Flat Earth 101

"It is difficult to win an argument against an intelligent person,

but it is impossible to win an argument against an idiot"

Unknown Author

My choice of opening quote may not make everyone laugh as I did. At least not in regard to the flat earth debate. You will soon learn to which side of the argument I belong, but first you may be asking, “Flat earth? Why that?”

My love for the earth itself has only strengthened as I’ve grown. The beauty and reflections of YHVH’s majesty that it contains are both mind boggling and beautiful beyond words. Is has from a young age been a passion of mind to understand the creation vs evolution debate and though I did not decide to go to college for a science degree (although I have thought about it again and again) I have learned a-lot about how our earth works and the mechanisms by which life exists on its face. The evolutionary theory cannot explain the wondrous creation that we live in and on. All the credit for that… goes to our Creator. This entry is not to showcase the problem with evolution. However, it does address something that I feel is close in regard to diminishing the glory of YHVH’s craftsmanship and is what I believe to be a stumbling block for believers.

Unknown to me until recently, the numbers within the flat earth movement are starting to skyrocket. About 50% of individuals, especially within my age group, are starting to believe this conspiracy and it’s not just within the secular world. A lot of the flat earth believers out there are actually messianic and Hebrew roots. I don’t associate with messianic or Hebrew roots but this association that the torah keeping community is starting to have with the FE movement is making our belief loose credibility in the eyes of society. Much to the different opinions of a lot of people out there it does matter in the end if you buy into the flat earth theory or what true science has shown and eyewitnesses accounts have proven about a spherical earth.

Astrophysicist Paul Sutter addressed the issue of a belief in a flat earth by suggesting that the problem might simply be that science was getting too complicated. As our ability to see farther and more detailed into our planet and beyond advanced, people wanted comfortability and if myths were the way to go for something that they didn’t want to (or couldn’t) explain then so be it. He went on to say that, “The question isn’t why do people believe in a flat earth. But rather why do people believe in conspiracy and the answer is the same reason it always is. Lack of trust. By claiming earth is flat, people are really expressing a deep distrust of scientists and science itself…” while at the same time they are falling back onto something that feels more comfortable for them.

Distrust seems to be the common trait between flat earthers. Landrum from Texas Tech says that, “Those with a conspiracy mentality have lost the ability to judge when to trust and when to be sceptic.” She goes on to say that, “They view the world though a dark filter where they just assume that all authority, institutions, and corporations are only there to exploit you.”

But when a person starts to believe that all video and photos sent back from space are fake.

When they believe any reference to a global earth is inaccurate.

When they start to believe that gravity doesn’t exist, and start to accept ideas that go against all the known laws of physics, geology, and astronomy. When does it stop? How does it stop? How can they believe or trust in anything? As a believer how can you know what to trust and what not to? That road of conspiracy with no eyewitness evidence backing it can get very dangerous. Believers will state that the scriptures is their account of true evidence for a flat earth but wouldn’t the Bible would loose credibility if it taught against something that we have actual eyewitness accounts for? And if the Bible taught a flat earth but all the observable evidence we see points to a globe… then what else in the Bible should we question?

There is an allure to the ancient philosophy called Gnosticism that infiltrated the early church and is now infiltrating the Hebrew roots community in a different style but with the same principles.

Included in Gnosticism is the belief that a special knowledge can lead a person to salvation or to a higher spiritual level. Christian/messianic flat earthers tend to believe that they have learned an important teaching about cosmology that has been hidden from most people. These types of christians speak of having a much deeper appreciation for God since coming to believe that the earth is flat.

And they will use scripture to back their arguments FOR flat earth. However all the verses that they use are pulled from the poetic books that use much imagery and non literal language. At the same time these people also argue biblical literalism so regarding what they think they see in scripture about the shape of the earth they don’t take into consideration poetic imagery or translation.

Every flat earth debate always comes back to one of my favorite subjects. NASA. The accusation that NASA is lying is what we are going to tackle first and foremost since it seems to be the foundation for any flat earthers research or “evidence.”

