# Does Scripture Teach The Earth is Flat, Round, like a Disc? Or Round like a ball?



## Ray

I’ve been talking lately to a few different brothers from different churches and a lot them believe the World is Flat and round like a Disc. And that’s there’s no evidence that the world is round like a ball. And that even on NASAs website there’s documents proving the worlds flat. So my question is what exactly does Scripture teach us on this topic? Sorry if this question is weird and sounds like a conspiracy.

Reactions: Funny 1


----------



## Contra_Mundum

Scripture is "phenomenological," that is it expresses matters simply, and from the standpoint of ancient observers. The sun appears to rise and set from man's fixed position on the surface.

At the same time, travelers and other sources of data could provide fresh perspectives. There are texts in the Bible that may be interpreted as describing a spherical earth. Is.40:22 comes to mind; or Job 26:7.

Whether or not these are prototypical descriptions that more than hint at defying false cosmology: the Bible isn't a science textbook. It was not intended to convey a modern-instruments-precision of measurement.

The world isn't flat, and people have actually known that for an extremely long time, because men have eyes and a brain that God created.

Reactions: Like 7


----------



## Ray

Contra_Mundum said:


> Scripture is "phenomenological," that is it expresses matters simply, and from the standpoint of ancient observers. The sun appears to rise and set from man's fixed position on the surface.
> 
> At the same time, travelers and other sources of data could provide fresh perspectives. There are texts in the Bible that may be interpreted as describing a spherical earth. Is.40:22 comes to mind; or Job 26:7.
> 
> Whether or not these are prototypical descriptions that more than hint at defying false cosmology: the Bible isn't a science textbook. It was not intended to convey a modern-instruments-precision of measurement.
> 
> The world isn't flat, and people have actually known that for an extremely long time, because men have eyes and a brain that God created.


How was satan able to show Christ all the Nations in the world from one mountain top if the world is round like a ball?
King James Bible
Matthew 4:8
Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;


----------



## Von

Ray said:


> exceeding high mountain


Even if the globe is flat, from which mountaintop is mankind able to see all the kingdoms of the world?

Reactions: Like 3 | Funny 1


----------



## Von

Ray said:


> a lot them believe the World is Flat and round like a Disc


Is this type of thinking on the increase in the churches?


----------



## Ed Walsh

Ray said:


> How was Satan able to show Christ all the Nations in the world from one mountain top if the world is round like a ball?



Von asks a good question above.

Even if the world were flat, it would take supernatural power to show Jesus all the intricate details of all the kingdom's "glory."

How did they reach a mountain from which the devil could show Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor”? In the vicinity of the Judean Wilderness or of Jerusalem, which mountain would that be? Did they glide smoothly through the sky, the devil functioning as a kind of engine? Did they sail along together all the way to Mount Everest? But even then, would not some kind of miracle have been required to enable the devil from there to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world, and this not just in dim outline, but very distinctly, so that “all their splendor (or glory)” would be plainly visible; and again, not little by little during a lengthy period of time, but, as Luke adds, “in a moment”?

This is not at all a question of believing Scripture or not believing it. It is simply a question of how best to interpret what we fully accept. The writer of this commentary has not been able anywhere to find a solution that satisfies him better than that of Calvin. In his Commentary, reflecting first on the second, then on the third, temptation, he remarks:

“It is asked, was he [Jesus] actually carried to this elevated spot, or was it done in a vision?… What is added, that all the kingdoms of the world were exposed to Christ’s view … in one moment … agrees better with the idea of a vision than with any other theory. In a matter that is doubtful, and where ignorance brings no risk, I choose rather to suspend my judgment than to furnish contentious people with an excuse for a debate.”​
Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to Matthew (Vol. 9, pp. 231–232). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

Reactions: Like 2


----------



## Gforce9

In the military and navigation worlds, there is about a 12-mile "view", because of the curved horizon. This is from anywhere on earth. If she were disk flat, this would only be the case on one plane and everywhere else would be unrestricted view.

