.
Yesterday I was surprised to see flatearthtards, with a grand total of 3 posts, starting a new thread which headlines their new website, a practice not allowed on CI because this is not a bulletin board to advertise other websites for free.
.
Today, it was not surprising to see the thread deleted and flateartards back to a grand total of 2 posts, but it was entertaining, nonetheless. ;D
.
Anyway, I went to the fledgling site to look around, and after tripping over all the ESL misprints and grammatical gaffes, I found the omissions and errors not too unexpected. But there was one place where the obfuscation was glaring.
.
In the FAQs area, several questions are displayed, and not surprisingly, the one which flat-earthers unanimously avoid here on CI was not among them. ----- So flat-earthers are transparent in their unwillingness to answer it.
.
Is it too brash for me to conclude that must be because they don't have an intelligible answer to it?
.
The question to which I refer, is of course the one which asks how viewers located at different places on the earth's surface always see the moon in fact showing the same phase at any moment, whereas their flat-earth model would have the same viewers looking at a different moon phase at every moment depending on their location on their "flat" earth.
.
Tardplorable pretended to answer this question, saying "This is easy," then proceeded to not answer it at all but instead rambled on about some fantasy he had while dreaming, apparently, something about triangles in the sky or whatever.
.
In any case, the fledgling website's FAQ No. 6 is as follows, with their not atypically rambling, obtuse and strange response. But notice, if you will, that throughout this so-called answer for a question on gravity, they use the terms "weight," "density," "light" or "lighter," "heavy" or "heavier" and "force" repeatedly, without bothering to define what weight, density, lightness, heaviness or force is. So, effectively, they could be anything you want them to be. One can only imagine what they are to flat-earthers, who prescind from their definition.
.
Imprecision may allow broad swaths of opportunity for non-scientists or those who have not studied logic, but for the educated and informed, imprecision merely provides a platform of inadequacy and incredulity.
.
Additionally, they don't bother to mention the vacuum experiments that remove the effects of ambient air. Those wouldn't do their false conclusions any favors -- so like good Communists, they deliberately omitted them. And this fakery is considered somehow "credible" by flat-earthers?
.
Here and there throughout the site, I see hints of foreign language adaptation, indicating that perhaps German or Hungarian were the original tongue and someone translated it into English, that is, someone without much knowledge of English.
.
BTW I didn't break it up into paragraphs, so this is as the site shows it, without any grouping or separation, which makes it less readable IMO, but that's the way they have it.
.
The previous question (No. 5) was "How do Foucault Pendulums [sic] work?" therefore, it would seem that "How does ____ work?" is implied toward the next question, below.
.
No, I did not add the double quote marks in place of possessive and contraction apostrophes.
.
.
6. What about gravity?
If you fill a balloon with helium, a substance lighter than the nitrogen, oxygen and other elements which compose the air around it, the balloon will immediately fly upwards. If you fill a balloon with hydrogen, a substance even lighter than helium, the balloon will fly upwards even faster. If you blow a dandelion seed out of your hands, a substance just barely heavier than the air, it will float away and slowly but eventually fall to the ground. And if you drop an anvil from your hands, something much heavier than the air, it will quickly and directly fall straight to the ground. Now, this has absolutely nothing to do with "gravity." The fact that light things rise up and heavy things fall down is simply a natural property of weight. That is very different from "gravity." Gravity is a hypothetical magnetic-like force possessed by large masses which Isaac Newton needed to help explain the heliocentric theory of the universe. "Most people in England have either read, or heard, that Sir Isaac Newton‟s theory of gravitation was originated by his seeing an apple fall to the earth from a tree in his garden. Persons gifted with ordinary common-sense would say that the apple fell down to the earth because, bulk for bulk, it was heavier than the surrounding air; but if, instead of the apple, a fluffy feather had been detached from the tree, a breeze would probably have sent the feather floating away, and the feather would not reach the earth until the surrounding air became so still that, by virtue of its own density, the feather would fall to the ground." -Lady Blount, "Clarion‟s Science Versus God‟s Truth" (40) Wilbur Voliva, a famous flat-Earther in the early 20th century, gave lectures all over America against Newtonian astronomy. He would begin by walking on stage with a book, a balloon, a feather and a brick, and ask the audience: "How is it that a law of gravitation can pull up a toy balloon and cannot put up a brick? I throw up this book. Why doesn‟t it go on up? That book went up as far as the force behind it forced it and it fell because it was heavier than the air and that is the only reason. I cut the string of a toy balloon. It rises, gets to a certain height and then it begins to settle. I take this brick and a feather. I blow the feather. Yonder it goes. Finally, it begins to settle and comes down. This brick goes up as far as the force forces it