The map used is a azimuthal equidistant projection centered on the North Pole, which is just one of many ways to project a globe onto a flat map surface. It is used for the UN flag because it shows all of the nations. Notice that it does not extend past 60 degrees south latitude so does not show Antartica or “the ice wall” the flerfs like to talk about.
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Within the flag community, there are some basic qualities that are most favorable in a design. One of these requirements is that it needs to be basic, so a map on a flag to represent the whole world would be a very useful way to make the flag of the UN.
However, choosing a map is tricky. Most projections are asymmetric so the flag would end up becoming complicated quickly. With this projection (which actually came about pre-Flag Earth movement; if I remember correctly, it actually had applications in aviation training to demonstrate faster routes in the Northern Hemisphere), you can cleanly show the entire plant and in a semi-symmetrical (circle) manner.
Yet it only shows a couple of twigs and some leaves.
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There is more truth in that if we accept that the renewal time may be tens or hundreds of million years. You just need to have a period of massive production of biomass that is not consumed and the biomass needs to be buried under sufficiently thick layers of sediment.
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Indeed! The fact is that the earth is flat. But its center is very near my house, not the North Pole.
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So you think the world revolves around you?
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My world certainly does.
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The way to deal with flat earth theories is to address the root cause of why it still persists to this day. A literal reading of Scripture shows that it has language that suggests that the earth is flat… waters above and below a solid sky dome (firmament), windows of heaven, etc. These elements can all be remapped with what we know today.
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I don’t think this is the root cause. There are plenty of flat earth folk that don’t use the Bible to support their theory. The main driver seems to be a need to believe conspiracy theories which are reinforced by social media algorithms.
BTW, remapping the elements destroys the original message.
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Didn’t know flat earthers were a thing in friggin’ 2026 AD. 
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Unfortunately, this issue still persists. And I agree with @graft2vine that trying to reform our understanding of some of the text would help with some cases of persistent belief. For cases involving a “scientific” basis (think the people who say they are atheists and still believe in Flat Earth), simply clarifying some confusion on certain astronomical and physical phenomena would hopefully work (especially on a fundamental level, as with the scientific basis, you cannot jump back to the “God just made it this way so it has to work” explanation. If you are only relying on physical phenomena to explain it, there is literally no means by which this can happen).
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I agree they don’t need to use the Bible to support their theory, as they want to present it as science. Same with YEC pseudoscience in their attempts to get recognition within the scientific community. Yes, it can spread on social media and beget new conspiracy theorists that never opened a Bible.
I don’t think so… but rather reinforces the message. The Spirit of God is within us and heaven is in the space between us… the earth is His footstool. God is not up in outer space looking down on us like a caged animal inside a glass dome.
You might ask how blessings can be poured out through volcanos (windows of heaven) - Malachi 3:10
Fertile Soil: Volcanic ash and rock break down into soil rich in nutrients like iron, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus. This makes volcanic regions some of the most productive agricultural lands in the world.
Geothermal Energy: Heat from underground volcanic activity is harnessed to generate clean, renewable electricity and provide heating for homes and greenhouses.
Atmospheric Creation: Over billions of years, volcanic gases helped form Earth’s early atmosphere and oceans, creating the conditions necessary for life to exist.
Land Formation: Volcanoes build new land, creating beautiful tropical islands like Hawaii, Iceland, and the Galapagos.
Precious Minerals: Eruptions bring valuable resources up from deep within the Earth, including gold, silver, copper, diamonds, and building materials like pumice and basalt.
Tourism and Culture: Volcanic landscapes attract millions of visitors for hiking and hot springs, and they hold deep spiritual and cultural significance for many indigenous communities.
On the flip side, God also opened the windows of heaven to bring on the flood.
- Gen 7:11-12 …on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Modern example of a volcano blasting tons of water into the atmosphere:
The underwater eruption in the South Pacific Ocean also blasted an enormous plume of water vapor into Earth’s stratosphere – enough to fill more than 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.
Imagine multiple eruptions happening at around the same time.