Reactions: Like 3


----------



## Ray

Thank you for all your responses. This was a question circulating around some brothers lately and made me think about it. They insisted on how NASA lies and how there against the LORD spreading lies to deceive people. Especially how the mission to the moon was fake. And how’s there’s no actual pictures of the world from outer space.


----------



## Alan D. Strange

Ray said:


> And how’s there’s no actual pictures of the world from outer space.



So, "they" don't believe that we have the satellite technology to take pictures of the earth? I thought that these same folk might be concerned about excessive NSA snooping, quite impossible without such technology. Even if the "moon mission" was a studio trick, the entirety of space travel for the last sixty-plus years has been a hoax? 

Where do these folk come from and what is the point of their excessive conspiracy theorizing? It all seems to me a form of _revanche_ on the part of the dispossessed with respect to the "haves" or to the establishment, something that understandably afflicts the world (no Marxism without it!), but should never mark God's people (Romans 12:9-21). 

Peace,
Alan

Reactions: Like 5


----------



## RamistThomist

While I do believe that NASA is engaged in dark missions (which makes sense, given all the Masons and Nazis we brought over in Operation Paperclip--yes, I know those Nazis are dead but the projects live on), I don't think they are lying about space. Well, not on the minimalist side. If anything, I think space exploration is far more extensive than NASA lets on.

So yeah, the earth is globish.


----------



## VictorBravo

Alan D. Strange said:


> Where do these folk come from and what is the point of their excessive conspiracy theorizing?



I was thinking the same thing.

It is really painful for me to see people fall for any absurd thing that attracts them simply because of rebellion.

As for the flat-earth belief, I fall into a rant. I can only imagine that most of these folks have caught this brain-fog on the internet. They probably frequent Twitter and Facebook, with all of its members in different time zones around the earth (they might ask someone far away whether it's light or dark at the moment). They might even use GPS on their smart phones.

All of those things are consistent with and rely upon the earth being a sphere.

I suppose you could grant, for the sake of argument, that NASA is part of the conspiracy, as are all the scientists. But what about the lowly merchant seaman? He knows all about latitude and longitude. A couple millenia before, the Phoenecians were familiar with latitude navigation too.

There was that pagan Greek Eratosthenes, two centuries before the coming of our Lord, who measured angles of the sun and determined the circumference of the earth. His results, with crude instruments, ended up being within 10-11% of what those NASA conspirators come up with.

Maybe we should just bury the work of that 10th century Muslim astronomer, Al Biruni. He was part of the conspiracy too. He actually measured the heights of mountains from various distances using (satanic?) trigonometry. Later he measured the angle of the north star from different locations a known distance apart. He came up with a much closer estimate of the earth's circumference.

But it would be hard to ignore the expansive history of navies from all nations. Navigators from the traders to Solomon right up to present container ships all had working, daily, practical knowledge that the earth is a sphere. Otherwise, how would our generation's smart phones and game widgets get here from China?

Oops. I spent more time on the subject than I would normally think it deserves....

Reactions: Like 8 | Funny 1


----------



## Dachaser

Von said:


> Is this type of thinking on the increase in the churches?


Among Fringe groups..

Reactions: Praying 1


----------



## Dachaser

VictorBravo said:


> I was thinking the same thing.
> 
> It is really painful for me to see people fall for any absurd thing that attracts them simply because of rebellion.
> 
> As for the flat-earth belief, I fall into a rant. I can only imagine that most of these folks have caught this brain-fog on the internet. They probably frequent Twitter and Facebook, with all of its members in different time zones around the earth (they might ask someone far away whether it's light or dark at the moment). They might even use GPS on their smart phones.
> 
> All of those things are consistent with and rely upon the earth being a sphere.
> 
> I suppose you could grant, for the sake of argument, that NASA is part of the conspiracy, as are all the scientists. But what about the lowly merchant seaman? He knows all about latitude and longitude. A couple millenia before, the Phoenecians were familiar with latitude navigation too.
> 
> There was that pagan Greek Eratosthenes, two centuries before the coming of our Lord, who measured angles of the sun and determined the circumference of the earth. His results, with crude instruments, ended up being within 10-11% of what those NASA conspirators come up with.
> 
> Maybe we should just bury the work of that 10th century Muslim astronomer, Al Biruni. He was part of the conspiracy too. He actually measured the heights of mountains from various distances using (satanic?) trigonometry. Later he measured the angle of the north star from different locations a known distance apart. He came up with a much closer estimate of the earth's circumference.
> 
> But it would be hard to ignore the expansive history of navies from all nations. Navigators from the traders to Solomon right up to present container ships all had working, daily, practical knowledge that the earth is a sphere. Otherwise, how would our generation's smart phones and game widgets get here from China?
> 
> Oops. I spent more time on the subject than I would normally think it deserves....


