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Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 15:33:25 GMT -4
This thread is about what we believe, and why we believe it, and what we know and how we know it.
Margamatix continues to ignore the "proof" offered, and instead wave "Proof" from an invalid authority (Bart) back. Fascinating!
Margamatix does not want to learn. Many have tried to teach with information and example, and yet...
Margamatix still needs to prove he's in the UK. I believe he is in Tennessee, and no amount of "evidence" or insistant ranting will change my belief.
But do I KNOW he's in Tennessee? I don't need to, if I just insist on believing what I believe.
Now go download spacecad.
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 16:24:27 GMT -4
Look, just because I agree with you that my "president" has the wits of a chimp doesn't mean I have to agree with you about everything. Pity we can't do this over a pint, but the Internet is only so amazing.
I'm just trying to make a point about belief, and knowledge, and the difference between them.
Your response is, like Bart's responses to my questions, at attack on ME designed to provoke an irrational emotional response. I have three small children, so I'm pretty tired of irrational emotional responses. I'm trying to have an intelligent conversation with grownups.
It also tries to change the subject, yet another tired tactic of a failing argument.
You have a right to believe in information received from invalid authority. I have a right to believe in knowledge and fact. I go out on a limb to believe in whales, since I've never seen one myself.
I could concoct an argument that you are Bart and took a picture of a friend to send me, but that requires that Bart has a friend. Even I have beliefs that are hard to get over. Instead, I choose to accept that the picture received represents the entity known here as "margamatix." Lets move on now.
There are websites listing the Logical Fallacies, and websites with drawings and information about every piece of equipment used in the Apollo program (just about) and there are websites with detailed history of the space program, and websites with every picture taken by every astronaut, including an amazing number of boring "picture thru the windshield" shots by the guy stuck in the command module. Go find them. Don't rely on one tired source to state your case. If you try you could probably come up with a unique argument instead of rehashing other people's defeated ones.
And go download spacecad. Really, give it a try. You get 30 days for free, and unlike the other major piece of software it is available outside of the US. You can design and "launch" a lot of things quickly and then we will have some common language, so maybe you can come to an understanding of some things.
Or not.
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Post by margamatix on Sept 3, 2005 16:33:08 GMT -4
Your response is, like Bart's responses to my questions, at attack on ME . Eh, what?
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 16:36:08 GMT -4
Margamatix, I was responding to a post that has disapppeard, in which you say that I can belive what I want I live in a free country. The famous George/chimp picture was at the end.
Dunno where that went, it seems gone now...
Anyway, get some facts and knowledge, that's what I'm trying to say.
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Post by hubcapdave69 on Sept 3, 2005 16:39:06 GMT -4
[Jack White]Using my considerable (read "non-existent") photo analyzing skills, I have concluded that the margamatix photo is a staged photo using photoshop. What is making that funny curved shadow, hmm? You might as well claim you were on the moon when you took this! [/Jack White]
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Post by margamatix on Sept 3, 2005 16:45:02 GMT -4
What is making that funny curved shadow, hmm? You might as well claim you were on the moon when you took this! In fact, I've been to the moon the same number of times as Neil and Buzz.
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 17:04:23 GMT -4
What is making that funny curved shadow, hmm? You might as well claim you were on the moon when you took this! In fact, I've been to the moon the same number of times as Neil and Buzz. Statements like this are just glib witless nonsense. Do you get punched in pubs?
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Post by Mr Gorsky on Sept 3, 2005 17:51:54 GMT -4
Margamatix, the problem is not that you haven't been given proof, but that you simply refuse to acknowledge when it has been given to you (leaving aside the fact that Apollo is an accepted part of human history, therefore the burden is actually on you/BS/whoever to prove that it didn't happen).
If we were talking about a court of law situation here, in which proof constitutes evidence "beyond reasonable doubt" of something having happened, let us just examine said evidence in very brief detail ...
1. The consistent eyewitness accounts of 18 men, all highly respected aviators and military officers, 12 of whom state that they themselves physically walked upon the surface of the moon and 6 of whom piloted the command modules that delivered them to the moon and brought them home again.
2. The hundreds of hours of television footage (much of which was broadcast live across the world) documenting the visits to the moon of those 18 men, and their activities on the lunar surface. This footage also illustrates a number of features of the moon which simply cannot be faked, such as ... dust from the rover's wheels being distributed in neat ballistic arcs with no evidence of "clouding" (which of course requires an atmosphere).
