Want 100 grand? Take the challenge!

[Paulie Cicero]

Got a challenge? Fuck you, pay me!

[Anaxagoras]

As was the case previously, the staff of CAI Publishing, Inc. will be the sole judge to determine if anyone has shown experimental proof that the Earth goes around the Sun.

I'm sure that they would be a fair judge.

Who will take the bait I wonder?

[Tommy D]

They're prejudiced.

Prejudiced against Italians!

[sparks]

Not prejudiced.


Just wrong.


Proof: Voyager 1 and 2. In an Earth centered system, those two wouldn't have made it out of the system as launched.

[Witness]

It's even worse than that:

"After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree."
— Revelation 7:1 (NIV translation)


It is a well-established Biblical fact that the Earth is flat and immobile. Every good Biblical literalist knows the Scriptural passages which demonstrate that the Earth does not move and that its surface is not curved: Daniel 4:10-11, Matthew 4:8, Joshua 10:12, 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalms 93:1 & 96:10 & 104:5, Isaiah 45:18; the list goes on and on.

But far too many lazy Biblical literalists today ignore the plain fact that the Bible also tells us that the flat Earth does not have curved edges. Even the late, great Charles K. Johnson, the valiant fighter for the Truth who carried the message of the earlier Zetetic Astronomers forward into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries by founding the International Flat Earth Society, made the grievous error of assuming that the Earth was shaped like a circular disk. Nothing could be further from the Truth.

The Biblically possible shapes of the Earth
The Book of Revelation, chapter 7, verse 1, makes the following unmistakable statement about the shape of the Earth:

"After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth to prevent any wind from blowing on the land or on the sea or on any tree."

This clearly shows that the Earth has exactly four corners. One might argue that the edges of the Earth between these four corners could be curved. But look at the following passages in the Book of Job:

"for he views the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens."
— Job 28:24 (NIV translation)

"He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth."
— Job 37:3 (NIV translation)

Both of these passages clearly state that the earth has ends — that is, straight edges. This, combined with the four corners provided in Revelation 7:1, means that the Earth must be some kind of quadrilateral shape.

And, as somebody noted on IT Skeptic:

Internet discourse is becoming unreal: I can't tell a Poe from an idiot any more

A fascinating phenomenon on the internet is the sophisticated illusions being spun to satirise opposing positions.

Trigger alert: the following may be offensive to those with deeply held religious beliefs.

It started with sites like the Onion, which present dead-pan satire. Brief consideration reveals the Onion as fake to all but the most credulous (or just plain thick). Yet the Onion has sucked in credulous news organisations in countries like Iran, North Korea, Trinidad, and the USA.

The internet has moved on to more sophisticated mockery where the satire is harder to detect. There are so many anti-conspiracies, reverse trolls, and "Poes" (named after Nathan Poe not Edgar Allen), that it is indeed getting hard to tell. These people are performing a reductio ad absurdum: taking someone's ideas to their absurd logical extreme.

The problem is that the internet is so deluded, so ignorant, so stupid, that it is becoming hard to spot the Poes any more.

(I find that trigger "alert" very funny – be careful not to offend the b'lievers! Well, another brand of skeptic…)

[Doctor X]

Those are not the only passages. The P Creation Myth describes a flat Earth right off the bat:

Gen 1:1-2, 6-7, 9a: At the time when Elohim created/separated the skies and the Earth when the Earth had been shapeless and formless, and darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the spirit of Elohim was hovering on the face of the water. And Elohim said, "Let there be a dome/firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters."

And Elohim made the dome/firmament and separated the waters that were under the dome/firmament from the waters that were above the dome/firmament. . . . And Elohim said, Let the waters be concentrated under the skies into one place, and let the land appear, (NRSV, corrected).

I am too busy to re-translate that, but to my recollection, with the corrections, it is accurate.

