Some Remarks About Flat Earth-ism

I continue to get many requests from people wanting me to debunk flat earth-ism.  I really dislike this whole subject for many reasons and wish it would just go away.   My work is to teach and inform, not argue and contend.  I have no taste for debunking anything, but instead am passionate about sharing facts that are not commonly understood, especially all the cool stuff in the sky hiding in plain sight.  And while I do believe that flat earth-ism is quieting down lately and no longer spreading like a few years ago, the "true believers" remain undeterred.  Flat earth-ism reminds me of this humorous quote from President Ronald Reagan:

The trouble with our Liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.

This is certainly true of our flat earth friends.  They contend that there is no evidence that the Earth is really round but they brush aside and dismiss any evidence you try to offer.  They say that there are 600 Scriptures that teach a flat earth, but when you read the verses, the picture is not so clear, and these verses do not actually teach what they are purported to teach. These verses certainly do not provide enough information to support the specifics of the flat earth model, as taught on the internet.

In the current flat earth model making the rounds nowadays, the Earth is depicted as a flat circle in a literal azimuthal projection like the United Nations map, centered on the North -ole.  Somehow, the Sun and Moon float above the Earth and continuously circle overhead, moving back in forth with the seasons.  Flat earth-ism teaches that, though the Sun and Moon do not actually rise and set over the horizon, the sunrises and sunsets that we observe are because light does not really move in a straight line but somehow "drops" (or something) when the Sun and Moon are a certain distance away, creating an illusion of rising and setting that perfectly fits with how things would appear if the Earth really were round with light moving in a straight line.

When you try to offer a proof that the Earth is a globe, flat earthers usually have a handy "talk-around" to explain it away, whether it be time zones, eclipses, horizon dip, or the coriolis effect.  Usually these "talk arounds" do not offer a complete explanation and reveal an inadequate understanding of the topics.  The contemporary flat earth internet craze is an extension of the "Apollo hoax," that the spherical Earth is just a NASA conspiracy theory to deceive the public for some reason, failing to grasp how the spherical globe has been known for millennia.   

Flat earth-ism begins in an honest place.  In our culture and the educational establishment, the sphericity of the Earth is handed down on authority in classrooms and in textbooks.  Teachers and science promoters never offer proofs or explanations of the Earth's sphericity.  One is expected to just swallow the roundness of the Earth as a given fact, sight unseen, and accept that it is true because the "almighty" science establishment says so.  We, the unwashed herd, are expected to just shut our stupid mouths and "trust the science" and defer to the superior wisdom of our "betters" in the white lab coats because they are so much smarter than us, just as they also expect us to believe every other aspects of mainstream science handed down on authority with no validation, including darwinism and the covid orthodoxy of 2020.

The fact is, people are entitled to explanations as to why modern science understands the Earth to be a globe.  People have a right to be distrustful when no explanations are forthcoming.  I have long been critical of this status quo, and regret that I still have not had the opportunity to write the books that would provide the proofs that the Earth is a globe in orbit around the Sun.  These proofs are really cool but rather deep, and you really need to spend quality time studying the sky to appreciate them, which hardly no one does today.  Nonetheless, everyone living in the modern world should take the time to understand these things, even though there is a dearth of good material on the subject.  So I'm sympathetic in principle to flat earthers.  However, I am not sympathetic towards anyone whose mind is closed and who rejects outright any attempt to offer legitimate explanations.  It's a really cool story how we know today that the Earth one of the round planets in our solar system, third from the Sun. 

If you have a flat earth friend or family member, I'd encourage you to just ask them a lot of questions.... 

• Did you always believe the Earth was flat? 
• If not, what did you learn that persuaded you?  
• What was the source of this information?  
• Did you see these slick computer graphic videos on the web?  
• What is the source of these videos?  Who produced them?  
• CGI does not create itself so who paid for these slick videos?  
• Are you aware that there is propaganda on the web sponsored by enemies of the USA, with the intent of deceiving the American populace?  
• Shouldn't that make you skeptical of unsourced information posted on the web?  
• Have you made an effort to be objective and seek out explanations as to why science teaches that the Earth is spherical?  
• Have you noticed legit educational organizations always identify themselves?  
• Have you noticed that they usually have websites, sell products and/or solicit donations?  
• What flat earth organizations do you belong to and how are they funded?

In any event, the sphericity of the Earth has been known since the Ancient Greeks, centuries before Christ.  The principles of Euclid's geometry were applied to the sky to predict the extreme seasonal daylight at the poles and the reversal of seasons in the southern hemisphere, millennia before these places were visited by explorers.  