3. The tens of thousands of photographs, both of the lunar surface and features themselves and the astronauts' activities thereon, which, contrary to the hoax theory, are not universally well framed and brilliantly shot and whose "anomalies" are easily explained with the application of a little actual knowledge about photography or astronomy ... or indeed parallax, or vanishing point perspective.
4. The presence on this planet of hundreds of kilograms (that's right ... hundreds of kilograms) of rocks that respected geologists across the world (not just in the USA) have acknowledged as being from the moon. Further ... said geologists consider it absolutely impossible for the Apoolo rocks to have been formed on Earth, due to the almost complete absence of water evident from their composition.
5. These hundreds of kilograms of rocks include large specimens and core samples, which simply could not have been gathered robotically on the evidence of the few ounces of material the Soviet Union was able to obtain in this way. Further, any robotic missions launched to retrieve these rocks would have been spotted by other nations (see point 6).
6. The fact that other nations around the world paid close attention to the Apollo missions (including/especially the Soviet Union), including tracking the craft and listening in on the transmissions.
Just half a dozen pieces of evidence plucked off the top of my (a layman's) head. I am sure others could come up with a number of other factors if they were so minded.
I am certain that you do genuinely believe that the moon landings never happened but in clinging to that conclusion you must address the evidence as set out in the historical record, otherwise it is a worthless fancy. Your belief in your conclusion is not sufficient for anyone to take your arguments seriously. Where is the evidence that contradicts the points outlined here?
It is easy to point out how a moon landing could have been faked, but the fact that something could be done is not evidence that it was. My car can travel significant;y faster than the maximum UK speed limit of 70mph, but that fact alone does not give the police grounds to arrest me for breaking the speed limit - they need evidence that I actually did break it.
The reality of the moon landings is not a matter of faith - it either happened or it didn't. And the evidence that it did happen, exactly as advertised, is overwhelming.
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Post by margamatix on Sept 3, 2005 18:03:52 GMT -4
Statements like this are just glib witless nonsense. Do you get punched in pubs? This is a meaningless statement which contributes nothing to the debate, and I doubt that anyone here will be rushing to give you their support.
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Post by LunarOrbit on Sept 3, 2005 18:10:14 GMT -4
It's not just a matter of whether I believe they were faked or not, I don't even believe that the moon landings could have been faked. With the kind of attention the Apollo program got from the public, the media, the allied governments, and most importantly from enemy governments a hoax would not succeed. If a small time film maker in Tennessee can supposedly find flaws in NASA's claims then surely the Russians and Chinese would have.
I could maybe accept that they could fool the average citizens... but there is absolutely no way they could fool everyone. Even if they had pulled it off in 1969 there's no way they could maintain the hoax forever... and if they couldn't do that then why bother trying in the first place? If the hoax was guaranteed to fail eventually then there was no reason to fake it at all.
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 18:11:03 GMT -4
Im my studies, I've learned that belief systems require some kind of "vested interest" to maintain, or they comfort to fear/threat responses to the unknown.
BS has a vested interest in selling videos. I have a vested interest in believing someday I or my children can go to the moon, so I believe in the information provided that the moon missions went as advertised.
Believing my government could pull off a hoax of this magnitude creates a fear/threat response in me, but I also know that fear is a response to the unknown. What I do know is that my government is made up of hundereds of elected officials and thousands of bureacrats, and that helps allay my fear of a big amorphous "the government," of "them."
What's your motivation to believe, rather than know?
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Post by margamatix on Sept 3, 2005 18:15:42 GMT -4
I have absolutely no vested interest in the matter at all.
I do not believe it happened, and the further down the line we go, the more ridiculous it all becomes.
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Post by rocketdad on Sept 3, 2005 18:27:16 GMT -4
I have absolutely no vested interest in the matter at all. I do not believe it happened, and the further down the line we go, the more ridiculous it all becomes. What is the fear/threat response driving your belief then? Have other beliefs been destroyed and you need something else to cling to? This happened around the world when European missonaries introduced Christianity where it had not been before. What's motivating YOU to continue believing?
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Post by JayUtah on Sept 3, 2005 19:49:07 GMT -4
I do not believe it happened, and the further down the line we go, the more ridiculous it all becomes.
So then why can't you come up with anything better in terms of an argument than just restating your disbelief over and over?
Your personal disbelief is worthless if you can't show that you've thought about it. Copying Bart Sibrel and others is not thinking.
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Post by hubcapdave69 on Sept 3, 2005 20:10:03 GMT -4
What is making that funny curved shadow, hmm? You might as well claim you were on the moon when you took this! In fact, I've been to the moon the same number of times as Neil and Buzz. So, you've been to the Moon then?
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