Iraqi TV Debate: Is the Earth Flat?
Sunday, March 23rd, 2008.
A debate between an Iraqi “Researcher on Astronomy” and a physicist on Iraqi television. With subtitles.
@ haha.nu.
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(20 votes, average: 3.95 out of 5). 
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March 23rd, 2008 18:35
r arabs fuken retarded
March 24th, 2008 00:02
gotta love blindness of some people, they refuse to see straight facts because it contradicts their belief.
@ extasey: it has nothing to do with being arab. there were quite a few similar remarks by christians.
March 24th, 2008 01:56
He’s definitely not really interpreting the verses all that accurately; you can see that when he states that one verse in the beginning and then somehow gets the idea that the earth is flat out of that verse.
March 24th, 2008 04:36
Does someone can translate what they`re saying?
These subtitles may be fake.
I know some are quite fanatic, but I still can`t believe people nowadays can be so uneducated.
March 24th, 2008 06:44
that happens with media when they come under american control…
March 24th, 2008 09:14
Some Christians take the Bible literally, even though there are contradictory passages. Muslims believe that God dictated the Q’ran to Mohammed. Remember, there are still people who believe that man never walked on the Moon, that dinosaurs existed with man because the world is only 5,000 years old, or that God planted dinosaur bones to test people’s faith.
March 25th, 2008 02:16
i’am muslim and arabic, all the subtitles are true and nothing is wrong with the video.
he is just a stupid guy, and the media love this kind of people , it’s like a jerry springer show, done to amuse people and make muslims and arabic stupid, that’s all.
about the coran verse, he is understood it like he wanted, and not like it should be.
March 28th, 2008 05:17
“Faith means not wanting to know what is true.”
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
March 28th, 2008 05:17
Always remember that for thousands of years and including some the most brilliant minds we’ve ever had, it was “common sense” that the Sun went around the Earth.
March 28th, 2008 05:34
This is what happens when people aren’t taught how to use “reason” in their daily lives.
It seems to me that these types of people have see no difference between solutions derived from reasoning and scientific experimentation and what “magically” pops into their own heads. They’re use words like “reason” ” therefore” and other terms as a linguistic practice when describing their illusions… to give the impression of thought where none exists.
In my experience this type of Non-Thinking goes hand in hand with religious belief and dogma.
March 28th, 2008 05:40
Why is it that people believe something just because it’s old? Don’t they realize that whoever wrote those texts were simply influenced by misconceptions of that era?
Many people disregard and even look down on ideas, fashions, music, literature, etc. that is only 20 years old, but if it’s 2000 years old or more then it MUST be true!
March 28th, 2008 05:47
In addition, I would also say that these types of people should (in my view) Not be allowed to enjoy all the benefits derived from the hard won efforts involving science and reasoning.
IF they choose to believe in bronze age myths & enjoy all the positives of a modern society but still adhere to such non thoughts as the flat earth with the sun and stars spinning around us religion.
I say they should live and make do as the people who created up those myths did when they dreamed them up.
Believe in bronze age myths? – Live a bronze age life.
No more medicine, drugs, foods, tech, clothing, housing or anything else from the last 2,000 years. ENJOY your beliefs.
Time for coddling the ignorant and foolish is over (imnsho)
all they do is hold the rest of us back.
March 28th, 2008 06:19
so if we pitted the Koran fundamentalist against Christian fundamentalist, which would score higher?
March 28th, 2008 06:24
At the end, the scientist looks like he wants nothing more than to tell Mr. Koran to stop talking…
March 28th, 2008 06:40
I love it –If it’s not in the Koran, it isn’t true. This coming from a guy wearing glasses, a wristwatch, probably a poly-blend shirt… Speaking via a microphone to a television camera… with a picture of cars in the background… The stupid… it burns…
March 28th, 2008 06:57
@haha
Their media isn’t under American control.
And it’s not the media that is retarded in this case.
(I’d actually call the media pretty smart if they were the ones who chose that dude for the debate. Nothing makes better TV than some idiot making a fool out of himself.)
nice troll attempt though.
March 28th, 2008 07:22
Wow, kind of reminds me of … creationists! Blindly believing something that can’t possibly be true, and making all sorts of excuses to defend their belief.
March 28th, 2008 08:07
Is this guy serious? Really? IMHO he appears to be an uneducated “observer” and that is it.
March 28th, 2008 08:08
Whooo! This is great! I love this video!
Congratulation to the Iraquis TV!
First they managed to find a guy that still think that earth is flat. Then they got him to go on TV to debate his arguments! This is incredible! They know how to have fun in Iraq!
Let’s try this in the US!
March 28th, 2008 08:41
in a word?
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
March 28th, 2008 09:15
I only say one thing: LOOOL!
March 28th, 2008 09:36
To be perfectly fair, this is not *that* much worse than the categorical dismissal of scientific facts like evolution in the US. There are religions which dismiss the scientific method the world over, and those that do so are simply going to be *wrong*.
(Incidentally, anyone who challenges evolution as being “merely a theory” doesn’t have their facts straight. Darwin’s natural selection is a theory, evolution is a fact.)
