The Missed Point

[Terry_Sampson]

• The central thesis of The flat-earth myth and creationism Journal of Creation 22(2)114–120, August 2008 by Jerry Bergman, is that the notion that Christians historically believed in a flat earth is a modern myth, was popularized in the 19th century to depict Christianity as anti-science and to discredit critics of Darwinism. Bergman tells us:

  • I. The Ancients and Christians Actually Believed
    • Greeks (e.g., Eratosthenes) knew Earth is spherical and even estimated its circumference with good accuracy.
    • Christian theologians overwhelmingly accepted Earth’s sphericity.
    • Only two marginal figures—Lactantius (4th c.) and Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th c.)—argued for a flat earth; but their influence was negligible.
  • II. Birth of the Modern Myth (1800s)
    • Washington Irving (1828) fictionalized Columbus’s critics as flat-earthers afraid ships would “fall off.”
    • Antoine-Jean Letronne added anticlerical gloss, helping cement the story as “history.”
    • The real historical dispute around Columbus concerned ocean width, not Earth’s shape.
  • III. Weaponization in the Darwin Debates
    • John William Draper (1874) and Andrew Dickson White (1896) framed history as a “warfare” of science vs. theology, using the flat-earth trope as Exhibit A.
    • Their works became highly influential, seeding textbooks and public memory for decades.
  • IV. Persistence in Textbooks & Media (20th Century)
    • Popular books, school texts, and magazines repeated the myth (e.g., on Galileo/Columbus), portraying medieval/Church teaching as flat-earth doctrine.
    • Even late-century works echoed it before scholarly corrections gained traction.
  • V. Reality of Modern Flat-Earth Groups
    • Small, idiosyncratic circles (e.g., Zion, Illinois under Dowie/Voliva; Charles K. Johnson’s Flat Earth Society) with tiny membership and little continuity; often antagonistic to creationist organizations.
  • VI. Scholarly Debunking
    • Jeffrey Burton Russell (1991) thoroughly dismantled the myth’s historiography.
    • Lindberg & Numbers, Stephen Jay Gould, and others traced how Draper/White and secondary sources propagated error by recycling one another.
  • VII. Bergman’s Conclusion
    • The flat-earth story functioned as a rhetorical club against Christians/creationists, especially when evidence for Darwinism was perceived as weak in its early reception.
    • The true narrative is not “religion vs. science,” but ideological polemic vs. historical accuracy.
  • VIII. Key Takeaways
    • Earth’s sphericity was long known; the flat-earth “Church doctrine” is a 19th-century fabrication.
    • Be cautious with secondary sources; verify claims in primary or critical histories.
    • The flat-earth comparison used against creationists rests on faulty history.

• Here’s a critique of Bergman’s creationist rebuttal (that the flat-earth myth is a fabrication used to discredit Christianity and Darwin skeptics), broken into strengths and weaknesses:

  • Strengths of the Rebuttal
    • 1. Correct Historical Pointing - Bergman is right that the flat-earth myth as a common Christian belief is largely false.
      • Scholarship (Jeffrey Burton Russell, Inventing the Flat Earth; James Hannam, God’s Philosophers) confirms that most educated medieval Christians accepted Earth’s sphericity.
      • The figures cited by Draper/White (Lactantius, Cosmas) were indeed marginal and unrepresentative.
      • Thus, Bergman highlights a real distortion in popular education and media.
    • 2. Accurate on Irving/Draper/White’s Influence
      • Washington Irving did embellish Columbus’s story to dramatize opposition.
      • Draper and White did construct a “conflict thesis” (religion vs. science) that historians now consider outdated and oversimplified.
      • Bergman rightly shows how this narrative shaped textbooks into the 20th century.
    • 3. Exposure of Rhetorical Strategy
      • He correctly observes that comparing creationists to flat-earthers is often a rhetorical tactic rather than a serious historical argument.
  • Weaknesses of the Rebuttal
    • 1. Overstating the Conspiracy Motive
         • Bergman suggests Darwinists deliberately fabricated the flat-earth myth to cover for weak evidence of evolution.
         • This over-ascribes malicious intent, ignoring that much myth-making often results from simplification, misreading, or cultural storytelling, not coordinated propaganda.
    • 2. False Dichotomy
         • By framing the issue as “Darwinists vs. Christians”, Bergman ignores that:
         • Many non-Darwinists and non-Christians repeated the flat-earth story.
         • Many Christians accepted evolution without invoking the myth.
         • The history is less about “warfare” and more about messy cultural transmission of errors.
    • 3. Selective Evidence
      • While noting Russell and Gould’s critiques of Draper/White, Bergman presents them as allies of creationism, when in fact both defended evolution.
      • He omits that mainstream historians (not creationists) corrected the record—not as a defense of creationism, but in pursuit of scholarly accuracy.
    • 4. Exaggerated Victim Narrative
      • Bergman implies creationists are unique victims of the flat-earth smear.
      • In reality, the myth was used more broadly to paint the entire medieval Church as anti-science, not only creationists.
      • Creationists are only one modern group caught in its rhetorical shadow.
    • 5. Misuse of Weakness in Darwinism Claim
      • He argues the flat-earth myth was deployed because Darwinism lacked evidence.
      • But Darwin’s theory quickly found empirical support (biogeography, fossil record, embryology), even if genetics and molecular biology came later.
      • To claim Darwinists relied on myths to prop up a “scientifically weak” theory is tendentious and overstated.
  • Balanced Assessment
    • Bergman’s valid contribution: He is correct that the flat-earth myth is historically inaccurate and should not be weaponized against Christians or creationists.
    • Where he fails: He turns a valid historical correction into an apologetic tool, claiming it discredits Darwinism itself. This goes beyond what the evidence warrants.
  • Bottom line:: The flat-earth myth is a myth—but correcting it does not undermine Darwinian evolution. Bergman exposes real historical errors, but his framing casts them in an ideological battle that oversimplifies motives and exaggerates the case against evolution.

The problem with the rebuttal is that, as @jammycakes et al. have pointed out, it misses the point.

The argument for the Biblical Flat Earth is the same kind of Argument for Young Earth Creationism.

• 1. What the Creationist Rebuttal Does - Bergman insists:
  • “Christians never widely believed the Earth was flat, therefore comparing creationists to flat-earthers is unfair.”
    He treats the issue as purely historical: Did the Church teach a flat earth or not?
• 2. What the “Flat Earth” Analogy Really Points To
  • The analogy isn’t about whether Christians actually did believe in a flat earth.
    It’s about the structure of the argument:
  • Flat Earth believers read a text (e.g., “four corners of the Earth”) literally, against accumulating scientific evidence.
  • Young Earth Creationists do something similar: they read Genesis literally (6 days, ~6,000 years) against overwhelming evidence from geology, astronomy, and biology.
    The rhetorical comparison says:
  • Both are examples of a hermeneutical choice that elevates literalist interpretation ver converging scientific evidence.
    So even if it’s historically false that “the medieval Church taught a flat earth,” the analogy remains philosophically valid.
• 3. Where the Rebuttal Misses the Point
  • Bergman treats the flat-earth claim as a factual-historical smear, not as an analogy about method.
  • By debunking the history, he believes he has debunked the analogy.
  • But critics of YEC are not arguing that Christians once believed in a flat earth—only that the style of reasoning is parallel.
    This is like someone saying:
  • “Nobody actually thought the sun revolved around the Earth in Galileo’s day, therefore heliocentrism isn’t comparable to Darwinism.”
    That misses the point—what matters is the pattern of resisting new knowledge for scriptural or cultural reasons.
• 4. Why This Matters
  • The real issue is not whether early Christians endorsed a flat earth but whether biblical literalism is a reliable epistemology.
  • Both flat-earth and young-earth positions arise from a literalist reading of scripture that dismisses or reinterprets contrary evidence.
  • Thus, the analogy remains a stinging critique: YEC is to modern science what flat-earthism would be if it were still defended on biblical grounds.
• 5. Balanced Critique
  • Bergman is right: the “Church taught flat earth” claim is bad history.
  • But he is wrong to think this disarms the analogy.
  • The real target of the analogy—scriptural literalism that overrides evidence—remains untouched by his rebuttal.