It would take 75,757,575 of those eruptions to raise the level of the ocean just 100 feet. Multiple that number by whatever it would take to get to the actual Global Flood. Then you have to figure out how to get rid of the massive amount of heat that million upon millions of eruptions would also release. So this doesn’t appear to be a viable explanation.
BTW, these aren’t AI generated numbers but are just back of the envelope calculations.
Maybe i am wrong, but my reading is that this underwater volcano vaporized sea water due to contact with hot lava which caused the plume of water vapor. No new water was added to the ocean, it was just ocean water that was evaporated. That of course might lead to increased rainfall as it condensed.
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Not global… My theory is that volcanoes were involved in a regional flood and that they would support massive amounts of rain as described in the biblical account. Other theories like the Black Sea deluge have to do with rising sea levels which is a very loose interpretation.
Subterranean water can also be released by volcanoes, but yes, in this case tons of ocean water was also evaporated, making this a much bigger event. Something similar can happen with snowcapped/glaciated mountain volcanoes. Massive snowmelt, vaporization from an eruption can cause both major river flooding and rain.
Archeological evidence of deep flood strata in Mesopotamia indicate floods in 3500 bc, 3000-2900 bc and 2600 bc. In addition to Ararat, there were a number of other active volcanoes during this period in the mountainous region of eastern Turkey where the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates are.
Volcanoes are not needed if the location of the flood was Mesopotamia, the place with ancient stories about.a great flood and a boat that saved one family and animals.
At the lower parts of the plains of Mesopotamia, the landscape is very flat. In the flat parts, the inclination was less than 10 cm per km. Closer to the sea, the inclination was so low that the water formed large marshlands.
When one king ordered the digging of a big canal, the excavated soil formed banks along the canal. The banks were so much higher than anything else nearby that the banks were described as mountains.
Even during normal years, flooding caused problems because the waters inundated growing crops and the extra water needed to be guided away from the ‘wrong’ places. Buildings were constructed from reeds and clay-mud bricks, so the buildings did not survive if large floods inundated the buildings for an extended period.
An additional problem was that sea levels varied by meters. Because of the flat landscape, rising sea could shift the shore line by tens or even hundreds of km inland.
The flood water came partly from rains but also from the melting snow in the mountainous areas at the start of the big rivers, Euphrat and Tigris. Especially during the millennia at the end of the ice age, the melting mountain glaciers would have released massive amounts of water after the winter.
A massive flood, simultaneously with rising sea levels, could have inundated the whole landscape. Because the landscape was flat earth and mostly without trees (except possible palm orchards on the crests of levees), a supermassive flood could have drowned all the land and villages so that there would be nothing visible above the water for hundreds of km. A flood with an area of >>100’000 km2 and no visible hills above the water within that area.
Edit:
The description of the landscape and hydrology is based on articles in the book ‘The Sumerian world’ (ed. Harriet Crawford) by Pournelle, Wilkinson and others. The description of a potential supermassive flood is partly based on other sources, partly based on my conclusions about the geography, hydrology and climate of that region during the last 10’000 years.
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Any regional flood requires large portions of the story to be thrown out so it isn’t recording an actual local flood. A local flood of any of several types could be the inspiration for the story. My favorite is the flooding of the Persian Gulf.
A little harder to figure, but probably still more volcanoes than were present in the area. And it takes more than just increased water vapor to generate 40 days of rain. When water vapor condenses to fall as rain it releases heat so you have to figure out a way to get rid of that heat.
There are no sources for vast quantities of liquid water underground.
Well that didn’t happen at Mt. Saint Helens which the YEC folk like to use as an example.
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Something major had to have happened other that normal seasonal rain.
