No prob!Anneli wrote: Thanks Brian - the second video is exactly what I was looking for!
You don't need to do that, or you can watch, but it's not necessary for that reason. The globe nature of the Earth is implicit in what AJ already said. "The Earth is just one planet surrounding one solar system." By surrounding one solar system, he means circling one sun. And he talks about other galaxies, etc., and at some point he mentions gravity. All of these are inherent parts of the globe model, and they don't exist in the Flat Earth model, so you don't really have to look any further to resolve this. I have actually been observing this FE resurgence a lot over the last few weeks since it came to my attention, which is why I jumped in here. When you say, " Logically, they do have a number of mind-boggling arguments," I can't agree, or I can agree they are mind-boggling, but not that they are logical. All (and I mean every last one) of the FE arguments are nonsense if you understand the relevant science. And many of them are outright lies. These people are distorting the facts to fit the geocentric model. There are various reasons for this, but a primary one is that they are so internally disconnected from God that they are desperate to find an external proof that God exists. Since the Bible describes a flat, unmoving Earth, and because the Flat Earth simply cannot have formed naturally, they see the FE model as proving the existence of a creator. So they are inventing things like "The Law of Perspective" to explain sunrise/sunset, they take a few isolated instances of miraging and claim they are proof you can see farther than the horizon, they misunderstand just how large the Earth is and how that affects perceived curvature from anywhere near the ground, they are ignoring things like the south polar stars and 24 hour sunlight at Antarctica, they call everything that conflicts with their claims a conspiracy, and some even claim that clouds go behind the sun and moon, which even by their model, means rain falls from thousands of miles up! I think that last one is the most absurd claim I've seen so far.Anneli wrote: And the first one for sure addresses the geocentric point of view that many flat earthers like to have, although I need to watch more of this one or the Universe-videos to hear what is said about the actual globe shape.
Just for fun, I'll take a moment to dispense with their key argument, that the Law of Perspective means that the ground rises to meet the eye level, and that this results in things in the distance, including the sun, being lost to our view behind this raised ground. Seems to me that the ground going up and down as a result of us looking around would create constant earthquakes, but let's assume that they just mean it's an illusory effect. If so, they have no explanation for why this effect occurs, they just say "Law of Perspective" as if that means anything. What's going on is that they are misinterpreting what the Rules of Perspective tell us. These rules are used to help artists accurately represent three dimensional places and objects on a two dimensional surface. While it is true that these rules address the appearance of the horizon converging with eye level, it doesn't work the magical way flat Earthers claim. Consider that your eye level is just that, level. It's a straight line from your eyes to (presuming you're looking horizontally) the horizon. Now the gap between your eyes and the ground is 4 or 5 feet or thereabouts. We all know that as things get farther from us, they appear smaller. So the farther away we look, the smaller this gap between eye level and the ground appears, until miles away, this 4 or 5 feet becomes almost imperceptibly small. Since your eye level is a fixed straight line, and the gap between the ground and your eye level in the distance appears very small, it looks like the ground "rises" to meet with your eye level. But it's just perspective, nothing has actually changed about the ground or how much of it you can see. The only thing limiting your view (other than trees, buildings, mountains, etc.) is the curvature of the Earth. If the Earth was flat, the straight line of the ground and the straight line of your view would never actually meet, and you would be able to see nearly infinitely rather than just three miles. Particulates in the atmosphere would, after a very long way, eventually scatter enough light to obscure what you see, but other than that, there would be no practical limit. With a child's telescope, you would be able to see New York City from the western shore of Africa.
Another part of the rules of perspective that Flat Earthers mis-apply for their model is how the sun appears to grow closer to the horizon as it gets farther away, thus giving the illusion of it setting. Of course, when things move farther away, their speed appears to be reduced in a relative sense (compare a plane high in the sky with one zooming right over your head) and they also appear smaller. Flat Earthers have no explanation for why the sun continues going down at the same rate as it moves directly overhead, and why it doesn't shrink as it is receding in the distance.
OK, so if there are any other Flat Earth claims that you would like addressed, just let me know. I'd be happy to apply the science to reveal the truth of the matter. I'm not sure how the shape of the planet affects us growing in Love, but I do believe that blatant lies and confusion about our reality are detrimental to us learning about God's Truths.
- B