; if I oppose abortion, I'm against women; if I oppose the Fairness Doctrine, I hate diversity; if I oppose strong-arm unions, I'm against workers.

So, taking all of their arguments, one by one, and adding them all together, I guess it would be safe to assume that according to the inclusive, diverse progressives that I'm just a crazed, poor person-hating, flat-Earth believing, moon-walk denying, deficit-loving, homophobic, xenophobe, who is a homogenous, women-hating, racist, that loathes hard-working, blue-collar Americans.

Oh, did I mention I'm a warmongering, jingoistic fatso? That hates children? And puppies? And spits on trees? And shoots gerbils, just for sport?

And if I don't hate, I'm simply dangerous. A fearsome, mob-inciting, redneck, flesh-eating monstrous, rhetoric spewing, out-of-control religious zealot, bent on blowing something up, maybe even before the end of the show.

@SDGundamX

I think, perhaps, you interpreted the statement "authority" differently than it was meant. By authority, I believe he means someone taking a position of certainty without needing any external justification/confirmation. Whereas science is based on only taking positions which can be supported through observation, confirmation, reason, etc... In this sense, science is NOT based on authority.

Science is a self corrective system - like you point out with your tonsils story, its views and opinions shift and change with the changes in available data. And this data is incoming faster and faster, as technology improves, which improves our ability to turnaround improvements (maybe it won't take 30 yrs to make such improvements, anymore). So your tonsils story is a good piece of punctuation for Hawking's point about religion being based on authority, while science is based on observation and reason.

As for what "win" means - I think it merely means whenever there is a conflict between science and the popular religion of the day, science will win out. We saw it with the flat earth vs round, we're seeing it with evolution. It's likely we'll continue to see more clashes in the future, until religion either dies out or popular religion becomes much less rigid than the major religions we have today.

The so-called "wisdom of the crowds" is not well studied, if at all. At best, it could be valid for limited domains where the average person -has- some knowledge of the question, at worst, it's complete fabrication.

Or shall we bring up flat Earth beliefs, stock market bubbles, and mob lynchings of the innocent, to show how reliable it is?

It may deserve more research, but it's a damned flimsy argument for rule-by-morons.