This is like the groups that support that there never was a man on the moon, as was down in a Hollywood back lot somewhere.

Reactions: Praying 1


----------



## Jack K

A conspiracy to hide a flat earth would require millions of people to be in on the ruse, and would be impossible to maintain. Besides, only a simplistic and sloppy interpretation of the Bible would lead to the conclusion that the Bible insists, against all evidence to the contrary, that the earth is flat. The Bible doesn't intend to say this, just as I don't intend to say the earth is motionless if I remark that I saw the sun "rise" this morning.

Reactions: Like 3 | Amen 1


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

Jack K said:


> A conspiracy to hide a flat earth would require millions of people to be in on the ruse, and would be impossible to maintain.



Indeed. Yours is my usual retort to the flat earthers. To believe in something that requires a massive conspiracy is afoot should give one pause.

I and my team actually designed the architecture of the software that enabled communications with earthbound stations and mobile phones from low earth orbiting satellites (Iridium) at Motorola. The orbital mechanics of the software would have failed given a flat earth view. Required reading for my team, which I also taught to the new engineers, if anyone is interested: 
http://ge.tt/3ew2rfo2

When I offer that up as irrefutable evidence, I am met with "_Well, you, despite your Christianity, must have been in on the conspiracy and are just lying to keep up pretenses_" or...those that were "in on the conspiracy" actually modified the software before it was integrated with the satellite and earth stations. If the reader knows anything about software and hardware development/integration, just imagine what it would take for that last bit to be pulled off. Sigh.

In our modern age where everyone seems to want attention, _Wikileaks_(!), it appears to me that someone with irrefutable knowledge about this conspiracy would have already made the facts known to gain the fame that would come from it.

Reactions: Like 5


----------



## LilyG

Come over here and tell my aerospace engineer husband that the earth is flat. ;-)

Or our SpaceX friend!

Reactions: Like 4


----------



## RamistThomist

Most defenses of flat earth come from Hollywood celebrities who unironically believe that.

Tila Tequila
Kyrie irving
Hip hop artist B.o.B. While I am against flat earth, he did debate Neil de Grasse Tyson, so I was cheering for him in that one.
Shaquille O'Neal


----------



## Southern Presbyterian

“Incompetence is a better explanation than conspiracy in most human activity.”

- Peter Bergen

"There is only one conspiracy and that is to make everyone believe that everything is a conspiracy."

-Me

Reactions: Like 3


----------



## Martin

Isaiah 40:22
[22]It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

This verse teaches that God is above the circle (compass, like the face of a compass) of the earth and that the heavens are spread above the earth like a tent.

Joshua 10:12-13
[12]Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.
[13]And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

How would people who believe that the sun is stationary and that the earth spins and moves around it deal with this passage? It clearly says that the sun and moon stood still to prolong the day, implying that the earth indeed is not moving. This story in Joshua is impossible if one believes that the earth spins to make night and day.

Genesis 1:6-7
[6]And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
[7]And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

The water below is the same as the water above. This teaches that the oceans and such were formed and that God placed a firmament to separate some of the same water to be up above us. That is why we see a blue sky, because there is water above us. This is also how God opened the windows of heaven to flood the earth. Where is heaven? Right up above us through the firmament. Where did Jesus, Elijah, and Enoch go? Did they go light years and light years away? No they passed right above us into heaven. NASA and "scientists" teach that man is an insignificant speck and their work is dedicated to antagonizing the scriptures and God the Creator.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## TylerRay

Eric said:


> How would people who believe that the sun is stationary and that the earth spins and moves around it deal with this passage?