In short: Bergman wins on history, but loses on logic. The “Biblical Flat Earth” analogy remains powerful because it’s not about history—it’s about the pattern of reasoning shared with Young Earth Creationism.

[Terry_Sampson]

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Terry_Sampson

What the “Flat Earth” Analogy Really Points To

• The analogy isn’t about whether Christians actually did believe in a flat earth.
  It’s about the structure of the argument:
• Flat Earth believers read a text (e.g., “four corners of the Earth”) literally, against accumulating scientific evidence.
• Young Earth Creationists do something similar: they read Genesis literally (6 days, ~6,000 years) against overwhelming evidence from geology, astronomy, and biology.
  The rhetorical comparison says:
• Both are examples of a hermeneutical choice that elevates literalist interpretation ver converging scientific evidence.
  So even if it’s historically false that “the medieval Church taught a flat earth,” the analogy remains philosophically valid.

To put a finer point on it, there are modern Biblical flat earthers who claim that the Bible says the Earth is flat, and they believe it because of the Bible. It is these very people that creationist organizations have criticized, so even YECs agree that they exist. When this is brought up in discussions about YEC and evolution what we are trying to do is find common ground with YECs. We are presuming that YECs reject the conclusions of Biblical flat earthers, and probably do so in large part because of scientific evidence.

In addition to being a philosphically valid argument, I would say that it is also a pragmatic argument because Bible based Flat Earth is a real thing, even if it is an extreme minority.

Added in edit:

They even sell t-shirts.

Flat Earthers find keep the faith at Denver conference

[Terry_Sampson]

An important point.

[Bill_II]

@T_aquaticus

To put a finer point on it, there are modern Biblical flat earthers who claim that the Bible says the Earth is flat, and they believe it because of the Bible.

And thanks to YouTube their numbers may be growing.

[Argon]

Terry Pratchett was right, with his Discworld series.

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@Argon

Terry Pratchett was right

Terry Patchett satires many things like religion and I have no doubt he is right about many things. But he never said the world was flat nor that his novels was anything but fiction.

But I think this hints at the wider problem – the lack of ability and or desire in many human beings to distinguish fiction from reality or in the case of the Bible to distinguish literary devices, symbols, metaphors, parables, and dreams from reality. I think it is an example of how pathologies like schizophrenia, autism, psychopaths, neurosis, and sociopaths are just extremes in a wide spectrum of human thought and behavior.

[Vinnie]

@Terry_Sampson

Weaknesses of the Rebuttal

• 1. Overstating the Conspiracy Motive
  • Bergman suggests Darwinists deliberately fabricated the flat-earth myth to cover for weak evidence of evolution.
  • This over-ascribes malicious intent, ignoring that much myth-making often results from simplification, misreading, or cultural storytelling, not coordinated propaganda.

This is so generic as to be meaningless. It is the same type of shoddy thinking and represents the same failure to deal with any primary material that has led to the pervasive myth in the first place. This is what the article says:

Evolutionists then elevated the myth into popular, historical fact in the two most well-known books defending Darwinism and attacking Christianity: John Draper’s The History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science,41 and Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom42 (figure 3). Both authors used copious references, and the ‘educated public, seeing so many eminent scientists, philosophers, and scholars in agreement, concluded they must be right.’ The reason they were in agreement was because they imitated one another.43

Both Draper and White relied heavily on Cosmas Indicopleustes to support their claim that the Church widely accepted flat-earth cosmology. White goes into great detail explaining Cosmas’ ‘flat parallelogram earth surrounded by four seas’ cosmology.44 White then falsely concluded that Cosmas’ flat-earth idea was received as virtually inspired by the Church,

If you want to critique that statement then do so. But why should I believe that since “much myth-making often results from simplification, misreading, or cultural storytelling, not coordinated propaganda”, that such is the case here? Even if what you said is true you have made a gigantic leap. The point has definitely been missed.

