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June, 2017
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Image: Page 2 of the “Flat Earth Coloring Book,” illustrating some of the various cosmologies of the flat Earth crowd. Note the Turtle. Remember, “Sonny, it’s turtles all the way down.”
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What, you are expecting a thoroughly-developed, coherent, consistent theory? The Flat Earthers (hereinafter, FEs) are all over the map on these things (map . . . get it?) They have several different theories, each more imaginative than the last, but what they say doesn’t matter, because . . . ..None of their theories has any evidentiary basis, so it really doesn’t matter what they think is under there. The FEs say that we can’t see what’s underneath the Earth, can’t reach underneath the Earth, can’t send any kind of remote sensing there (there is no such thing as space, so there’s no such thing as a satellite, you see), so that we will never be able to observe it, directly or indirectly. Accordingly, even less constrained by evidence than their other pervasively irrational and falsehood-filled blatherings, their fanciful and unsupported imaginings of what mysteries lie beneath are even more fanciful and unsupported than their fanciful and unsupported imaginings about everything else..As for why no one has ever explored the underside or the edge . . . ..The underside is inaccessible. Why? Because it IS. What good is an underside of the world if you could go there, right? WHAT do you think would keep you from falling? You would fall into the . . . um . . . er . . . one or more of the following: eternal sea of blackness, chaotic void, Stygian darkness, eternal Hell of fire and brimstone and nothing on TV but reruns of My Mother The Car, infinite stack of turtles, incomprehensible realm meant never to be seen by human eyes, the mess that lives underneath my computer desk, etc..Then, we have the Edge of the World, of which no one has ever managed to produce a photo or video or other first-hand evidence. The party line on that is that it has been explored but—as part of the global conspiracy to hide the true nature of the world from the whole human race—the real observations of the real explorers were hushed up and bogus tales of reaching the South Pole invented for the explorers by professional writers..Oooooooooohhhhhh. It’s a conspiracyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!! What a novel explanation. The logic is perfect, “We can’t produce evidence for our belief because the conspiracy has operated with perfect efficiency to destroy or hide or discredit all such evidence. Accordingly, the absence of any evidence to support us is evidence to support us. That makes perfect sense, right?”.Let’s look at that amazing logic from another perspective. Let’s say we are talking about unicorns and have the following discussion: Person 1—A Unicorn has been here. Person 2—Why do you say that? There aren’t any hoofprints. Person 1—Unicorns are magical. They don’t leave hoofprints or any other marks on the ground. And, look, there aren’t any hooprints or other marks here, so I know the unicorn has come through. Person 1—[gives up all hope of having an intelligent conversation and walks away]..There is no Occam’s Razor in the Flat Earth crowd. They think Occam’s Razor is what Occam uses to shave his face..And, don’t hold your breath for new evidence because, brace yourselves for a big surprise here, the World Wide Conspiracy to Hide the Nature of the World from the Raggedy Assed Masses makes sure that no one can get near the edge. Now, all approaches to the edge are ceaselessly guarded by a great lidless eye that never sleeps..Actually, I just made up the lidless eye part, but they do say it is ceaselessly guarded by, take your pick, the US Navy, the US Coast Guard, UN Naval Forces, an International Joint Force consisting of ships from many nations, plus Captain Jack Sparrow and the Kracken. Sorry about the Jack Sparrow and Kracken part. This stuff just gets me swept up and I got carried away from one fantasy to the next. Whatever is guarding the Rim of the World, You Can’t Go There!.Just try it, and you’ll see what the FEs are talking about. According to them, you’ll never get close before someone intercepts you and puts you in the super secret cσncєnтrαтισn cαмρ in Greenland where they keep the “really dangerous people” who pose the greatest threat to keeping the lid on the true nature of the Earth..Let’s see what this world traveler has to say about it:..
“One does not simply walk into Antarctica. It’s guarded by US Navy SEALS, US Army Special Forces, elite US Marines, British SAS commandos, Russian Speznatz, the French Foreign Legion, the Vatican Swiss Guard, and 20,000 trained killer penguins.” Boromir, Son of Denethor, at the Counsel of Elrond, October 25, 3018 T.A. (1398 Shire Reckoning).
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Well, there you go. They can bleat their nonsense eternally without fear of the kind of “this will convince even a kindergarten kid who wants you to shut up so he can eat his ice cream evidence” that they consider adequate proof of the spherical nature of the Earth. Yet, oh so conveniently, you can’t go any of the places that will show the FE theories to be false. Or, if you do go there and come back with evidence that the Earth does not have an edge or that it is round and you know because you orbited it in the International Space Station for five months, they will simply say that you are lying and your evidence is faked, and your photos were done with Photoshop, and you’re just a great big huge gigantic meanie-head for telling the whole world that their ideas are absurd.
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Oh, and it’s OK for them to say that everyone who works for NASA is a lying felon, that all the folks who navigate based on a round earth are lying, that the astronauts (including the ones from Apollo 1, Challenger, and Columbia) and the entire Earth and Space science community of the entire world is on the take to support some vast nefarious conspiracy . . . but if you call them out on it and say that they are individuals of less than sterling character for attacking the good name of so many people based on such worthless evidence, then they go crying to the Moderator because you hurted their itsy bitsy wittle tiny feewings.
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Maybe it’s just turtles all the way down.
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Topic: How does "flat-earthism" defame Church, providing material for ridicule thereof? (Read 4258 times)