Then we have:

Job 38:13-14 so that it might take hold of the skirts of the Earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it? It is changed like clay under the seal, and it stands out/is dyed like a garment (NRSV, corrected).

with a major text critical issue with regards to how to translate תיצב. Interestingly, the LXX [Greek translation not necessarily based on Hebrew witnesses that are the same as the Masoretic Text extant.--Ed.] has an entirely different ending. Either way, the general description stands . . . er . . . dyes: Flat Earth

Fundis tend to declare Deutero-Isaiah:

Is 40:22: Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the Earth?
It is he who sits above the circle of the Earth [על חג הארץ--Ed.], [`al-ḥḡ hāʼareṣ-Ed.]
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;

LONG story short, the word refers to a flat circular border, and the Greek translation renders it as such:

ὁ κατέχων τὸν γῦρον τῆς γῆς καὶ οἱ ἐνοικοῦντες ἐν αὐτῇ ὡς ἀκρίδες ὁ στήσας ὡς καμάραν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ διατείνας ὡς σκηνὴν κατοικεῖν (LXX)

γῦρος is a "ring" and "circle" and is used to describe "a trench around a tree," (LSJ) [Standard Greek lexicon.--Ed.]. This is clearly a flat structure and not a sphere. The Greeks had a number of words for "sphere," not the least: "sphairikos"--σφαιρικός. Thus, the translators of the Hebrew into Greek understood the Earth in Is 40:22 as a flat circle, not a round sphere.

And I could go on and on. Moving to the NT:

Mt 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all of the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them

Πάλιν παραλαμβάνει αὐτὸν ὁ διάβολος εἰς ὄρος ὑψηλὸν λίαν, καὶ δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ πάσας τὰς βασιλείας τοῦ κόσμου καὶ τὴν δόξαν αὐτῶν, (NA) [Nestle-Aland text-critical Greek text--Ed.].

Lk 4:5 And [the Devil--Ed.] took him up, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time,

Καὶ ἀναγαγὼν αὐτὸν ἔδειξεν αὐτῷ πάσας τὰς βασιλείας τῆς οἰκουμένης ἐν στιγμῇ χρόνου:

You cannot do this--climb a mountain--even the tallest mountain in Palestine--and see "all of the kingdoms of the Earth" with a SPHERE. You can only do that if the Earth is flat.
Mt and Lk appear to be using Q for the source of their temptation narrative (see Kloppenborg) and this parallels the Isaiah passage.

--J.D.

References:

Aland K, et al. Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, 3rd Ed., corrected. Westphalia: Institute for New Testament Textual Research, United Bible Societies, 1986.

Kloppenborg Verbin JS. Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings of Gospel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000.

[Witness]

↑ Many things to ponder! But for now:
http://elenita.no/wp-content/uploads/20 ... -00641.jpg

[Jimmy the Gent]

Not prejudiced.


Just wrong.


Proof: Voyager 1 and 2. In an Earth centered system, those two wouldn't have made it out of the system as launched.

This 20 bucks is for you, sparks. You don't take nothing from nobody. Tommy, what's the world coming to?

[ed]

You cannot do this--climb a mountain--even the tallest mountain in Palestine--and see "all of the kingdoms of the Earth" with a SPHERE. You can only do that if the Earth is flat.

Flat or very small. Which is consistent with the local flood hypothesis.


If all the world is a stage, so to speak, then local events take on global significance.

BTW, how do fundies deal with the undoubted incest in the Noah clan? Is it biblical to pork one's own brood?

[Tommy D]

Not prejudiced.


Just wrong.


Proof: Voyager 1 and 2. In an Earth centered system, those two wouldn't have made it out of the system as launched.

This 20 bucks is for you, sparks. You don't take nothing from nobody. Tommy, what's the world coming to?

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view/727070/goodfellas-o.gif

[Anaxagoras]

BTW, how do fundies deal with the undoubted incest in the Noah clan? Is it biblical to pork one's own brood?

Well, I think they say that Noah's sons already had wives and they came on the Ark, right?