- Gen 7:11-12 …all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
From AI Mode:
The Volcanoes of Upper Mesopotamia (Anatolia/Turkey)
Where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers begin, the plate collision changes from smooth sliding to massive tectonic smashing. This created a string of major volcanoes:
- Karaca Dağ (Ḳaraja-Dāgh): This massive shield volcano sits right in Upper Mesopotamia (southeastern Turkey). Its ancient basaltic lava flows physically block and separate the upper gaps between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
- The Lake Van System (Nemrut & Süphan): Situated just north of the ancient Mesopotamian border, the Nemrut volcano was the primary source of obsidian (volcanic glass) for the entire Stone Age population of Mesopotamia. Some geologists even speculate that an ancient eruption from this system may have temporarily dammed a major river, causing a catastrophic failure and subsequent massive flooding down into the Mesopotamian plains—potentially inspiring ancient flood myths like the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Melting glaciers from the last ice age would have been too far back at around 10,000 BC. I think Noah’s flood would have been the one in 2,900 BC.
Interesting info overall and I’ll have to check out that book!
99% of fresh water on earth is in underground aquifers.
Yes, there was major flooding.
The primary drivers of this flooding were lahars (volcanic mudflows) created when the eruption’s intense heat rapidly melted snow and ice on the mountain. This water mixed with billions of cubic yards of volcanic rock, ash, and soil, tearing down the mountain and choking local river systems.
Mesopotamian region experienced major flooding at the end of the ice age. A citation from a text of Jennifer Pournelle:
“vast rivers fed by melting ice and heavy rains carved their way through the earlier sediments that infilled the alluvial basin between the Zagros mountains of Iran and the Arabian plateau…”
That period seem to have happened ‘too early’ for the story. Yet, it seems that the period with higher precipitation continued until the fourth millennium BC, when the first urban cities formed in the Sumerian plains.
The silty plain was shaped and reshaped by an “interplay of tectonic uplift and subduction with rising and falling sea levels, rivers and floods, and windborne sand”. Temporary damming of a river is a realistic scenario but might not have been enough to flood the whole plain.
Writing developed by the end of the fourth millennium BC (the Uruk period). There are few texts from the early period of writing and these are mainly short notes related to administration, labor and commerce. That makes the early period prehistory rather than history, because we do not have sufficient texts from that era.
The Sumerian king list divides the history into the ‘pre-flood’ and ‘post-flood’ dynasties. Although the list of ‘pre-flood’ rulers may be at least partly mythological, the ‘post-flood’ list is associated with a period without massive floods - smaller floods were common but nothing that should have devastated everything. The dividing line was at the end of the rule of the city Shuruppag, with king Ubara-Tutu and his son, Ziusudra (= Utnapishtim). The flood was followed by the rule of the city of Kish. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Utnapishtim and his wife are described as the only humans that survived the flood.
If there is any historical reality behind the mythical Mesopotamian stories about the flood, finding the year when the power switched from Shuruppak to Kish and when Utnapishtim lived would give a year for the famous flood in the Mesopotamian stories (which may have been a different flood than the flood of Genesis). It has been claimed that Utnapishtim lived around 2900 BC, corresponding to the flood deposits at Shuruppak between the Jemdet Nasr (Uruk III) and the Early Kingdom periods.
The interpretations about the early history of Mesopotamia have been guided more by opinions and expectations than actual evidence. The evidence we have from the Uruk period is mainly partial remains of structures and ceramics. Some amount of archaic texts have been found but they seem to be from the end of the Uruk period, with no certainty about the dating. The interpretations about the scanty findings have not been fully reliable - the facts have often been forced into an existing opinion or framework about the history, rather than vice versa.
The cuneiform texts telling the Sumerian stories are from much later periods, from Akkadian to Babylonian eras - hundreds or thousands of years after the early Sumerian era (Uruk period). These later texts are either mythology or mythologized history, so not very reliable.
I expect that the near future will give more information. There are vast numbers of cuneiform tablets in museums and other collections, a minority of these have been translated and published. Archeological work has been limited because of the geopolitical situation in the southeastern Irak. If there comes an extended period of peace and the archeologists get permissions and funding for the excavations, we will get more knowledge of the relevant period.
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The “any challenge to them shows I’m right” assumption is indeed prevalent in conspiracy theories. Besides ignoring the need to prove, rather than merely claim, that the proposed alternative actually does explain it better, it also assumes there are no other possibilities.