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Post by xaria on Apr 28, 2009 18:06:51 GMT -5
iv been reading a book on the history of the flat-earth 'theory', theres big sections on this guy who called himself parallax, he's basically a victorian kent hovind. debates, showmanship, supported by people who dont know better, in it for the money.. the paralels with the whole thing in the victorian era and creationism/ ID today is amazing. i can only hope that the idea goes the same way as the flat earth one. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Rowbotham
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Post by Tiger on Apr 28, 2009 19:42:57 GMT -5
Look at the last 500 years and ask yourself when the church has EVER won when they pitted their dogma against science.
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Post by brendanjd on Apr 28, 2009 20:26:27 GMT -5
Heh, isn't parallax that astronomical event where a star seems to be going in reverse? And doesn't it pretty much obliviate the idea of a flat/center of the universe Earth?
If I remember correctly, this guy is either incredibly ignorant or a poe.
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Post by shiftyeyes on Apr 28, 2009 23:57:39 GMT -5
Parallax is the thing by which stars appear to move at all relative to each other. It's not that they appear to move backwards, but that they appear to move at all beyond the 24 hr cycle caused by the earth. It is a consequence of the Earth orbiting the sun (but is very hard to observe). The thing by which planets appear to go backwards is just called retrograde motion and is best explained by putting the sun in the center, but can be explained by epicycles as well. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax#Stellar_parallaxen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_motionen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicycle
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Post by DarkfireTaimatsu on Apr 29, 2009 0:04:50 GMT -5
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Post by ironbite on Apr 29, 2009 0:45:17 GMT -5
First thing that came to my mind.
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Post by MaybeNever on Apr 29, 2009 2:32:27 GMT -5
Parallax is also the mechanism by which we (like many of our mammalian brethren) have three dimensional vision, thanks to the slight space between our eyes.
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Post by Deimos on Apr 29, 2009 2:51:30 GMT -5
You know what we should do, put a few people like this in a boat or a plane, and just go in one direction, straight on
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Post by tygerarmy on Apr 29, 2009 22:33:59 GMT -5
long walk on a short pier
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Post by CtraK on May 1, 2009 19:08:38 GMT -5
Look at the last 500 years and ask yourself when the church has EVER won when they pitted their dogma against science. Point. You'd also think Al-Qaeda would look at the total lack of a global Caliphate after over a decade of trying and take a hint too, but of course it never, ever occurs to them.
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Post by Rat Of Steel on May 1, 2009 19:14:27 GMT -5
Look at the last 500 years and ask yourself when the church has EVER won when they pitted their dogma against science. Point. You'd also think Al-Qaeda would look at the total lack of a global Caliphate after over a decade of trying and take a hint too, but of course it never, ever occurs to them. Indeed, that's the very essence of fanaticism. I'd once heard a bit of a twist put on an old adage, to whit: "Quitters never win, and winners never quit, but those who never win and never quit are idiots."
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Post by Yahweh on May 1, 2009 19:34:03 GMT -5
iv been reading a book on the history of the flat-earth 'theory', theres big sections on this guy who called himself parallax, he's basically a victorian kent hovind. debates, showmanship, supported by people who dont know better, in it for the money.. Either the guy was in it for the money, or he was another Gene Ray. Its hard to imagine a victorian flat-earther -- I think we've know the earth is round since 300 BC.
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Post by MaybeNever on May 1, 2009 20:13:25 GMT -5
iv been reading a book on the history of the flat-earth 'theory', theres big sections on this guy who called himself parallax, he's basically a victorian kent hovind. debates, showmanship, supported by people who dont know better, in it for the money.. Either the guy was in it for the money, or he was another Gene Ray. Its hard to imagine a victorian flat-earther -- I think we've know the earth is round since 300 BC. 300 BC sounds about right. One of the ancient Greeks figured out the circumference of the Earth, though I don't immediately recall which one. The reality is that there's a flat earth society even today. Your guess is as good as mine whether they really believe it or just want to be contrarians, but my sense is that at least some of them legitimately believe the Earth to be flat. No society is so advanced or learned that it does not breed ignorance as well.
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Post by wackadoodle on May 2, 2009 10:09:27 GMT -5
In one of Isaac Asimov's books *an authority I trust FAR more than any apologist* he's talking about how the bible describes a universe that looks like a snowglobe ontop some pillars. He brings up that the greeks at this time knew the earth was round and even its circumference but no one listens to the greeks. He had a point, most of what the greeks learned was forgotten. even know we occasionaly find some greek artifact that seems ludicrously advanced. If useful things like steam engines and self-opening doors *every cathedral in Europe would want these* can be forgotten I can see how a useless fact like the shape of the earth was forgotten.
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Post by MaybeNever on May 2, 2009 14:59:18 GMT -5
In one of Isaac Asimov's books *an authority I trust FAR more than any apologist* he's talking about how the bible describes a universe that looks like a snowglobe ontop some pillars. He brings up that the greeks at this time knew the earth was round and even its circumference but no one listens to the greeks. He had a point, most of what the greeks learned was forgotten. even know we occasionaly find some greek artifact that seems ludicrously advanced. If useful things like steam engines and self-opening doors *every cathedral in Europe would want these* can be forgotten I can see how a useless fact like the shape of the earth was forgotten. The later Greek Empire (which called itself the Roman Empire and which modern scholars, in a fit of making things intolerably byzantine, call the Byzantine Empire) preserved a lot of the ancient wisdom of their forebears, though it was sometimes watered down by religious dogmatism and the giant horde of Muslims next door starting in the seventh century. After Constantinople's fall in 1453, a large number of Greeks fled the lands in favor of Italy and occasionally other places in Europe, and brought with them ancient Greek books and learning, helping to kickstart the Renaissance. You know what I bet it is? The whole anti-gay thing in the Bible is probably an angry sour grapes response to the Greeks having been right.
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