Flat earthers wholly believe that every government agency is in on a big theatrical production working together to deceive the world into thinking our earth is actually spherical, when in reality, it’s flat. They promote the lie that every photo transmitted from space, all live video from the space station (not to mention actually going to space and the moon) were CGI or filmed in a Hollywood studio before being released to the pubic. They believe that NASA is untrustworthy and faking their way through dummy research to promote this gigantic lie, all for the sake of the big bucks.

Firstly, Nasa is not the only space agency out there, there are others including AEB, LAPAN, JAXA, AEM, INTA, ABAE, Norse Romsenter, FFG, rosa, BNSC, ISA, The Polish Space Agency, CNES, ASI and many others all around the world. Each of these space agencies are devoted to space exploration, research, and technology engineering. Many of these companies have had astronauts spend time on the international space station and therefore many agencies has personal eyewitness accounts of a spherical earth. There are also many private space organizations separate from the governments of the world such as Space X that also each have eyewitness accounts.

Let’s be real with this hypothesis: According to their database Nasa alone has had over 17 thousand employees. Times that by the amount of employees in every other space organization in the world, add to that everyone that is apart of any private space program, add in individuals in government, recording studios, CGI departments, prop coordinators, film directors, finances, agents, reporters, news crews, medical teams, physical trainers, and the list goes on! All those people (and I mean all of them) would have had to be in on the hoax and in all this time no one has squealed? Highly unlikely. The amount of people “in on it” would outnumber the amount of people who have “bought into the hoax.” That in itself doesn’t add up. Companies like NASA and Space X would also not pay their employees to do nothing and they would not spend millions of dollars on building tech that has no purpose.

Secondly, flat earthers believe that NASA only thinks the earth is round which is why they portray it is round in their “art”. But, why would NASA go to all the trouble of hiding a flat earth if they truly don’t know if it’s flat or round to begin with? According to flat earthers space travel is impossible so how would NASA know either way? This is one example of how inconstant flat earthers are. “They seem to have a very low standard of evidence for what they want to believe but an impossibly high standard of evidence for what they don’t want to believe.” Lee McIntyre, Boston University

And thirdly, when it comes to a spherical earth more than just space exploration companies rely on one or at least the idea of one to operate. Pilots of any kind, navigators, jobs such as communication technology, architecture, aerospace engineering, meteorology, cardiology, and rocket engineering and launching. All are real careers and could not function as they do on a flat earth.

I’m going to address some of the major beliefs about how things work and are laid out in the flat earth model. Keep in mind that not all I’m going to cover stays consistent with every flat earther as they have many different models and theories but I will address all that I know of here. I’m sure that there are more that I haven’t seen in my own research but I’m also sure that they make no more sense scientifically than those I will address. It’s interesting to know that flat earthers actually debate among themselves more than with globes. They don’t have one model they all stick to so its hard for them to stay consistent.

Also, keep in mind that I am not a scientist, those of you who know more than me please excuse me if my terminology or understanding is incorrect.

GRAVITY:

Most flat earthers reject gravity completely and instead believe the earth is accelerating up at 98 m/s squared.

Others believe that gravity still works per usual. Pulling us down from the center of mass. However both of these models do not work.

“Flat earthers are so science illiterate that they shout things like “gravity doesn’t exist!” and pretend that that isn’t a stupid thing to say.” Professor Dave.

Gravity’s pull is what keeps our feet on the ground, not acceleration. Flat earthers not only defy the laws of gravity for both of these models but they also defy most all proven science. Opposite what they think gravity does work and is a thing. The bigger the mass the greater force pressing down on that mass. This works like when you’re pressing your hands together to form a cookie ball. Only pulling in with equal pressure on every point of the mass would ultimately create a perfect sphere. This is observable. When you look into space and wonder why every other planet we observe is spherical the answer is that it’s due to the way gravity likes things.