Check out post #2.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Martin

TylerRay said:


> Check out post #2.


The scripture doesn't say that they appeared to stand still, it says that they did stand still.

1 Samuel 14:9
[9]If they say thus unto us, Tarry (same word used for when the sun "stood") until we come to you; then we will stand still in our place, and will not go up unto them.

Genesis 18:22
[22]And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood (same word describing the moon "staying") yet before the LORD.


----------



## TylerRay

Eric said:


> The scripture doesn't say that they appeared to stand still, it says that they did stand still.


Yeah, I use that kind of language, too. It would be a gross misrepresentation of my meaning, however, if someone contended that I actually believe the sun rises and sets.

As far as the wooden hermeneutic you're using, Psalm 98 talks about the floods clapping their hands and the mountains being joyful. I suppose you take those statements at face value as well?


----------



## VictorBravo

Eric said:


> How would people who believe that the sun is stationary and that the earth spins and moves around it deal with this passage?



What does this have to do with flat earth? 

Geocentricism is a different topic altogether. We're just talking about the shape of the Earth as observed, in one way or another, by millions throughout history.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Martin

VictorBravo said:


> What does this have to do with flat earth?
> 
> Geocentricism is a different topic altogether. We're just talking about the shape of the Earth as observed, in one way or another, by millions throughout history.



I commented on some other things that are usually associated with flat earth teaching. I apologize for moving away from the question asked in the OP and will refrain from commenting on these other topics.


----------



## lynnie

I had a flat earth relative. They sent me links.

The actual theory is very well laid out and the maps and sun and day and night and so forth all works. It is impressive, so don't think they are dumb. They can be very very smart.

It does require the belief that NASA and space shuttles and the space station are all a lie.

My personal response is/was that Grandpop was a navigator in WW11. Coming back to England on a bombing run in Germany, they hit pea soup fog. Grand pop pulled out his slide rule, and doing trigonometry based on a spherical ball, measuring time and speed, at a certain moment he said "drop" and they dropped through the impenetrable fog until right before them were the lights of the runway. 

Grandpop was admittedly a math genius and my hub inherited it, as well as a few kids. Anyway, it was the talk of the bombing group and the general asked him to be his personal navigator. His best buddy got shot down later on his old plane, and if the world was flat grandpop would have never done his great foggy deed and would be dead. 

So anyway, forget arguing about NASA and conspiracy. You need to pull up the old WW11 stories and the way the navigators figured locations based on a sphere. They can't refute that. You can't measure flat earth straight lines over a curve and get it right.

BTW I am a geocentrist. Two very different subjects.

Reactions: Informative 2


----------



## VictorBravo

Eric said:


> I commented on some other things that are usually associated with flat earth teaching. I apologize for moving away from the question asked in the OP and will refrain from commenting on these other topics.



Thanks. The reason I jumped on it was exactly that: "usually associated with flat earth teaching..."

Just trying to maintain precision. There are different sorts of epistemological arguments involved among the topics.

Carry on....


----------



## Von

Wooden biblical literalism MEETS anti-authoritarian conspiracy-loving people.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## Ben Zartman

What I don't understand is how conspiracy theorists think that a spherical earth would shake anyone's faith in God. Is He more likely to have created a cookie shape than a grapefruit shape? Why does the shape of the earth enter into the question of whether there's a God?

For what it's worth, being a seafaring man and having navigated both by means of celestial bodies and of satellites, I can testify that navigation as we use it would not work if the earth were not spherical (an oblate spheroid, to be precise, which just means: an imprecise sphere).

Reactions: Like 4


----------



## Edward

Ray said:


> They insisted on how NASA lies



Probably.



Ray said:


> Especially how the mission to the moon was fake.



Maybe. 

But neither would provide evidence to support an outlandish theory that the earth is flat.


----------



## chuckd

Contra_Mundum said:


> The sun appears to rise and set from man's fixed position on the surface.