March 28th, 2008 10:28
Oh my God, I can´t believe my my eyes neither my ears. The problem is that right now, that not only in Irak. Millions of people in USA still think that way.
They aren’t even crazy bit stupid guys (and galls too). We should get rid out of these people. They are poison.
March 28th, 2008 11:33
MEMRI TV IS ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL OUTLETS OF NEO-CONSERVATIVE PROPAGANDA.
THEY MINE THE MEDIA WORLD FOR STUFF LIKE THIS.
DON’T BE FOOLED.
March 28th, 2008 11:39
wow.. i see ancient people talking on tv.
March 28th, 2008 13:08
I had that Science text book in my school! It’s from like 1975.
March 28th, 2008 14:27
How large does this guy think the Earth is?
it’s actually 64,000 km in radius, but he’s claiming it’s larger than the sun…and the Earth seems only slightly larger than the moon by his figures…
Then again, he’s a $#$%#@!%!#^&*
March 28th, 2008 15:39
My dictionary says for belief: “Not knowing for sure”. This movie shows how people can misuse belief, the last sentence be: “Anything that has no indication in the Koran is false.”
March 28th, 2008 15:55
Esto no es más que una anecdota simpática si se compara con el auge del creacionismo en los Estados Unidos de Norte América. La razón última de la argumentación de que la tierra es plana es el coran, la misma razón de “peso” por la cual los creacionistas niegan la evolución de las especies que Darwin postuló, cualquier argumentación basada en un libro sagrado resulta ser igual de ridícula pasados dos o tres mil años desde que se escribió. ¿Quién está pues más retrasado? Un país inspirado por el fanatismo religioso más arcaico y que pretende dominar a los demás paises por la fuerza de las armas, en vez de ayudar a que todos vivamos mejor, o un país islámico asediado, maltratado, invadido, insultado y finalmente ridiculizado… el tiempo lo dirá, pero no debemos reirnos tan ligeramente.
March 28th, 2008 16:51
Fundemendalists say the darndest things
http://www.fstdt.com/
March 28th, 2008 16:54
devolution, hunter, is the only fact that matters.
anyway, any cyclist could testify that the earth is not flat. god got it wrong because he was looking at it from above.
March 28th, 2008 17:27
Just one word for all those guys bragging how stupid ‘those arabs’ are:
Creationists !!!
Not few of children in the USofA are getting their science education from the old testament!
So better be quiet….
March 28th, 2008 18:41
Maybe this old arab is wrong and cannot understand nothing but coran, but there americans that belive the world was created in 7 days and studied it IN THE SCHOOL. The same shit, different skin. You are not better than they. That is shure, is in europe there is NO PUBLIC SCHOOL teaching this bullshit.
March 28th, 2008 18:54
“r arabs fuken retarded “….
only as retarded as someone who has problems spelling.
March 28th, 2008 20:24
Islamic World
Around 830 CE, Caliph al-Ma’mun commissioned a group of astronomers to measure the distance from Tadmur (Palmyra) to al-Raqqah, in modern Syria. They found the cities to be separated by one degree of latitude and the distance between them to be 66 2/3 miles and thus calculated the Earth’s circumference to be 24,000 miles.[9]
Many Muslim scholars declared a mutual agreement (Ijma) that celestial bodies are round, among them Ibn Hazm (d. 1069), Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200), and Ibn Taymiya (d. 1328).[10] Ibn Taymiya said, “Celestial bodies are round—as it is the statement of astronomers and mathematicians—it is likewise the statement of the scholars of Islam”. Abul-Hasan ibn al-Manaadi, Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm, and Abul-Faraj Ibn Al-Jawzi have said that the Muslim scholars are in agreement that all celestial bodies are round. Ibn Taymiyah also remarked that Allah has said, “And He (Allah) it is Who created the night and the day, the sun and the moon. They float, each in a Falak.” Ibn Abbas says, “A Falaka like that of a spinning wheel.” The word ‘Falak’ (in the Arabic language) means “that which is round.[11] [12]
The Muslim scholars who held to the round-earth theory used it in an impeccably Islamic manner, to calculate the distance and direction from any given point on the earth to Mecca. This determined the Qibla, or Muslim direction of prayer. Muslim mathematicians developed spherical trigonometry which was used in these calculations.[13] Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), in his Muqaddimah, also identified the world as spherical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spherical_Earth#Islamic_World
P.S.
modern world only knew that earth round very early…
Cheeeeeeeers unbelievers
March 28th, 2008 20:40
This is kinda scary to listen too…
March 28th, 2008 21:49
This is just plain silly.
Everyone knows the Earth is burrito-shaped.
March 28th, 2008 22:44
Hey guys i just wanted to say that some in the Leviticus chapters talking about flat earth may make for the case here to be that way.
March 29th, 2008 02:21
Whoah… all my life i was wrong.. i think the earth was hedhehog shaped.
March 29th, 2008 02:35
I find this quite hilarious myself, but before you laugh, don’t forget that the claims of the Iraqi scientist who uses the Koran for a basis of his scientific beliefs are NO MORE RIDICULOUS than claims made by those who use the Christian Bible.