As for Draper, the article even says this: “The late Harvard professor, Stephen Jay Gould, concluded from a study of their writings that the main goal of both Draper and White was to discredit Christians who opposed Darwinism.”

I think it’s safe to say that an attempt to discredit Christianity (especially in the context of its battle with darwinism) is what ultimately led to this pervasive myth. All evolutionists are not at fault.

Vinnie

[Terry_Sampson]

Sorry to disappoint you. You’re not kicking my dog… But if you can improve on criticism, by all means: knock yourself out. I’m sure YECs would appreciate your input.

[LikeHim]

This is about the Enlightenment, I think The miracles that happened are Man’s goals. Tesla thought energy was worth looking into. Einstein’s E=MC(squared) indicates Energy and Mass are interchangeable depending on the speed of light, E/C(squared)= Mass. I think Our Spirit is Energy and it can be Transferred like a Transformer works Electric to Magnetic back to Electric. When the Our Body expires the Spirit (Energy) can be transferred or converted to Mass( Lott’s Wife ).

[paleomalacologist (David Campbell)]

Draper and White sought to discredit “unenlightened”, non-“progressive” Christianity. (Enlightened=progressive=agrees with me). Claiming that “Darwinism” was the issue is dishonest, especially given that the efforts to portray historical Christianity as backwards and unenlightened originated long before Darwin.

The claim that Christians universally believed that the earth was young until the 1800’s is also an “enlightenment” lie, intended to make Christianity look stupid.

[Roy]

@paleomalacologist

The claim that Christians universally believed that the earth was young until the 1800’s is also an “enlightenment” lie, intended to make Christianity look stupid.

Not any more.

Now it’s a YEC lie, intended to make deep time look like a Darwinian invention.

[St.Roymond]

@Roy

Now it’s a YEC lie, intended to make deep time look like a Darwinian invention.

But doing a great job of making Christians look stupid.

[adamjedgar (adam james edgar)]

@Terry_Sampson

The argument for the Biblical Flat Earth is the same kind of Argument for Young Earth Creationism.

Interesting post there Terry.

I have to make a dissagreeing observation with the above quote though…

It is not YEC who present the flat earth myth…that is the opposing views that keep throwing this into the mix!

For me the evidence that clearly refutes any notion that YEC biblical literalists, Judaism or the early Christian church believed in a flat earth is overwhelming.

Below is an old testament example that is highly problematic for those who consistently claim that Bible literalists in ancient times thought the earth was flat:

The prophet Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzars vision. note that King Nebuchadnezzar is historically proven to have actually existed…this is a real man and therefore it almost certain that the dream was also a real dream the King had especially in light of the known historical earthly kingdoms that ruled after Babylonians…Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and in moderns times no particular nation has complete authority over the globe. So we know that the prophecy in the dream came true.

(for those who might try to discredit this with the claim “oh but the book of daniel was written in parts and must be later than 4th-5th century B.C”…yes but if that is true then the writer could not possibly have known about the demise of Rome and the feet of iron and clay representing some strong and some week kingdoms as is the case since the fall of the Roman empire. For that to have any chance of viability, it would mean the 2nd Chapter of Daniel would have needed to have been written after the fall of the Roman Empire…and that is a hell of a stretch of the imagination)

Note what is recorded about the interpretation:

26The king responded to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to tell me what I saw in the dream, as well as its interpretation?”