Jack K said:


> The Bible doesn't intend to say this, just as I don't intend to say the earth is motionless if I remark that I saw the sun "rise" this morning.


The earth appears to rise and set from man's fixed position on the surface of the sun. They are just models. No one can say for sure which is correct. The biblical model, however, is geocentrism.

Reactions: Sad 1


----------



## Ray

chuckd said:


> The earth appears to rise and set from man's fixed position on the surface of the sun. They are just models. No one can say for sure which is correct. The biblical model, however, is geocentrism.


Can you explain what geocentrism is please? I’ve heard the term but never researched it.


----------



## chuckd

Ray said:


> Can you explain what geocentrism is please? I’ve heard the term but never researched it.


The earth is at the center of the universe and all celestial bodies orbit it.


----------



## Contra_Mundum

chuckd said:


> The earth is at the center of the universe and all celestial bodies orbit it.


You may be convinced of this as "the biblical model," but I'm not convinced there is any such thing, other than in a spiritual sense.

It is sufficient, so far as I'm concerned, to say that natural things are described in Scripture from an "observer's standpoint," within his (ancient) technological limits. And subject to improvement, which is the stance of a genuinely humble person.

The problems arise when modern people of lesser imagination and humility say, "the Bible's observers were* wrong* about this or that." I'd much rather say, "They were _*right*_ so far as they grasped this or that."

Reactions: Like 1 | Amen 1


----------



## chuckd

Contra_Mundum said:


> You may be convinced of this as "the biblical model," but I'm not convinced there is any such thing, other than in a spiritual sense.
> 
> It is sufficient, so far as I'm concerned, to say that natural things are described in Scripture from an "observer's standpoint," within his (ancient) technological limits. And subject to improvement, which is the stance of a genuinely humble person.
> 
> The problems arise when modern people of lesser imagination and humility say, "the Bible's observers were* wrong* about this or that." I'd much rather say, "They were _*right*_ so far as they grasped this or that."


Isn't the observer the writer? How is it not the Biblical model when the writer is the one who wrote that passage? Not only that, but choosing an arbitrary point in the universe as the center (e.g. the sun) has theological implications, doesn't it?

As far as technological limits, what are they? Heliocentrism is just another model. It's no more true than geocentrism from a technological point of view.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## VictorBravo

chuckd said:


> The earth appears to rise and set from man's fixed position on the surface of the sun.



How many men have been able to stand on the surface of the sun? 

I guess my best laid plans to keep the topic distinct from geocentricism were doomed.

The main point I want to make is that holding to a flat earth requires one to ignore his God-given senses. In other words, you can take a little time to look at God's earth with some simple tools to verify it is a sphere. We have a sailor verifying his personal observations. I can attest that when I was a kid I attached a string with a weight to a protractor center, put that on a stick, and measured the angle to Polaris at my home in Montana. Later, when we visited my aunt in California, I did the same thing. Voila! My own eyes observed that the angles were different and that they corresponded to the latitude maps in the books.

So holding to a flat earth means to refuse to use your own given perceptive abilities. You have to work hard to ignore the basic empirical observations.

Geocentricism, on the other hand, can be held to with your eyes open, so to speak. It is possible to develop a complex system to account for observations. The system, of course, is far less elegant than the Copernican system most follow, but at least you can conceptualize relative motion that everyone may observe.

As an aside, I sometimes tell people I am a theological geocentrist. To be clear, if I were tasked with the practical problem of launching a satellite, I'd start with the formulas that come from Lagrangian mechanics, (and which assume fundamentally a Copernican system) because they are historically the most accurate and streamlined way of getting the job done. But I also remind myself that equations used to describe natural forces and motion are just that, descriptions. The elegant ones are a pleasure to behold, but they don't explain the actual behind-the-scenes activity in God's creation. No, they are summaries of what we can expect based upon precise observations.

So, even saying something simple like gravity and inertia are fundamental to orbits is saying nothing more than bodies in space are observed to act in a certain way. Who knows what makes inertia act how it does? Who know what mechanism causes masses to appear to be attracted to each other? Only God knows. The harder we look at it, the more confounding it gets.

