Author Topic: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash (Read 10593 times)

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #90 on:** May 12, 2018, 01:46:33 AM »

Quote from: Jaynek on May 11, 2018, 02:53:57 PM

I explicitly defined Catholic authority as including Saints and Doctors of the Church. It is perfectly possible to have statements from such even when there is no magisterial teaching (which is normally what is meant by "Church teaching").

And, in fact, this is the case with the question of globe earth. There is no magisterial teaching explicitly saying the earth is a globe. There are many Saints and Doctors who believed or taught that earth is a globe. This is only to be expected of the predominant position throughout Catholic history. I have provided quotes from a small proportion of the total number possible, but enough to support what I have claimed.

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It is entirely irrelevant what the Church Doctors or saints or Popes have said regarding the shape of the earth.
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The authority of the Church does not extend to physical realities that can be determined by objective observation.
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The Church has no authority to define physical reality.
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Other examples of physical reality where the Church has no authority to define or bind Catholics by faith:
- The molecular weights of the various elements
- The physical properties of any or all elements of the Periodic Table
- The Periodic Table of the elements
- Any or all aspects of Chemistry in general
- The area of a continent measured in any of the many units possible
- The frequency of Concert A as used by an orchestra
- The location of the Greenwich meridian or any other meridian
- The elevation of the front portico steps of St. Peter's Basilica above mean sea level
- The coordinates of the same steps in latitude and longitude
- The speed of sound in air at 29 in.Hg and 20 deg.C.
- The diameter of the earth
- The Geographic Position (GP) of Polaris
- The Geographic Position of the Southern Cross
- The Zenith of the Sistine Chapel at a specific moment in time

Jaynek · « **Reply #91 on:** May 12, 2018, 02:14:20 AM »

Quote from: Neil Obstat on May 12, 2018, 01:46:33 AM

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It is entirely irrelevant what the Church Doctors or saints or Popes have said regarding the shape of the earth.
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The authority of the Church does not extend to physical realities that can be determined by objective observation.
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The Church has no authority to define physical reality.

It is very relevant to assessing the truth of Flat-earther claims to be taking the the true Catholic position, while those who believe the earth is a sphere are siding with the enemies of the Church.

This FE claim is false, regardless of the actual shape of the earth. Even if the earth were as flat as they think it is, they would be wrong about Church history and theology.

Meg · « **Reply #92 on:** May 12, 2018, 09:35:48 AM »

Quote from: Jaynek on May 12, 2018, 02:14:20 AM

It is very relevant to assessing the truth of Flat-earther claims to be taking the the true Catholic position, while those who believe the earth is a sphere are siding with the enemies of the Church.

This FE claim is false, regardless of the actual shape of the earth. Even if the earth were as flat as they think it is, they would be wrong about Church history and theology.

Still waiting for you to back up your claim that there are many saints and doctors who taught a globe earth. Happenby asked you about it yesterday, and your response has not been provided.

Meg · « **Reply #93 on:** May 12, 2018, 10:03:38 AM »

Quote from: An even Seven on May 12, 2018, 09:57:08 AM

That's okay. We're still waiting for proof of the claim that many saints and doctors taught flat earth.

Of course it's okay with you that Jayne hasn't backed up what she claimed. That's a typical sede ploy, and of course you're alright with that.

Truth is Eternal · « **Reply #94 on:** May 12, 2018, 11:22:28 AM »

Quote from: An even Seven on May 12, 2018, 10:24:27 AM

I can't hear you over the sound of your hypocrisy.
I don't remember you sounding the alarm that Happenby hasn't backed up her claims.
That's a typical R&Rist ploy, of course you're alright with that.

Jaynek · « **Reply #95 on:** May 12, 2018, 11:48:41 AM »

For the record, I am way closer to R&R (gave that as my answer on the recent survey) than to sede. But I think the issues are complex enough that I don't have any business telling people who come to a different conclusion than mine that they are wrong/heretics.

I have already been through many rounds of the quote game with happenby and Meg. For those of you just tuning in, it goes like this: I give a quote, FE gives a spurious objection, I explain why the objection is invalid, FE pretends I never gave a quote.

Nor do I wish to see happenby's list of quotes again. A large proportion don't even support flat earth but she ignores anyone who points that out or explains what they really mean to her. Anyone explaining Meg and happenby's misunderstandings to them gets accused of spin and/or ignored.

It is a waste of time to go through yet another iteration of this game with them. I have provided quotes in the past. Reasonable people can see that the quotes support my claims. Even unreasonable people ought to be able to see that I have provided quotes. I do not know why Meg is demanding that I provide quotes when she has already seen and discussed them

Meg · « **Reply #96 on:** May 12, 2018, 01:37:58 PM »

Quote from: Jaynek on May 12, 2018, 11:48:41 AM

For the record, I am way closer to R&R (gave that as my answer on the recent survey) than to sede. But I think the issues are complex enough that I don't have any business telling people who come to a different conclusion than mine that they are wrong/heretics.