These facts have been widely accepted by almost all Christians across the world over the last 2000 years.  The sphericity of the Earth has never been a serious controversy in the Christian church, and has never been a test of Biblical or doctrinal orthodoxy.  Down through the centuries, flat earth-ism was only taught by a small number of individual Christians in certain localized places.  

As explained in Inventing The Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by Jeffrey Burton Russell, an "urban legend" arose in the 19th century propagated by secular historians that Medieval Christians believed that the Earth was flat.  This notion is now debunked by solid evidence.  It is acknowledged in modern scholarship today that Christians in Medieval times (and also before and after) understood and accepted the classic proofs of the Ancient Greeks of the sphericity of the Earth.

"Belief" in a flat or round Earth is not an option.  If we believe that we live in the real world of objective reality, the subject is not open for debate or differing opinions.  Either the Earth is round or it is not, for reasons that we should be able to observe and confirm.  

Our entire edifice of modern science is built upon the physics of Isaac Newton, who established heliocentrism as the central premise of how things work in the cosmos.  Newton himself was a devoted Christian who wrote more Bible commentaries than scientific works.   Newton's physics offered mathematically precise results, from the movements of bodies on the Earth to the celestial bodies in space, all following the same set of scientific laws.  Newton's physics is the basis of all modern science today.  If you could somehow remove heliocentrism and the spherical Earth, all science would collapse like a Jenga game.  It is most ironic that the popular contemporary deception of flat earth-ism is propagated using 21st century technology via smart phones and the internet.  It's rather sad that science education is in such a sorry state that some have uncritically adopted and internalized this debunked urban legend without seeking the facts.  

Anyway, for these reasons and others I dont care to expend a lot more energy contending against flat earth-ism in this newsletter.  Instead, I'll offer a commonly accepted proof below that is really cool, and that you can confirm for yourself. 

Orion Around the Round Earth

It is currently the season of Orion the Hunter, as everyone can observe on every clear evening over the next several weeks.  I remain fascinated by this most famous constellation, who has been a lifelong friend, an annual visitor to my own evening sky every winter since I was in second grade way back in 1968.  Orion has a distinct human shape, defined by the remarkably aligned three stars in his Belt.  Orion has been the subject of folklore and literature in cultures across the globe down through history, and mentioned three times in Scripture....

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? -- Job 38:31

Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. -- Job 9:9

Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The Lord is his name: -- Amos 5:8

In the current season, everyone everywhere in the world can see Orion.  However, the orientation of Orion and the neighboring stars is different depending on where you are in the world.  And those differing appearances is one of the many proofs that the Earth is a spherical globe.  

You can see different views of Orion from different locations around the USA. For example, some of you living in the southernmost USA, around latitude 30 degrees north, including Jacksonville, Florida, Mobile, Alabama, New Orleans, Lousiana, and San Antonio, Texas, will see the Orion sky similar to the picture below.  People a bit further north will see a similar view, near the US southern border with Mexico, all the way across to San Diego, California.

From these locations, Orion is very high in the sky.  The constellations Taurus and Gemini are almost overhead close to the zenith, hosting the blazing bright planets Jupiter and Mars.  If you are still following the lunar standstill mentioned in this recent newsletter, you can look for that to happen again around sunset on the evening of the First Quarter Moon, Friday, March 7. 

If you look further down below, you can readily spot the bright star Sirius, the Dog Star, the brightest star in the sky, which defines the constellation Canis Major, or the Big Dog.  But if you live in these southernmost American latitudes and look lower down in the sky, you can also see Canopus, the second brightest star in the sky after Sirius.  Canopus is low to the horizon as seen from 30 degrees north, but you'll need a flat, treeless horizon to see this bright star when Orion is at its highest, near the meridian.       

Comparisons can be made from observations of Canopus by people in various latitudes spread out over the entire surface of the Earth.  Living as we do today in an era of internet communications, people on the same email loop or social media group can post their own observations of Orion and Canopus and confirm for themselves whether these objects are visible (or not) from various locations over the Earth.  And if you find yourself travelling north or south in the next month, you can confirm this for yourself with your own eyes.

Suffice to say, these observations establish that yes, we do in fact live on a spherical globe.  Anyone with an inquiring mind can be persuaded that this is in fact sufficient proof that the Earth is round.  Please drop a line if you conduct this experiment and take the Canopus Test with your circle of friends and family.