But we know that it is an ordered Creation, and that "he upholds the worlds."

Having said all that, I reconcile myself with the observation that Creation as described in Scripture has Earth and its inhabitants, particularly mankind, as its central focus. Everything else is, at the very least, a natural revelation of God's extravagance and is to his glory in unfathomable ways.

Reactions: Like 10 | Edifying 1


----------



## timfost

My weather app says "sunrise" and "sunset." I guess the folks at Weather Underground have a geocentric conviction...

Reactions: Funny 1


----------



## TylerRay

chuckd said:


> Not only that, but choosing an arbitrary point in the universe as the center (e.g. the sun) has theological implications, doesn't it?


I don't think that anyone claims that the sun is the center of the universe--It's just the center of our solar system.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## chuckd

TylerRay said:


> I don't think that anyone claims that the sun is the center of the universe--It's just the center of our solar system.


Says who? The sun is the center of our solar system in a heliocentric model. The earth is the center in a geocentric model. Yet another is all planets and the sun orbit the barycenter. They're just reference frames. They say nothing about reality.

Reactions: Sad 1


----------



## chuckd

To the OP regarding "flat earth", only conspiracy theory nuts believe in it. It has not been a prominent theory since ancient Greece. It was used by evolutionists to make fun of creationists. The odd thing is it has somehow gained popularity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## TylerRay

chuckd said:


> Says who? The sun is the center of our solar system in a heliocentric model. The earth is the center in a geocentric model. Yet another is all planets and the sun orbit the barycenter. They're just reference frames. They say nothing about reality.


I was just pointing out that heliocentrism doesn't teach that the sun is the center of the universe. If you're going to argue against something, at least try to give an accurate representation of it. Otherwise, you discredit yourself.

By the way, if geocentrism is true, we don't live in a solar system.

Reactions: Like 2


----------



## chuckd

TylerRay said:


> I was just pointing out that heliocentrism doesn't teach that the sun is the center of the universe. If you're going to argue against something, at least try to give an accurate representation of it. Otherwise, you discredit yourself.
> 
> By the way, if geocentrism is true, we don't live in a solar system.


I was just responding to "It's just the center of our solar system." What did I represent inaccurately?

You are correct that "solar system" did not exist prior to heliocentrism becoming a popular reference frame.


----------



## bookslover

This thread - giving oxygen to the idea that the earth is a round, flat disc - is the type of thing that gives non-believers the ammunition they need to believe that Christians are idiots.

Besides: if the earth _were_ a round, flat disc, cats would have pushed everything off over the edge by now.

Reactions: Like 2 | Amen 1 | Funny 4


----------



## TylerRay

chuckd said:


> What did I represent inaccurately?


In post #34, you claimed that heliocentrists maintain that the sun is the center of the universe, and pointed out the arbitrariness of that teaching. However, _no one teaches that._ I think that any heliocentrist would agree that the sun is an arbitrary choice for the center of the universe.


----------



## chuckd

TylerRay said:


> In post #34, you claimed that heliocentrists maintain that the sun is the center of the universe, and pointed out the arbitrariness of that teaching. However, _no one teaches that._ I think that any heliocentrist would agree that the sun is an arbitrary choice for the center of the universe.


"Not only that, but choosing an arbitrary point in the universe as the center (e.g. the sun) has theological implications, doesn't it?"

This sentence? The sun is an arbitrary point* in the universe in which to have celestial bodies orbit. A point in the universe other than the earth in which celestial bodies orbit (e.g. the sun) has theological implications.

*not really arbitrary, it does make math easier for some calculations

Unless you're just attempting to strain a gnat and suggesting I should have said "an arbitrary point in the solar system"? I doubt that though.


----------



## Jeri Tanner

On issues concerning geocentricity, John Byl is very helpful in explaining the role of presuppositions in science. You can find him on his blog and on YouTube. I think it's important to look into the matter.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## TylerRay

chuckd said:


> "Not only that, but choosing an arbitrary point in the universe as the center (e.g. the sun) has theological implications, doesn't it?"
> 
> This sentence? The sun is an arbitrary point* in the universe in which to have celestial bodies orbit. A point in the universe other than the earth in which celestial bodies orbit (e.g. the sun) has theological implications.
> 
> *not really arbitrary, it does make math easier for some calculations
> 
> Unless you're just attempting to strain a gnat and suggesting I should have said "an arbitrary point in the solar system"? I doubt that though.