So it would have been cousins but probably not brother on sister stuff. Cousin marriage used to be fairly common actually. Darwin married his cousin, as did Einstein. It's legal in most states I think. Really one of the lesser problems with the Noah story.

The Adam and Eve story, that one is more problematic.

[ed]

Is there a biblical authority regarding humans on the arc?

[gnome]

The real $100,000 challenge: can you get an organization to agree that they have lost a $100,000 bet when they are the sole arbiter of whether they lost?

[gnome]

What can you do? Eject them from the Gentleman's club? Pistols at dawn?

[Doctor X]

There is a case in Germany where someone issued a challenge to prove that measles causes measles or something like that. There is a thread HERE on it. He was taken to court and forced to pay.

I suspect these idiots are not so idiotic they did not give enough "outs" in the fine print to avoid that in American courts.

But then you would think Goodell would hire competent investigators and lawyers. . . .

--J.D.

[Paulie Cicero]

The real $100,000 challenge: can you get an organization to agree that they have lost a $100,000 bet when they are the sole arbiter of whether they lost?

What's the vig on that? Gotta be better than that point shaving thing Morrie had going.

[gnome]

I bet Tommy could get them in a more agreeable mood...

[Tommy D]

What ya mean?

Am I funny?

[gnome]

Yeah! You know what I mean, you're a funny guy, you show up, have some laughs... next thing you know he sees things your way and gives up the money.

[Billy Batts]

You should see how good of a shine he puts on your shoes!

[Witness]

Those are not the only passages.

Just remembered something I read a very long time ago: Cosmas. Much later, of course. From the shreds of memory, his worldview was of an angular flat earth, the sky a kind of half-cylinder atop some walls (?!?), and night falling when the sun got behind a gigantic mountain.
Quick googling diden't bring up much in that direction; I'll try to locate the book, buried somewhere…

[Doctor X]

There is this flat-Earth model made just prior to the turn of the last century:

http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/0 ... 1308856051

you can find larger pictures and see the biblical passages quoted.

Searching for that coughed up this:

Most of you have been unable to avoid the flat-earth kerfuffle on the day-time talk show The View.

On a recent episode one of the hosts, Sherri Shepherd, said she doesn’t believe the theory of evolution. Whoopi Goldberg, also a host, asked Shepherd “Is the world flat?”

Shepherd’s response was “…I Don’t know. I… I never thought about it, Whoopi. Is the world flat? I never thought about it.”

Making Maps

there be linkypoos in the Japanese original linkypoo. Give him credit for recognizing that circles are actually flat. His model, of course, will not solve the problems of observation.

This:

http://www.testingtheglobe.com/images/H ... tEarth.jpg

is a good representation of the "biblical Earth" per the P Creation Myth and Flood Myth.

--J.D.

[Witness]

From the picture I gather that, quite evidently, sheol = oil. That's why the Arabs have it. :twisted:

[Doctor X]

"Moshe . . . what with forty years . . . you couldn't make us wander a bit more west?"

--J.D.

[Anaxagoras]

I assume the desert they wandered in for 40 years was the Sinai, right? It took them 40 years to walk from Egypt to Israel? I mean how hard can it be? Just keep the Mediterranean to your left and follow the coast.

[Doctor X]

I assume the desert they wandered in for 40 years was the Sinai, right? It took them 40 years to walk from Egypt to Israel? I mean how hard can it be? Just keep the Mediterranean to your left and follow the coast.

". . . as the Bible speaks about six hundred thousand Israelites plus their households, easily more than three million persons. . . . Needless to say, any person who has only once visited the Sinai Peninsula will know that this almost moonlike territory could hardly provide food for more than a small number of persons, nothing in the vicinity of the millions presupposed by the biblical authority." Furthermore, as earlier scholars have noticed, the at least three million people as required by the text would, ". . . have filled up the whole peninsula, and even if the Israelites marched in broad columns would have meant that the advance guard was well into Syria before the rear guard had left Egypt."¹

--J. "It is My Pleasure!" D.

Evidences:

Lemche NP. The Israelites in History and Tradition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.