I have already been through many rounds of the quote game with happenby and Meg. For those of you just tuning in, it goes like this: I give a quote, FE gives a spurious objection, I explain why the objection is invalid, FE pretends I never gave a quote.

Nor do I wish to see happenby's list of quotes again. A large proportion don't even support flat earth but she ignores anyone who points that out or explains what they really mean to her. Anyone explaining Meg and happenby's misunderstandings to them gets accused of spin and/or ignored.

It is a waste of time to go through yet another iteration of this game with them. I have provided quotes in the past. Reasonable people can see that the quotes support my claims. Even unreasonable people ought to be able to see that I have provided quotes. I do not know why Meg is demanding that I provide quotes when she has already seen and discussed them

If you can't be bothered to provide the supposed teaching of the "many Saints and Doctors" who taught a globe earth, that's your choice. I wouldn't think that it would be all that difficult to format them all in one docuмent or post, so that you can reference them as needed.

happenby · « **Reply #97 on:** May 12, 2018, 01:41:29 PM »

Quote from: Jaynek on May 12, 2018, 11:48:41 AM

For the record, I am way closer to R&R (gave that as my answer on the recent survey) than to sede. But I think the issues are complex enough that I don't have any business telling people who come to a different conclusion than mine that they are wrong/heretics.

I have already been through many rounds of the quote game with happenby and Meg. For those of you just tuning in, it goes like this: I give a quote, FE gives a spurious objection, I explain why the objection is invalid, FE pretends I never gave a quote.

Nor do I wish to see happenby's list of quotes again. A large proportion don't even support flat earth but she ignores anyone who points that out or explains what they really mean to her. Anyone explaining Meg and happenby's misunderstandings to them gets accused of spin and/or ignored.

It is a waste of time to go through yet another iteration of this game with them. I have provided quotes in the past. Reasonable people can see that the quotes support my claims. Even unreasonable people ought to be able to see that I have provided quotes. I do not know why Meg is demanding that I provide quotes when she has already seen and discussed them

You have not provided quotes to prove the Church supports the globe.

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #98 on:** May 12, 2018, 10:36:38 PM »

Quote from: Jaynek on May 12, 2018, 02:14:20 AM

It is very relevant to assessing the truth of Flat-earther claims to be taking the the true Catholic position, while those who believe the earth is a sphere are siding with the enemies of the Church.

This FE claim is false, regardless of the actual shape of the earth. Even if the earth were as flat as they think it is, they would be wrong about Church history and theology.

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The Church does not define in matters of irrelevancy to the Faith of Catholics.
You might as well look for a Church teaching on prime numbers or the volume of a sphere or the color blue.
If you want to play this silly game, however, then go right ahead, but it will never be resolved because it's based on nonsense.

"Flat" earth is complete balderdash.

Neil Obstat · « **Reply #99 on:** May 13, 2018, 12:37:55 AM »

Quote from: Ladislaus on May 11, 2018, 10:08:07 AM

Stop acting like a baby, would you?

I looked at the video. It's simply trying to show that the math of sun direction looks cleaner on a globe model vs. flat earth. It's the same reasoning used to promote heliocentrism, that geocentric math is ugly compared to heliocentric. In the video, the beams are shown as crossing over one another, but if you cut them off sooner, they generally converge into a triangle at some point. So the way it's represented in the video makes it look uglier and nearly impossible, since once they converge at the triangle, then they take off in opposite directions, which would make a single light source impossible. So cut off the arrows as soon as they converge, at a closer distance to the earth, and it's not quite as ugly as this video makes it out to be. And this falls short of "proof" also. Where's the hard proof? Flat earthers could take this video as proof that the sun is much closer to the earth than science tells us.

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Amazing. A reply! Complete with the insult, of course.
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"They generally converge into a triangle at some point." How do you keep coming up with garbage like this? The lines of sight do not "converge" at all "into a triangle" or anything else. Are you crosseyed or just full of it? There is absolutely no convergence whatsoever. And what is this "triangle" nonsense? What would a triangle have to do with anything here? The observers are not arranged in a triangle and the sun isn't a triangle. What's most glaringly obvious is the views arranged all around the "flat" earth have directions splaying out like the spokes on a wheel. Where do they "converge" when they're headed in opposite directions?
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So it looks "neater" and therefore deceptive, eh? Cut off the arrows as soon as they converge -- but they don't converge.
They're all over the place.
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Here's another version of a similar challenge (equinox) -- one where no flat-earthers participated, even when they were invited.
Because flat-earthers don't want to be involved in actual empirical experiment.
"Those who are SEEKING THE TRUTH sure don't want to participate in finding it."
They only want to SAY they're involved (but that's a lie).
Only one measurement "converged" and the rest of them were way off the mark.
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Theosist · « **Reply #100 on:** May 13, 2018, 06:40:09 AM »

Quote

It is entirely irrelevant what the Church Doctors or saints or Popes have said regarding the shape of the earth.
.
The authority of the Church does not extend to physical realities that can be determined by objective observation.
.
The Church has no authority to define physical reality.