Idiocracy, here we come!
March 29th, 2008 03:27
That guy seriously needs to take a few minutes to read up on Time Cube. Surely that would set him straight.
March 29th, 2008 08:17
I have read the Koran and I would love for this neanderthal to point out to me where in the Koran does it say that the Earth is flat? I suppose it’s on the same page with every human being’s duty to blow up schools, streets, and markets in broad daylight? As an Arab, I’m ashamed of people like that and I really wonder sometimes how most Arabs and people from developed countries are supposed to coexist. One half of the world is living in the 21st century while the other half is living in the B.C. ages. It really should come as no surprise that so many wars are happening.
March 29th, 2008 13:00
*LOL*…very funny…he may actually mean he based it on “moronic” science. plain pathetic. or are we viewers just being punk’d.
March 29th, 2008 13:04
The last caption sums it up nicely:
“Anything with no confirmation in the Koran is false”. That pretty much explains all this BS.
March 29th, 2008 13:39
hehe yeah, don’t think that this is what most Muslims think.
If it weren’t for Islams the United States wouldn’t exist. It was Mohammad’s (peace and blessing upon him) revolutionary ideas and encouragement of education that spawned a rennasance (sp) in the middle east, where they developed algebra, the concept of zero, the very numbers we use today, yes, 1 2 3 4 5 5 7 8 9 and 0 are arabic numerals. and they developed the trigonometry as someone stated above and the navigational equipment that without, Europe wouldn’t have been able to navigate their ships and thus explore and colonise the rest of the world.
this guy’s just a crackpot, like many creationists. I know evolution’s real, but I have a hard time understanding how a fish knows how to start the process to evolve sophisticated lungs over the course of a million years. so while creation as it is in genesis of the bible is definately rediculous, wether or not there is a god is up for debate for me though. and scientifically as there is no evidence to support there not being a god, one has to accept that the existance of a god is possible.
so don’t trash religious people either
March 29th, 2008 17:24
Scientology at its best?
March 29th, 2008 18:55
Fools, you all think that the world is round?
Its not round, its not even a sphere,
its a 4 dimensional hypersphere.
I am laughing at all you guys just like you are laughing at him.
April 1st, 2008 19:09
anyhthing that has not indication in the koran is false.
he could just have easily said that he denies
the existance of kangaroos or george bush or himself, they have no indication in the koran.
he also denies his own senses saying that the sun moves every 24 hours; reality if it contradicts the koran doesn’t exist – koran is reality.
April 1st, 2008 19:26
“Fools, you all think that the world is round?
Its not round, its not even a sphere,
its a 4 dimensional hypersphere.”
being a 4 dimesional hypersphere implies that it is round, or that it has roundness… it has a round perimeter(also known as a circumerference (2 dimensions) that extends in a third dimension(depth which gives it surface) and a fourth dimesnion (time, which gives it duration). which all seem perpendicular to each other, but are actually distorted by space-time curavture.
look and you will find
there is nothing to be found;
look, here is a cart
watch the wheels go round.
i can’t speak for anyone else, but i am laughing at him because he is a fool, not because he thinks the earth is flat: his logic is completely arbitrary and flawed. i would listen to him if he came up with some real evidence, not “it says in the koran..”.
April 1st, 2008 19:42
“one has to accept that the existance of a god is possible.”
one also has to accept that it is completley possible that god doesn’t exist, and that jesus is his son (making him non-existant, or a bastard(conceived out of wedlock, maybe that’s why mary claimed he was the son of god?)).
a lot of people try to convince me that god exists,by saying that there is no possible way that he couldn’t because he is the origin of everything. therefore completely incomprehensible, and that’s why god’s nature is arbitrary. this is white noise, with me at the end going well all religion is false then, because they claim to understand his nature. when i claim god has the potential but if his nature is icomprehensible i don’t have to concern myself with god.
if anyone read this your probably wasting your time.
April 3rd, 2008 15:55
Has this video been created by the CIA to render muslims being idiots? Effectively, this will contribute to mutual hate and contempt – which is the base of international understanding in the new millenium. So, folks, continue!
April 16th, 2008 01:04
The knowledge of the roundness of earth is as old as the times of ancient Greek Philosophy, that means several hundred years older than any Arab invention. The fact that the zero and the numbers we use come from the muslim world means nothing. They don’t seem to have used their knowledge for anything. At least I don’t know any recent Muslim scientific or technical device that’s used around the world (Falafel and Döner Kebab don’t count). Where’s the latest Arabic Nuclear Powerplant techology sold to the rest of the world? Where’s Muslim Biotech, Astrophysics, any engineering invention from the last 200 years that’s spread over the world?
I don’t want to prove any inferiority but I want to show that the “ancient Muslim wisdom” argument doesn’t prove anything either, because even the wise men of the days of old got many their scientific and religious/philosophical ideas from other cultures, like Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrism etc. Same with the Judaeo-Christian culture that didn’t come from nothing.
April 20th, 2008 06:41
The Koran doesn’t describe the existence or prove the effectiveness of eyeglasses, yet he wears them.
It’s like fundy Christians in Kansas…