If we are moving up at a continuous speed we would also need to meet the speed and accelerate to always double that speed. This can be tested in a car. When you accelerate it only takes a moment before everything in the car gets back to normal after briefly being pushed back in your seat.

The second model would also not work for the center of gravity would be at the center of the flat disk and not evenly disturbed across the surface. This would create many problems such as everything in nature growing in a way that looks bent away from the center of the flat disk due to pushing against gravity. We would also feel a stronger pull towards that center, the further towards the outer rim of the earth that we went. My absolute favorite problem with this theory it that all the water would naturally be pulled towards the center of gravity which happens to be where all the land mass is located on the flat earth map. There would be no land due to our flat disk being one giant ocean and this problem wouldn’t exist.

PLANES AND FLIGHT PATHS:

Flats wonder why planes don’t continually dip their noses down to compensate for the curve of the earth. But thats just how things work. Altitude conforms to the curvature of the earth. At the same time globes produce the question why planes don’t turn in a continuous ark right or left as the flat earth model would demand based on known flight paths today. There is no explanation for this from the flat earth community.

YOU CAN TEST IT YOURSELF:

With a flat earth, an increase in elevation would not allow you to see farther like it does with a curve. You can test out our spherical shape by observing stars in a very flat place. You will only be able to see all stars visible above the horizon. However, if you climb a nearby mountain you will see more stars appearing underneath the higher that you go.

STARS AND CONSTELLATIONS:

Stars rotate around a point (like Polaris) counterclockwise to the north above the equator and below it. At the equator however, the stars rotate directly east to west though the sky and down south they rotate clockwise.

People who stand at the southern tips of South America, Africa and Australia can all see the southern cross when they look south. Two of them specifically will see Polaris at the same time of night. This does not make any scene on the flat earth model since they would all be looking in 3 completely different directions.

If our planet was flat our constellations would remain consistent no matter where you were on the earth.

But, there is a division between the northern and Southern Hemisphere. You can see Polaris, which is the star that we know to be directly above the North Pole very easily in northern latitudes, but Polaris disappears when you cross the equator. This is because it is being blocked by the earths curve in that direction. Polaris is then replaced by new constellations, the more south you go, with new stars that likewise would not be visible up north.

Most flat earthers believe the stars above are on a rotating dome that seals to the edge of the earth. This dome prevents anything from falling off like a snow globe.

Others believe that the stars are fixed on a dome like structure however out from under it Antartica goes on for infinity. From this model stems something they call bisect reality. And it’s the supposition that other lands exist beyond what we call our earth and its boarders of Antarctica. Places like Atlantis. Huh. Thats not weird.

LUNER AND SOLAR ECLIPS:

Flat earthers don’t seem to think about solar and lunar eclipses. How would a solar or lunar eclipse even happen in their models? It is something a small child can observe yet they have no real explanation for this.

We all know a lunar eclipse to be when the earth passes between the sun and the moon. This allows the sun to project the earths shadow onto the moon and during every eclipse earths shadow is always a circle, no matter where you are or the time of the eclipse. According to geometry the only way for an object to always cast a circular shadow no matter the angel of light or object is for that object to be a sphere. Alternatively a solar eclipse is when the moon passes between the earth and the sun casting its observable moving shadow onto the earth. That should be proof in and of itself how our moon, sun and earth system are arranged in space.

OUR MAGNETOPHERE:

Our Magnetic field is activated electrical currents below the earths crust that are caused by the rotation of the earth. Without a sphere filled with flowing liquid metal and rotating on its axes that has north and south pols on a positive and negative charge we wouldn’t have a magnetic field. Without our magnetosphere we would be instantly destroyed by the gamma rays from the sun not to mention erosion from solar wind and cosmic particle radiation.

SUN AND MOON DAY AND NIGHT:

According to their model of the solar system the sun and moon are equal in size at 50 km in diameter and the sun and moon circle the disk earth at a 5500 km hight.