This is just a straw man.

The Church doesn’t define any kind of reality. The Church defines true propositions about that reality which have been revealed by God, and what constitutes a “matter of faith” is not limited to things spiritual or only “essential to our salvation” - that’s Modernist tripe of the kind that makes a nonsensical distinction between something being “theologically true” and otherwise! - no, it includes facts concerning human history, the nature of man, and cosmology. If the Bible states that the dimensions of Solomon’s Temple were x,y and z, the the Church has the power and authority to infallibly declare in this matter.

“Objective observation”, by the way, is a contradiction in terms, and the notion that a “physical reality” - by which really meant a theoretical model abstracted from sense experience, thus based not only upon uncertain data but upon projecting conceptual fantasies into that data in order to postulate the existence of a world lying behind the content of sense experience - the notion that this process - of the blind grasping in the dark for a cat that might not exist at all - could take precedence over divine assurance of truth is preposterous.

Smedley Butler · « **Reply #101 on:** May 13, 2018, 09:01:30 AM »

The problem with your video, Neil, is that all the angles converge into a pyramid and then it magically turns them into parallel lines - with no explanation!

Of course, this is not what we see in reality.

What everyone sees, when sunbeams are filtered by the clouds, is a pyramid shape that ends at its source: the sun.

Ironically, this effectively demonstrates how close the sun is as well.

There are no parallel sunbeams in reality, which are described (and necessary) in the heliocentric model.

Jaynek · « **Reply #102 on:** May 13, 2018, 09:07:50 AM »

Quote from: Neil Obstat on May 12, 2018, 10:36:38 PM

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The Church does not define in matters of irrelevancy to the Faith of Catholics.
You might as well look for a Church teaching on prime numbers or the volume of a sphere or the color blue.
If you want to play this silly game, however, then go right ahead, but it will never be resolved because it's based on nonsense.

"Flat" earth is complete balderdash.

I do not expect it to be resolved. These people are clearly not open to changing their minds in response to better information. I point out historical and theological errors of flat-earthers so that casual observers of this forum will not get the impression that it is usual for trads to believe the earth is flat or that the Church teaches the earth is flat. Observers will see that such flat earth claims are met with disagreement based on strong arguments.

Jaynek · « **Reply #103 on:** May 13, 2018, 09:20:50 AM »

Quote from: Neil Obstat on May 13, 2018, 12:37:55 AM

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Amazing. A reply! Complete with the insult, of course.

You have both been insulting each other enough that I cannot remember who started it.

I find it rather frustrating. Ladislaus is the main poster who is open to flat earth while acknowledging there is no basis for claiming flat earth as the Catholic position. He seems genuinely interested in discovering the truth about the shape of the earth using science. He is doing the right thing.

You are clearly knowledgeable about science in general and arguments for spherical earth in particular. Both of you are very smart men. There ought to be a rational, logical discussion of science taking place between you. There is the potential for an extremely interesting discussion free from personal attacks, insults, or other emotional nonsense.

I feel frustrated that your exchanges fall short of this potential. Is there some sort of bad history between you? Or maybe it is a man thing that I just don't get because I am a woman.

Ladislaus · « **Reply #104 on:** May 13, 2018, 10:21:49 AM »

Quote from: Jaynek on May 13, 2018, 09:20:50 AM

Is there some sort of bad history between you? Or maybe it is a man thing that I just don't get because I am a woman.

No, there's no history. Neil and I seem to agree on many/most issues. And even on this issue I don't know if I disagree with him or not. Except that I find the excessive emotionalism of his posts irritating. He'll mock, taunt, and insult flat earth theory. And many of the proofs he posts are only proofs if you believe them to be proofs due to confirmation bias. So, for instance, the example of boats disappearing bottom-up at a distance. I don't consider that to be proof unless one rules out other optical phenomena that could account for the observation. I'm looking for hard-fast proof, and so far I've seen more attempts to do this on the side of the flat earthers, and most just rhetoric and mockery on the globe earth side. Now, there's a lot of emotional rhetoric on both sides, but I'm talking about the "proofs" that remain after I sift out and discard the emotional content.

Author Topic: "Flat" Earth -- Complete Balderdash (Read 10593 times)

Neil Obstat

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Jaynek

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Meg

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Meg

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Truth is Eternal

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Jaynek

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Meg

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happenby

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Neil Obstat

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Neil Obstat

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Theosist

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Smedley Butler

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Jaynek

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Jaynek

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Ladislaus

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