27Daniel answered the king, “No wise man, enchanter, medium, or magician can explain to the king the mystery of which he inquires. 28But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries,

now look closely at what the dream was about:

31As you, O king, were watching, a great statuec appeared. A great and dazzling statue stood before you, and its form was awesome. 32The head of the statue was pure gold, its chest and arms were silver, its belly and thighs were bronze, 33its legs were iron, and its feet were part iron and part clay.

34As you watched, a stone was cut out,d but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay, and crushed them. 35Then the iron, clay, bronze, silver, and gold were shattered and became like chaff on the threshing floor in summer. The wind carried them away, and not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that had struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.

What is interesting in the above narrative:

The statue Nebuchadnezzar saw…clearly 3 dimensional (statues were not 2 dimensional)
The stone, cut not by humans hands… stone and human hands…3 dimensional
Stone comes crashing down onto the feet of the statue and destroys it…3 dimensional
the broken statue turns to dust and is blown away by the wind …3 dimensional
The stone becomes a great mountain…3 dimensional

Clearly the vision that Daniel recited and that King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed was God given and that all knowing God gave those two men a mental imagery of real life earth, stone, statue, mountain, dust blowing in the wind…none of these things would make sense in a flat earth world view because science has proven to us that the earth is not flat. If God gave Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel flat-earth dreams, then clearly God is a liar and we know from the bible narrative that God doesn’t lie.

We could also use another famous example of earthly imagery…the book of Revelation. However, all this does is add to the Daniel story…i think that is simply a new testament reinforcement of the idea that early judaism and early Christianity were not flat earthers.

There is no reason for God to lie…that is not consistent with the notion that His son gave up his life on the cross. Lying is a trait of sinful humanity, not God.

[Terry_Sampson]

• A YEC argument by a YEC for YECs. Gee, I’m impressed. LOL!
• Your unresolved dilemma is that Daniel 2 is a symbolic prophecy about kingdoms, not a scientific description of the cosmos. Statues, stones, and mountains are 3-D whether you picture them on a flat plane or a globe, so the vision doesn’t really tell us anything about what people in Daniel’s time believed about the shape of the earth. To settle that question, we’d need to look at other biblical passages or ancient Near Eastern cosmology, not the statue vision.
• Babylonian Map of the World - Wikipedia

[Roy]

@adamjedgar

@Terry_Sampson

The argument for the Biblical Flat Earth is the same kind of Argument for Young Earth Creationism.

Interesting post there Terry.

I have to make a dissagreeing observation with the above quote though…

It is not YEC who present the flat earth myth …

Aren’t most flat-earth believers also YECs?

@adamjedgar

…that is the opposing views that keep throwing this into the mix!

You’ve missed the point.

@adamjedgar

The prophet Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzars vision. note that King Nebuchadnezzar is historically proven to have actually existed…this is a real man and therefore it almost certain that the dream was also a real dream the King had …

Because no-one has ever told a fictional story about a real person, right?

@adamjedgar

Clearly the vision that Daniel recited and that King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed was God given and that all knowing God gave those two men a mental imagery of real life earth, stone, statue, mountain, dust blowing in the wind…none of these things would make sense in a flat earth world view…

Why couldn’t a flat earth have wind and mountains on it?

@adamjedgar

… because science has proven to us that the earth is not flat.

Science has also shown that the world is old, but you reject that.

You really have missed the point.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@adamjedgar

The prophet Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzars vision. note that King Nebuchadnezzar is historically proven to have actually existed…this is a real man and therefore it almost certain that the dream was also a real dream

You may want to rethink that one. Otherwise, I would have to wonder why you aren’t a Mormon because Joseph Smith was most certainly a real person in history. Muhamad was almost certainly a real historical person. I would say the evidence for Buddha is also pretty overwhelming.

@adamjedgar

Clearly the vision that Daniel recited and that King Nebuchadnezzar dreamed was God given and that all knowing God gave those two men a mental imagery of real life earth, stone, statue, mountain, dust blowing in the wind…none of these things would make sense in a flat earth world view because science has proven to us that the earth is not flat.

