I was browsing Wikipedia for no good reason until I came upon a site that seriously and whole-heartedly believes that the Earth is flat as a pancake, though most of the people on the forum just come there to insult and ask the "flat-earthers" incredibly easy-to-answer questions (if they were directed towards the idea of a round earth) and how a flat earth would exactly perform these tasks.
I was especially amused by this debate and how people there try to justify a flat earth. Has anyone seen this before?
Then again, it could just be an elaborate joke...
I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a joke site, like the hundreds of joke sites around there (even heard of the "dangers" of dihydrogen monoxide?) and the admins of that site are just lauging their ass off at people trying to fight against them.
It is generally believed to be an elaborate joke. The group has been around for a longer time than that message board.
But you never know. I've certainly run into people more stupid than that on the internet and elsewhere.
Joined: 3/29/2005
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Location: The boonies.
Histories can be fabricated. Especially on such a medium as Wikipedia, where anyone who's willing to fill out 15 minutes worth of forms can become an editor and post entries like that to be misleading.
That being said, I lump that into the same category as athiests who insist that science disproves the existance of a god.
Joined: 3/11/2004
Posts: 1058
Location: Reykjavík, Ísland
Well, geology seems to disprove the existense of the Volcano God. It depends on how you define "god", really. If you say "God is outside out time and space", it is impossible to disprove his/her/its existense. Then again, it's also impossible to disprove the existense of invisible pink unicorns.
I think the Flat Earth Society is most likely an elaborate joke, like landoverbaptist.org and others.
Histories can be fabricated. Especially on such a medium as Wikipedia, where anyone who's willing to fill out 15 minutes worth of forms can become an editor and post entries like that to be misleading.
That being said, I lump that into the same category as athiests who insist that science disproves the existance of a god.
You don't need to fill out any forms to become an editor on Wikipedia. Signing up for a user account requires no more than choosing a username and a password; but in fact, that's not even necessary. You can also edit anonymously if you wish.
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Blublu wrote:
Well, geology seems to disprove the existense of the Volcano God. It depends on how you define "god", really. If you say "God is outside out time and space", it is impossible to disprove his/her/its existense. Then again, it's also impossible to disprove the existense of invisible pink unicorns.
Yes, it's impossible to disprove. Yes, I realize that being impossible to disprove means absolutely nothing. But you see, Science actually predicts the existance of a deity. I shall use the Big Bang Theory as my example, here. Think about it: the universe was in an infinitesimally small, infinitely dense ball. Just sitting there. Now. Why didn't it stay that way?
See, this guy called Newton had this law which we commonly call "intertia" which says that things in motion remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force and things not in motion remain motionless unless acted upon by an outside force.
Now. Let's think about this. Universe in this tiny ball. Everything that is and ever will be. Either it just decided to ignore this law, OR something outside the universe acted on it and made it explode. Call that what you will, but it sounds like a god to me.
Hence athiests who say that science more-or-less disproves the existance of God are at least as dogmatic in their beliefs as I am, and just generally haven't given the matter a lot of thought. (Not that I'm insisting that there is a god and that athiests beliefs are entirely unfounded, mind you. Simply that the particular argument that "science nulls god," is unsound.)
In any case, I didn't really say that first bit with the intention of starting a philosophical debate, and I don't really want to get involved in one now, so if you disagree, just do so respectfully and we'll leave it at that.
schneelocke wrote:
You don't need to fill out any forms to become an editor on Wikipedia. Signing up for a user account requires no more than choosing a username and a password; but in fact, that's not even necessary. You can also edit anonymously if you wish.
Really? That would explain why there are actually entries on the individual summoned monsters from the Final Fantasy series there.
Histories can be fabricated. Especially on such a medium as Wikipedia, where anyone who's willing to fill out 15 minutes worth of forms can become an editor and post entries like that to be misleading.
That being said, I lump that into the same category as athiests who insist that science disproves the existance of a god.
If it were fabricated, there wouldn't be print sources referred to.
It's certainly a lot less ridiculous of a belief system than, say, Scientology.
Joined: 3/11/2004
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Location: Reykjavík, Ísland
Science actually predicts the existance of a deity.
Actually, scientists go to great lengths to leave God out of the picture altogether. Ever heard of multiple universes? That's to explain why our universe happens to be perfectly fine-tuned to support life. I don't know if that counts as science or philosophy, but you get what I mean. Science doesn't predict a deity. Religious people's twisted version of science does.
Edit: Ok, I now realize I came off as more hostile than I intended to be. I don't want to get into a heated debate either. It will lead to nowhere. I just wanted to say that science doesn't predict a deity any more than it predict invisible pink unicorns. No, science doesn't know everything. Not being able to explain something doesn't mean "God must have done it", it just means it is unknown. I just hate it when religious people take something that 's unknown to science, slap on a "God did it" explanation and call it science. It's not science, it's bullshit.
>the universe was in an infinitesimally small, infinitely dense ball. Just sitting there. Now. Why didn't it stay that way?
See, this guy called Newton had this law which we commonly call "intertia" which says that things in motion remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force and things not in motion remain motionless unless acted upon by an outside force.
Newton's laws are just macro-scale simplifications of other laws. They do not work at an atomic level, and anyway the laws need not be the same under the extremely special conditions that a singularity provide.
Anyway, proposing a "god" or any such thing in no way solves the problem of where the universe came from - it only pushes the problem one step further, and introduces a heap of unanswerable questions.
Rest assured that science has no need for the hypothesis of a god. It has never solved anything so far and the places where you can try to pry it in are getting fewer and fewer. See for example God of the Gaps.
Joined: 3/29/2005
Posts: 229
Location: The boonies.
Truncated wrote:
>the universe was in an infinitesimally small, infinitely dense ball. Just sitting there. Now. Why didn't it stay that way?
See, this guy called Newton had this law which we commonly call "intertia" which says that things in motion remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force and things not in motion remain motionless unless acted upon by an outside force.
Newton's laws are just macro-scale simplifications of other laws. They do not work at an atomic level, and anyway the laws need not be the same under the extremely special conditions that a singularity provide.
Anyway, proposing a "god" or any such thing in no way solves the problem of where the universe came from - it only pushes the problem one step further, and introduces a heap of unanswerable questions.
Rest assured that science has no need for the hypothesis of a god. It has never solved anything so far and the places where you can try to pry it in are getting fewer and fewer. See for example God of the Gaps.
If you want a philosophical debate, then make your own topic for it. As I said, I didn't make that first comment with the intention of starting one, and I have no intention of following up on your argument against mine. It's always been my experience that trying to convince other people to change their beliefs is an excercise in futility. Since I think we've already both spoken our minds, we can leave it at that. K?
I didn't want a philosophical debate, I wanted to deal with the misconception of science predicting a diety.
I think I did it respectfully like you said, but my view on what's respectful has been known to be skewed in the past. (So sorry in advance to all members of this board who I may have a disrespectful argument with in the future.)
If you don't want to debate it that's fine with me.
Also for the record, I do not believe that science disproves a god, for most definitions of a god anyway.
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Location: Gone for a year, just for varietyyyyyyyyy!!
Has anyone heard of Frank Tipler and his Omega Point Theory?
The OPT is one of the most fascinating theories (of God) I have ever heard.
http://www.math.tulane.edu/~tipler/
The article "From 2100 to the End of Time" (Wired paper) gives a pop overview of the theory. Recommended!
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Look, irregardless of the weaknesses of Wikipedia, the Flat Earth Society is very real. It is not a parody, a joke, or a stunt. It is very old and they're serious. Whether that website listed above is real is an entirely different story.
