My question is to those who believe in flat earth theory-would like to know the opinions on what could be the real motive of NASA and other space organizations to hide the fact that ‘‘the earth is flat’’.
I think I speak for everyone when I say no one here believes in flat earth theory.
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I find it very fascinating. It is amazing what those guys come up with. I think it would be awesome to find out that the earth is flat. Unfortunately, I do not see any concrete evidence. Some of these guys use trickery and slight of hand i.e. Bill Nye’s comments were taken out of context when he said, that human beings were tethered to this planet. The flat earthers stated that Nye meant that man basically cannot escape our orbit, because of some invisible canopy covering the planet, which also means man has never been to the moon. Nye was basically saying that where ever man went in the universe, they will always require the resources from this planet. They have taken others out of context as well.
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This merely underscores the fact that our forum is a pathetic echo chamber for people stubbornly ignoring their intuitions and instead relying on the testimony of a handful of elites with PhDs who claim to have “data” that “proves” that the earth is – gosh this is so silly I can barely type it on my magic wordbox – a spinning ball hurtling around a somehow-controlled nuclear-powered furnace. Wake up sheeple!
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It is extremely interesting to see how AIG works to distinguish their skepticism of old earth from flat earthism. They know their base is drawn to flat earthism, and therefore spend quite a bit of work “guarding their flank” on this case. A few choice articles:
This one is particularly good:
What is interesting about this is their work to keep the hermeneutic (which is quite rigid) flexible enough to tolerate geocentric passages as figurative in some sense, but then insist on a young earth elsewhere. The problem is that the standard rhetoric of “God’s Word vs. man’s word” is used against them in this case. And they use scientific evidence heavily to make their case.
@TedDavis has a historical take on this worth looking at closely, “Galileo and the Garden of Eden”. He explains how the revolutions of astronomy, which did impact hermeneutics, were allowed, but the goal was to keep Galillo out of the Garden. This match’s closely AIG’s tact. However, they cannot admit that we correctly allowed science to impact their reading of Scripture, so this puts them in a bind.
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The real motive is, according to them, often an anti-Biblical atheistic worldview bent on distorting everything.
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That is a stretch to say the least. Some of these flat earther use the bible, wrongly I might add i.e.
(Revelation 7:1) “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth…”
That is simply east, west, north and south
I’m sorry @Wookin_Panub, you are trusting man’s word over god’s word. It is clear that those passages say there are four corners. A globe does not have four corners, but none! You could not be farther from what the text clearly says. In the end it comes down to who you will trust: man’s fallible science, or god’s infallible word.
And of course, I could quote mine you @Wookin_Panub to make a strong rhetorical case against your use of Scripture here. See the problem?
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So we just ignore the verse “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth”?
Taking this farther,
It obvious that that is a poetic reference. Clearly god is not telling us the structure of the earth, as he is in the passage about the four corners. Come to think of it, some flat earthers do think the earth is a flat circle, so that might be acceptable, even though it is plain this passage is figurative. Remember, we also know that the foundations of the earth are immovable. So even if we were agree that the passage is teaching about a circle, a circle is not a sphere. This is just basic geometry and very embarrassing that you have missed this obvious fact.
Whether it be a flat square or a flat circle, it is not a moving sphere hurtling through space. That is just absurd any ways! The only reason people believe these crazy stories and twist the the words from the plain meaning is because they are compromising with atheists. In the end you have to decide if you will trust god’s word or man’s infallible science.
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By the way I should put out there that I am using the lowercase of god here because I do not mean the God I find in Jesus, but some man-made construct. I just could not bring myself to miss use the word “God” is such an absurd way. So sorry if that was confusing. At the least, it should be a signal that I am arguing an approach I find very dangerous, and do not hold myself.
You do realize that you are using the book of Revelation (one of the most misunderstood books in the bible) to state your case, but you accuse me of using poetic licenses?
It is still round, which is negates your argument that the world cannot have four corners-E,W,N,S. I said nothing of a sphere.
The key point is that we need to resist atheistic science. We should tolerate some disagreement on the precise flat shape of the earth, but whatever it might be it is not a sphere. Besides, on a sphere, there is no North, South, East and West any ways. They know this, which is why they invent myths like the North and South poles, where North and Sound are supposed to magically disappear. How absurd.
Yes you are taking poetic licence, and this is very dangerous. Revelation is not a poem. It is the direct words of god being communicated to all of us. Your attempt to poeticise the clear teaching of scripture is dangerous. Are you next going to poeticize the Resurrection?
The moment you begin to compromise with atheistic science, as you are doing here, you are set down a path to throw out the rest of the bible. There is a clear path we have seen time again. Soon you will be question in the age of the earth, and then you will accept evolution, and then atheism itself. That is exactly what we have seen in culture, and it is exactly what is going to happen to you and/or your children.
After all, as soon as you turn from the clear teaching of scripture, how can you trust anything god says? If we cannot trust what god says about the immovable foundations of the earth, we cannot trust what it tells us about Jesus. In the end we have to decide who we trust, god’s word, or man’s word.
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I appreciate the reference to that column, Joshua, but let me be more specific on its relevance to the flat earth issue, which I don’t discuss there. Mainstream YECs are fine with interpreting biblical texts so as not to conflict with the Solar System. At least three factors are in play here. (1) Most of the texts that seem to teach geocentrism are found in poetical books, such as Psalms or Ecclesiastes, so there is more liberty to look for metaphorical interpretations. (2) The science we now have supporting the Solar System is “operational” or “observational” science, not “historical” science. In other words, we can observe and test the ideas any time we want. It’s based on repeatable events that we can witness, not past events that we cannot repeat, for which we must trust the eyewitness testimony of the Creator in Genesis as the sole source of reliable knowledge. Creationists typically accept most conclusions of the non-historical sciences, as in this example. (3) The question of the Earth’s motion (vis-a-vis the Sun) is just not related to salvation or the creation of the world. It’s theologically trivial for creationists not to take those texts “literally.” Here, they flatly disagree with the point made by Galileo’s opponent Roberto Bellarmino, who feared that contradicting universally accepted (up to that point in history) interpretations of those texts would start a slippery slope toward looking for new interpretations everywhere else. In B’s view, every single word in the Bible was directly inspired by God, and to deny the received interpretation of passages about the Earth and the Sun was equivalent to calling God a liar. He didn’t use that exact language, but that’s exactly what he meant. If this sounds familiar to readers of AiG, it should.
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Yes, that’s obviously true.
And that demonstrates the rhetorical bind that YECs have with flat earthers. That’s all =).
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As you stated, the Bible says the Earth is a circle. A circle is flat. So do you believe the Bible, or do you believe atheistic scientists?
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Now that is a well constructed parallel ! - - The objections of Roberto Bellarmino … and the objections of modern day Evangelicals… nice work!
The single circular continent. Look at my image, what is it?
We have had our fun. =)
I do not want to scare off @Wookin_Panub though. I think we made our point. How about we all restrain our flat-earth alter-egos.
The main point is that the rhetoric of YEC is used by flat earthers against YEC. This puts AIG in the entertaining position of having to argue against its own rhetoric, making calls to remember the figurative nature of Scripture, and not to take it too literally.
Even @Wookin_Panub did this:
That is of course the point. We can all be taking Scripture seriously, but also have disagreements about how to interpret it. THe grand-standing rhetoric of young earthers is only really coherent if they are going to be flat earthers or geocentrists too. Otherwise, at some point, they will have acknowledge that we are not always disagree about God’s Word, sometimes (often?) we are disagreeing about our interpretation (i.e. man’s word) of God’s Word. Grandstanding can be fun, but it is not kind in this case.
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