by William Trollinger
Ok, probably not a bar.
So a young Earth creationist, a geocentrist, and a flat Earther walk into a Chick-Fil-A. And the young Earth creationist says, “If you take the Bible literally, and I do, then you have to believe that ‘day’ means 24-hour day. I am a young Earth creationist. I am the most literal of them all, in contrast with old Earth creationists, who have sold out to the secular scientific establishment.”
The geocentrist responds, “Not so fast. If you take the Bible literally, and I do, then you have to believe that the sun revolves around the Earth. I not only believe in a young Earth, but I also believe the Earth is at the center of the universe. I am the most literal of them all, and it turns that you, young Earth creationist, have sold out to the secular scientific establishment.”
But the flat Earther responds, “I have both of you beat. If you take the Bible literally, and I do, then you have to believe that ‘firmament’ refers to a hard dome over the Earth. I not only believe in a young Earth, I not only believe that the Earth is at the center of the universe, but I also believe in a flat Earth. I am the most literal of them all, and it turns out that both of you, young Earth creationist and geocentrist, have sold out to the secular scientific establishment.”
Something like this happened this past November at the Second Flat Earth International Conference in Denver. As reported by young Earth creationist Danny Faulkner, resident astronomer for Answers in Genesis (AiG), the highlight was a debate between flat Earther Rob Skiba and geocentrist Robert Sungenis over “whether the Bible teaches that the earth is flat.” According to Faulkner, Skiba argued that raqia, which the King James Version translates as “firmament” in Genesis 1: 6-8 is best understood as a “hard dome over the earth.” In response, Sungenis argued that “if the raqia were a solid dome, then the placement of the sun and moon in the solid dome on Day Four would inhibit the sun and moon from moving, [even though], in anyone’s model, they must move.”
So went the debate, with Skiba holding tight to the most literal read. Interestingly, the flat Earther also went after the young Earth creationist in the audience:
[Skiba] had a slide that included a photograph of me [Danny Faulkner], along with a quote from my 2004 book, Universe by Design, where I criticized the way that the . . . King James translated raqia as “firmament.” Skiba said that this was eisegesis. He also called Answers in Genesis “Answers not in Genesis.” I was a bit amused by this, because Skiba was rebutting me, when I wasn’t involved in the debate.
Why should the flat Earther limit himself to attacking geocentrists when he can also take down young Earth creationists? And Skiba’s claim that Faulkner engages in “eisegesis” is a deliberately pointed jab, given that young Earth creationists make precisely the same charge against those who hold to an old Earth. As Ken Ham argues in “Eisegesis: A Genesis Virus,”
When someone reads something into Scripture – this would be an example of eisegesis. For instance, nowhere does the Bible ever speak of billions of years. In Genesis 1, the word day (yom) in context, as used for the six Days of Creation . . . means these days are approximately 24-hour periods – ordinary days.
However, probably the majority of church leaders insist these days could represent billions of years – this is “eisegesis,” as the billions of years is a belief from outside of Scripture that is read intoScripture (resulting in the clear words of Scripture being reinterpreted on the basis of these outside ideas).
The cure for the “eisegesis virus”? According to Ken Ham, it is the “exegesis ‘vaccine,’” that is, interpreting Scripture “on the basis of context and the type of literature” so that one can read “out of Scripture what the writer clearly intended to express.”
But here’s the problem. Who decides when it is exegesis, and when it is eisegesis? Ham attacks old Earth creationists for employing eisegesis. But geocentrists critique young Earth creationists for themselves using eisegesis, and flat Earthers attack both young Earth creationists and geocentrists as infected with the “eisegesis virus.”
You can stand on the authority of the Bible. You can claim that the Bible is errorless, clear, and best understood by a common sense reading of the text. But none of that resolves the innumerable and ever-expanding disagreements over what the text means.
But among the creationists arguing in Chick-Fil-A, the flat Earthers have one great rhetorical advantage. They can claim they are the most literal.
It may not be a trump card, but it is pretty close.
It’s really sad to see otherwise decent and godly people ignore reality. If Christianity is the truth, then it must reflect reality. Although the Bible is not a natural science book based on empiricism, there is still a coherent logic to a biblical worldview. Thus, the earth is round, spins on its axis, and orbits the sun. To be sure, macro evolution by natural selection has many problems (and so I firmly hold to the direct creation of life by God -the “chicken came first, before the egg, by design) but deep time understood through physics does not.
Thanks much for your comment.
I am a flat earth believer. What has me convinced is the fact that no one can scientifically prove the earth has any curvature, in addition to the Bible.
Thanks for your comment, Joseph. You may wish to share your insights with the folks at Answers in Genesis.
Hi Joseph,
I’m surprised you say no one has proved the spherical earth. Because there is a lot of evidence.
Have you ever spent the night looking at the stars? The earth rotates slowly, so you won’t notice it. But it is possible with a camera. Leave this recording the sky all night. This way, you can see how the stars move around a point in the sky (if you are in the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star is in that center).
Well, this rotation happens in one direction, but in the Southern Hemisphere it happens in the opposite direction. If you stand on the equator, it will only move in a straight line, without rotating.
This doesn’t happen on a flat earth, only on a spherical earth. There is no explanation for this in the flat earth model, and to check it out for yourself you just need a good camera, a compass, and a plane ticket.
The real problem is not a lack of evidence, but that you don’t want to accept it. If you don’t like it, you’ll either manage to come up with some kind of twisted explanation (like the cameras are rigged or something), or just ignore it. Because the objective is not to know the facts, but to defend a worldview with which you feel comfortable. No one will ever convince you otherwise because you won’t allow it. This is the trap of that kind of thinking.
Surely, you are used to mental gymnastics. And it becomes something satisfying, especially when it becomes a kind of challenge. I spent years doing this, until I realized that I wasn’t being intellectually honest, and it was also quite frustrating.
Before that, apologetics was not completely satisfactory to me, but I was deluded into thinking that there was such a thing as the holy grail of arguments, a supreme argument that could convince everyone. Somewhere in the world, someone smart enough would come up with it. Maybe even that one could be me (and I used to fantasize about it). In any case, I took it for granted that this kind of proof or argument existed. A valid and convincing defense about those things that I, like other Christians, believed (no, it wasn’t flat earth, fortunately) necessarily must exist. Because I was right and all the scientists and experts were the ones who were wrong. Maybe they weren’t good enough, or didn’t see it, or didn’t want to see it.
It could only be that way.
But… what if it’s not really that way? Instead of letting the evidence shape my beliefs, my beliefs shaped the evidence, disguising it as real science while I was feeling very smart. But that is not science, that is blindness.
It is very difficult to let go of something that is part of your identity, that differentiates you from others and makes you feel that you know a truth that the rest ignore. Even more so if it is linked to your religious beliefs.
But there is nothing at all that prevents you from believing in God and at the same time accepting science. They are not at odds. The problem is the kind of debates that are held about it, quite toxic. People end up believing that there is a conflict, that they can only choose one of the two things. And this misunderstanding is the product of equal parts ignorance and pride.