Thoughts on the Flat Earth folks

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November 12th, 2017 at 7:51:20 PM permalink
Dalex64
Member since: Mar 8, 2014
Threads: 3
Posts: 3687
Quote: Evenbob
Mark Twain thought the
telephone was a joke and would fail miserably.
Why would he possibly pay money to speak
to his doctor on a phone, when he could walk
there for free.


Dude... What?!?

http://oldtelephones.com/blog/2012/04/25/mark-twain-and-the-telephone/
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan
November 12th, 2017 at 7:59:46 PM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: Dalex64
Dude... What?!?
\]

Do you know how to read, dude?

"But the invention that cost Twain the most was one in which he did not invest in: Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. When Bell personally offered Twain a chance to invest in his telephone, Twain responding by telling him that he wasn’t interested because he had been burnt once too often on inventions."

He thought it was a joke, that nobody except
housewives ordering groceries would find any
use for it. Bell all but begged Twain to invest,
but he put all his money into a self setting type
machine instead. He thought the phone would
be a colossal dud.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
November 13th, 2017 at 1:48:59 AM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
Eh. That's not really right either.

Twain made jokes about how awful the telephone was as an invention for mankind to abuse each other with, but he passed on investing because he had already been burned several times in similar unknown speculations. Had it happened before those bad investments he might have gone for it.

His jokes about it are funny though.

Quote:
If Bell had invented a muffler or gag, he would have done a real service. The human voice carries entirely too far as it is. Here we have been hollering "shut up" to our neighbors for centuries, and now you fellows come along and seek to complicate matters".
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
November 13th, 2017 at 2:22:14 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Quote: Nareed
Ironically, the King James Bible does state the Earth is flat :)


I dispute that, so give me chapter and verse. To my knowledge there are only a few places where "firmaments" and things like that are mentioned, requiring someone to make certain screwy arguments such as there being no firmaments to a sphere.

PS, now you have me looking for myself. You could make the argument that the Bible says the Earth does not rotate, citing "immovable" but even that could be disputed. Naturally, anyone who wants to delve deep into this sort of thing is headed for the insane asylum.
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
November 13th, 2017 at 2:40:33 AM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: Nareed
I think it goes farther back than that.

What a Greek did, though well into the Ptolemaic period in Egypt, was measure the circumference of the Earth using two sticks and some trigonometry. But that was around 3rd century BCE.


It may be older but there is no mention of it outside of Greek philosophy in 6th century BCE. But you are correct that Eratosthenes estimated Earth's circumference around 240 BC. Ptolemy actually lived in 2nd century BCE.
November 13th, 2017 at 5:34:17 AM permalink
Dalex64
Member since: Mar 8, 2014
Threads: 3
Posts: 3687
Quote: rxwine
Eh. That's not really right either.

Twain made jokes about how awful the telephone was as an invention for mankind to abuse each other with, but he passed on investing because he had already been burned several times in similar unknown speculations. Had it happened before those bad investments he might have gone for it.

His jokes about it are funny though.


That's what I was pointing out. He passed on it because he was burned on other investments, not because he knew it would be a "colossal dud" and also was among the first to have a telephone.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan
November 13th, 2017 at 6:27:23 AM permalink
Wizard
Administrator
Member since: Oct 23, 2012
Threads: 239
Posts: 6095
Quote: Nareed
Ironically, the King James Bible does state the Earth is flat :)


Indeed.

Quote: Isaiah 40:22
It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:


As you can see, according to the bible, the earth is a circle, not a sphere.

Knowledge is Good -- Emil Faber
November 13th, 2017 at 7:04:29 AM permalink
Dalex64
Member since: Mar 8, 2014
Threads: 3
Posts: 3687
Quote: Revelation 7:1
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.


But I take that one as a metaphor.

https://christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-c017.html

as for that grasshoppers quote, I suppose it depends on what they meant by 'circle'
they simply may not have had any words that differentiated circles and spheres, perhaps much like the word "round"
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts." Daniel Patrick Moynihan
November 13th, 2017 at 8:02:53 AM permalink
odiousgambit
Member since: Oct 28, 2012
Threads: 154
Posts: 5055
Indeed you can extrapolate from things in the Bible and arrive at what was imagined - certainly that heaven was poised over earth, and for that matter it was a concept of heaven that doesn't have much to do with modern concepts of the sky or outer space.

But the point is that Biblical literalists are really inventing this objection to the modern notion of earth and the heavens - a plain statement that 'the earth is flat' is just missing. I don't count these two verses as providing a necessary objection to a spherical earth if a person's faith demanded that there be no sustaining anything contradicting the Bible.

That was good, though, finding them, and I did ask! And I will repeat again that to delve deep into all this is a wish to wind up in the nuthouse.
I'm Still Standing, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah [it's an old guy chant for me]
November 13th, 2017 at 8:05:17 AM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: Pacomartin
It may be older but there is no mention of it outside of Greek philosophy in 6th century BCE. But you are correct that Eratosthenes estimated Earth's circumference around 240 BC. Ptolemy actually lived in 2nd century BCE.


Ptolemy I, Alexander's general who stole Alexander's corpse and mummified it in Alexandria, lived then. The next half dozen or so Egyptian kings were all Ptolemies, until Cleopatra, with Caesar's help, did away with her brother Ptolemy and seized power for herself (under Roman supervision).

After her death alongside Mark Anthony, Egypt became a mere province of Rome.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
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