There are 2 different models that stem off of this. One that has both sun and moon as spheres but requires light to bend. And the other, rather than a ball of light, the sun is more like a flashlight or spotlight. We know our planet to be half in nighttime while simultaneously the other half is day. However on a flat plane we would always see the spotlight sun. Like in a dark theater that has spotlights on stage you would still be able to always see the sun in the sky even if you yourself were sitting in the dark.

Observably we always see the same face of the moon. This would not be explainable with FE. For in their model with the spherical moon we would then be seeing all different sides of the moon depending on which place on the disk you were standing.

Their model for the solar system has many problems that go against what we already know.

-According to FE model the sun and moon are always opposite each other so how does the moon get under the sun for a solar eclipse if they are both above the earth at a 5500 Km height? How does it get on the opposite side of the earth for a luner eclipse?

-All the other planets in our solar system would need a different source of light because they wouldn’t be getting sunlight from a spotlight sun.

-You would never see the moon during the day, yet observably, we do.

-We wouldn’t have cycles of the moon if the sun and moon were always opposite each other like their model predicts. How would the sun be able to cast its light on the moon at all without being a sphere itself? If it was a sphere the entire planet would be lit up 24/7 because light bending is neither possible or observable.

-And lastly the sun would magically have to move or speed up to create seasons and shorter and longer days. Yet it would need to leave some countries in the dark/light for most of the year. It just doesn’t add up.

These models that they use go against science but Yehovah created science and thats why and how it exists. How can you appreciate Yahovahs design if there is no explainable design to appreciate? To be able to enjoy all the imagination and detail Elohim put into our planet at creation we look to the information that the work of science has provided us with.

THE BIBLE AND FLAT EARTH

What gets really scary is when people who call themselves believers go to the Bible to support their worldview of a flat earth. They preach that the Bible is a flat earth book but that diminishes our creationist world view if they are associating their belief of a creator with something that isn’t at all in the scriptures.

“In some translations of the Bible, mentions of the “four corners of the earth” appear almost 30 times. A circle however has no corners so if understood literal it would not only suggest that the earth is flat but also that it is square. There is no existing cosmology in which the earth is square. Not even followers of the flat earth theory claim such a thing. This once again highlights the non-literal interpretation of the biblical phrase.” signsofthetimes.org

(Following bible verse information paraphrased from signsofthetimes.org)

Revelation 7:1

The repetition of 4’s is a connection to the 4 cardinal points from which the winds will blow, North, West, South, and East. NOT literal corners but indicating the farthest points on earth or a great distance.

Revelation 20:8

The number of people and 4 corners in the same sentence supports a non literal text. If “4 corners” were literal you would also need to take literal that the number of people are mathematically equal to the sum of all the grains of sand on the shores of the world.

Isaiah 11:12

Cases where “4 corners of the earth” appear there is talk of people who live in faraway lands rather than the place itself. This strengthens the non literal understanding of the phrase in this text. Once the idiomatic use of the expression in a passage is acknowledged (like this verse) its hard to claim that its used differently in similar situations elsewhere.

Daniel 4:10-11

This is not reality but a description of a dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. Dreams are known to not abide by the laws of physics so the tree is simply Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Matthew 4

If there was a literal mountain from where the entire earth could be seen, where is this mountain today? There is no such evidence in geography of the land of such a mountain.

We much also recognize this event included supernatural elements as Luke allude to when he said “then ha’Satan showed Yahuah all the kingdoms of the world “in an instant”.

CONCLUSION

The Bible has poetic imagery that shouldn’t be used for something that true science does not agree. We should be skeptical yes but always come to a conclusion or theory by what is testable, provable, but most importantly, by what is both observable and seen in scripture. By believing in something because of your expressed lack of trust or so called biblical insight you diminish the vast glory of YHVHs creation and those he has given the talent to discover and explore. The way he made everything to work is beautiful beyond words and He has given us the knowledge and ability to observe and explain how his creation works down to all the intricate details. Let us not diminish the work that scientists have done in exploring the never ending wonder of our enslaved but beautiful earth.