Unless I have misunderstood you (which is altogether possible) the sentence you quoted implies that heliocentrists teach that the sun is the center of the universe. If I have understood you correctly, then your statement is extremely imprecise, to the point of creating a straw man.

I don't think I'm straining at a gnat to insist on precise language here.

Please let me know if I've misunderstood you.


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

*Moderator Note*:

Let's stay focused on the OP: flat earth or sphere

If you want to discuss geocentricity start another thread or, better still see:

https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/geocentrism.81871/
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/which-is-central-the-sun-or-the-earth.54925/
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/geocentrist-clarifications.85511/
https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/does-the-bible-envision-the-universe-to-look-like-this.89270/

Thread closed for a few hours while we reset.

Reactions: Like 2


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

Thread now re-opened.


----------



## Martin

What do the scriptures say? Do we have any verses that tell us anything one way or the other?


----------



## Ryan&Amber2013

bookslover said:


> Besides: if the earth _were_ a round, flat disc, cats would have pushed everything off over the edge by now.


I have no idea what this means, but it's funny to imagine.


----------



## Ryan&Amber2013

I don't know what the point would be for a worldwide cover-up to try to hide the fact that the world is flat. There's no reason for a secret like that. Especially when there's many Christians who work for NASA and satellite companies, etc. I just remember hearing about a devout Christian astronaut who when into space, and left a video devotional he made for his son to watch every night he was gone. Sadly he never returned, but I couldn't see someone with such a devotion to God ever trying to cover up such a silly thing as a flat earth.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## ZackF

chuckd said:


> To the OP regarding "flat earth", only conspiracy theory nuts believe in it. It has not been a prominent theory since ancient Greece. It was used by evolutionists to make fun of creationists. The odd thing is it has somehow gained popularity.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_flat_Earth



The internet and social media are perfect for crazies. It's that simple.


----------



## lynnie

Calling fellow Christians idiots and crazies and rebellious or stubborn is disgraceful.

The flat earther I referred to earlier is a devout Christian who graduated from medical school. The model is impressive and "works". 

They would say the only people who have to be "in on the conspiracy" are the few supposedly pretending to be in outer space and the top dogs at NASA. All the rest are clueless sheep doing all the math and construction and engineering that in reality goes nowhere. Greed is a powerful motivator for fake programs. Think how much they could pocket. 

Look, I am not flat earth and I already explained why. But you explain how the physical bodies of Enoch and Elijah and Jesus were physically taken to a created physical place billions and billions of light years away beyond the stars. Who exactly are the crazies now????

If anybody here wants to respond to flat earth with some respect and helpful imput- what I read here is not going to change them one iota- then study Barry Setterfield's extensive research on the speed of light decay. 

In a nut shell, when creation fell and Adam fell, the speed of light began to decay at parabolic rates. And don't worry, e=mc squared is all accounted for. People don't realize how much creation fell with Adam's sin. The gradual slope of speed of light decay (CDK) the past 400 years as measured can not be dismissed as just from less precise instruments than we have today. Research this. Show your flat earth friends that they are RIGHT that the stars are not billions of light years away, but are close, and heaven is just beyond and the bodies of Elijah and Enoch were able to be moved there in a reasonable time. They don't need the dome model of the flat earth heavens. A sphere model with Setterfield's speed of light decay answers their biblical concerns perfectly well. 

I really think some of you need to repent. I am sure the contempt is based on ignorance as opposed to something darker, but it is disgraceful none the less.

Reactions: Amen 1


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

*Moderator Note:*

Thread is now closed. Let's move on.

Reactions: Like 4


----------



## Ask Mr. Religion

The "four corners" of the earth from the flat earth perspective:







Sigh.

Reactions: Like 1 | Informative 1 | Funny 3 | Sad 1


----------