and then it comes down because it is heavier than the air. That is all." "Any object which is heavier than the air, and which is unsupported, has a natural tendency to fall by its own weight. Newton's famous apple at Woolsthorpe, or any other apple when ripe, loses hold of its stalk, and, being heavier than the air, drops as a matter of necessity, to the ground, totally irrespective of any attraction of the Earth. For, if such attraction existed, why does not the Earth attract the rising smoke which is not nearly so heavy as the apple? The answer is simple - because the smoke is lighter than the air, and, therefore, does not fall but ascends. Gravitation is only a subterfuge, employed by Newton in his attempt to prove that the Earth revolves round the Sun, and the quicker it is relegated to the tomb of all the Capulets, the better will it be for all classes of society." -David Wardlaw Scott, "Terra Firma" ( 8 ) "The „law of gravitation‟ is said by the advocates of the Newtonian system of astronomy, to be the greatest discovery of science, and the foundation of the whole of modern astronomy. If, therefore, it can be shown that gravitation is a pure assumption, and an imagination of the mind only, that it has no existence outside of the brains of its expounders and advocates, the whole of the hypotheses of this modern so-called science fall to the ground as flat as the surface of the ocean, and this „most exact of all sciences,‟ this wonderful „feat of the intellect‟ becomes at once the most ridiculous superstition and the most gigantic imposture to which ignorance and credulity could ever be exposed." -Thomas Winship, "Zetetic Cosmogeny" (36) Einstein‟s theory of relativity and the entire heliocentric model of the universe hinges upon Newton‟s "law of gravitation." Heliocentrists claim that the Sun is the most massive object in the heavens, more massive even than the Earth, and therefore the Earth and other planets by "law" are caught up in the Sun‟s "gravity" and forced to orbit perpetual circles/ellipses around it. They claim that gravity also somehow allows people, buildings, the oceans, and all of nature to exist on the under-side of their "ball-Earth" without falling off. Now, even if gravity did exist, why would it cause both planets to orbit the Sun and people to stick to the Earth? Gravity should either cause people to float in suspended circular orbits around the Earth, or it should cause the Earth to be pulled and crash into the Sun! What sort of magic is "gravity" that it can glue people‟s feet to the ball-Earth, while causing Earth itself to revolve ellipses round the Sun? The two effects are very different yet the same cause is attributed to both. "If the sun is pulling with such power at the earth and all her sister planets, why do they not fall down upon him?" -A. Giberne, "Sun, Moon, and Stars" (27) Furthermore, this magnetic-like attraction of massive objects gravity is purported to have can be found nowhere in the natural world. There is no example in nature of a massive sphere or any other shaped-object which by virtue of its mass alone causes smaller objects to stick to or orbit around it! There is nothing on Earth massive enough that it can be shown to cause even a dust-bunny to stick to or orbit around it! Try spinning a wet tennis ball or any other spherical object with smaller things placed on its surface and you will find that everything falls or flies off, and nothing sticks to or orbits it. To claim the existence of a physical "law" without a single practical evidential example is hearsay, not science. "That bodies in some instances are seen to approach each other is a fact; but that their mutual approach is due to an „ attraction,‟ or pulling process, on the part of these bodies, is, after all, a mere theory. Hypotheses may be sometimes admissible, but when they are invented to support other hypotheses, they are not only to be doubted but discredited and discarded. The hypothesis of a universal force called Gravitation is based upon, and was indeed invented with a view to support another hypothesis, namely, that the earth and sea together make up a vast globe, whirling away through space, and therefore needing some force or forces to guide it in its mad career, and so control it as to make it conform to what is called its annual orbit round the sun! The theory first of all makes the earth to be a globe; then not a perfect globe, but an oblate spheroid, flattened at the „poles‟; then more oblate, until it was in danger of becoming so flattened that it would be like a cheese; and, passing over minor variations of form, we are finally told that the earth is pear-shaped, and that the „elipsoid has been replaced by an apoid!‟ What shape it may assume next we cannot tell; it will depend upon the whim or fancy of some astute and speculating „scientist.‟" -Lady Blount and Albert Smith, "Zetetic Astronomy" (14) How is it that "gravity" is so strong that it can hold all the oceans, buildings and people stuck to the under-side of the ball-Earth, but so weak that it allows birds, bugs, smoke, and balloons to casually evade its grips completely!? How is it that "gravity" holds our bodies clung to the under-side of the ball-Earth, but yet we can easily raise our legs and arms, walk or jump and feel no such constant downward pulling force? How is it that "gravity" can cause planets to revolve elliptical orbits around a single center of attraction? Ellipses by nature require two foci, and the force of gravitation would have to regularly increase and decrease to keep planets in constant orbit and prevent pulling them into direct collision courses!
.
Topic: Catholic intro video to Flat Earth (Read 17644 times)