A 3 dimensional statue wouldn’t make sense on a flat Earth??? What?

I guess all we need to do is show Flat Earthers the Statue of Liberty. The sight of that great lady should convince them they have got it all wrong.

[Roy]

@T_aquaticus

@adamjedgar

The prophet Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzars vision. note that King Nebuchadnezzar is historically proven to have actually existed…this is a real man and therefore it almost certain that the dream was also a real dream

You may want to rethink that one…

[Pedant mode]
In order to rethink it, he would have had to have thought about it at least once already.
[/Pedant mode]

@T_aquaticus

A 3 dimensional statue wouldn’t make sense on a flat Earth??? What?

Maybe he’s confusing flat Earth with Flatland.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Roy

Maybe he’s confusing flat Earth with Flatland.

That’s a good point too. It is worth pointing out that a biblical flat Earth, whether apocryphal or not, would have been three dimensional. You have the pillars below the Earth supporting it, the surface of the Earth above that, and the firmament above that. That’s 3 dimensional.

[Terry_Sampson]

@adamjedgar

The prophet Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzars vision. note that King Nebuchadnezzar is historically proven to have actually existed…this is a real man and therefore it almost certain that the dream was also a real dream the King had especially in light of the known historical earthly kingdoms that ruled after Babylonians…Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome, and in moderns times no particular nation has complete authority over the globe. So we know that the prophecy in the dream came true.

• Adam’s reasoning there can be broken down step by step — and its strengths and weaknesses become clearer when separated:

1. Historical Anchor: Nebuchadnezzar

• Claim: “Nebuchadnezzar is historically proven to have actually existed.”
  • True. Nebuchadnezzar II (605–562 BCE) is well attested in Babylonian inscriptions, chronicles, and external records.
  • But: the existence of a person does not by itself verify every story told about him.

2. The Dream’s Reality

• Claim: “Therefore it is almost certain the dream was a real dream the King had.”
  • This is an assumption, not a proof.
  • From a historian’s standpoint: even if Daniel is recording a tradition, we cannot confirm that Nebuchadnezzar literally had that dream.
  • From a faith standpoint: a believer may accept it as true Scripture, but it’s not established by historical method alone.

3. The Prophecy in the Dream

• The dream (Daniel 2) describes a statue of four parts (gold, silver, bronze, iron, etc.) representing successive empires.
  • Gold → Babylon
  • Silver → Medo-Persia
  • Bronze → Greece
  • Iron → Rome
  • Feet of iron & clay → divided kingdoms, no single global empire afterward.
• Adam’s claim: “So we know the prophecy came true.”
  • Support: Many Christian and Jewish interpreters have historically read Daniel 2 this way. It does match a broad sequence of ancient empires.
  • Complications:
    • Scholars debate whether Daniel was written in the 6th century BCE (during the exile) or the 2nd century BCE (during Antiochus IV). If the latter, then the “prophecy” might be a retrospective symbolic telling of already-known history.
    • Identifying the fourth kingdom as Rome is traditional in Christianity, but some Jewish interpretations see Greece (Alexander & successors) as the final empire.

4. Modern Application

• Adam says: “In modern times no particular nation has complete authority over the globe.”
  • This follows Daniel’s description of the feet of iron mixed with clay — strong but divided.
  • It’s a theological reading: today’s nations are fractured, no single empire rules the earth.
  • Skeptics would say this is too vague — many eras could be described as “divided,” so it doesn’t uniquely match modern times.

Summary of Adam’s Logic

• Nebuchadnezzar existed → therefore the dream was real → therefore prophecy is verified in history → therefore modern division confirms it.
  Strengths:
• Grounds prophecy in real history.
• The sequence of empires is broadly recognizable.
  Weaknesses:
• Jumps from “Nebuchadnezzar existed” to “dream happened” without historical evidence.
• Interpretation of the kingdoms is debated.
• Modern application is general enough to be unfalsifiable.