PARALLEL LINES

ZETETIC COSMOGONY:
OR
Conclusive Evidence
THAT THE WORLD IS NOT A
ROTATING—REVOLVING—GLOBE,
BUT
A STATIONARY PLANE CIRCLE.
By Thomas Winship
1899

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(Post 28/47)

PARALLEL LINES.

The term "parallel" signifies equidistant, hence the self-evident truth that "parallel lines never meet." Because they are at equal distance from each other, they can never meet, no matter how far they may be prolonged. If lines do meet when prolonged, it is because they are not parallel or equidistant from each other. The above is so well-known that it seems at first sight a waste of words to re-state it, but the following quotations will show the necessity of emphasizing even self-evident truths.

"Some Unrecognised Laws of Nature," by I. Singer and L. H. Berens, page 11, contains the following:

"We suspend two plumb lines at a convenient distance and then measure their distances from each other at both ends. The most delicate measurement at present possible would demonstrate—as far as this is possible by direct observation—that the two lines are parallel to each other. By the aid of abstract axiom that parallel lines if extended indefinitely would never meet, we would draw the inevitable inference that two such plumb lines, if indefinitely extended would never meet. This conclusion would seem obvious and inevitable; yet the student of today knows it to be false. But his knowledge is not due to direct observation, but to his acquaintance with the fact that the earth is round, and that plumb lines at any part of the earth are at right angles to the horizon."

I have not read one work on Astronomy which does not require an enormous amount of credulity if the reader is to accept as truth whatever is presented to him, but the above quotation will equal anything anywhere for the amount of credulity it pre-supposes the reader to be possessed of. By direct observation and experiment it is proved that parallel lines can never meet, being equidistant from each other. Yet the student after having proved the truth of the proposition, knows it to be false!!! Parallel lines can never meet, because they are parallel, no matter what the figure of the world may be. The same work, on page 13, states:

"To the man who conceived the earth as a flat expanse nothing could be more conclusive than that plumb lines were strictly parallel . . . . . But notwithstanding such direct and positive evidence, the student of today disbelieves this conclusion, and that not because he has any direct evidence to the contrary, but because it conflicts with the now established fact that our earth is a sphere. His evidence is not due to direct observation, but is circumstantial depending on a concatenation of inferences."

It would be difficult to conceive anything more opposed to reason and common-sense than the foregoing. One fact is done to death by what is said to be another fact, which is manifestly impossible, and one marvels how educated men can lend themselves to support what their own experiment condemns. The same work, continuing on page 15, says:    

"The reason why 'parallel lines never meet' is because we conceive them so and because as soon as lines approach towards each other we no longer call them parallel."

"This conclusion will enable us to understand why of two such conclusions—as: (1) plumb lines are parallel; (2) plumb lines are convergent,—we accept the latter, though based on a long chain of inferences, as against the former which is the result of actual observation."

Now, the most amateur draughtsman knows that parallel lines are not parallel, "because we conceive them so," but because they are equidistant from each other, and therefore, can never meet if extended indefinitely. So that the gifted authors of the work from which I quote have actually to mentally destroy a fact and to deny self-evident truth in order to support what depends on a "concatenation of inferences." The "long chain of inferences" has to be accepted as truth as against the result of actual observation! If plumb lines are parallel, how can they be convergent? Truly, this globe theory depends for its support on the stultification of common-sense, the free run of the imagination and the dethronement of the reasoning powers. According to the globular hypothesis, parallel perpendiculars are impossible, yet any builder will admit that a house is a mass of parallel perpendiculars.

"Mensuration," by T. Baker, C.E., page 1, gives the definition of parallel lines as: "Parallel lines are always at the same distance, and never meet when prolonged."

The authors of "Some Unrecognised Laws of Nature" have gone to strange lengths to support the fiction of a globe world. It never occurred to them that their experiment proving plumb lines to be parallel, proved also that the world is not a sphere but a plane!