Is the planet Earth round or flat? For many of us, this question was answered in 5th grade astronomy class. However, today there is a growing movement originating from Christian groups where members believe there is biblical and scientific evidence proofing a flat Earth. Many of these people really belong to a cult because they display all the characteristics of cult followers who call themselves Christian. There simply is no rational justification for any person to believe in a flat Earth because of observations on the moon, ships and the horizon, varying stars and constellations, and outer space images showing a round Earth.

THE MOON

Aristotle, who mentioned a considerable amount of objective facts about the spherical nature of the Earth, saw that during lunar eclipses the Earth had a spherical shape. When the Earth’s orbit is directly between the Sun and the Moon, it reveals its shadow during this process. Aristotle observed that the Earth’s shadow on the Moon’s surface is round. This shadow reveals the Earth’s round shape, and it is an extraordinary piece of evidence showing the roundness the Earth. Since the Earth is rotating, the predictable round-shadow it creates in every single lunar eclipse demonstrates that the Earth isn’t just round and spherical, but it is not flat.

SHIPS AND THE HORIZON

When we go to a port, stroll down a beach and stared off vacantly into the horizon, we noticed a very interesting phenomenon. First, approaching ships do seem to “appear” out of the horizon when they emerge into view. Second, departing ships seem to disappear from the horizon. This phenomenon is based on the curvature of the Earth when departing ships move out of our view and beneath the horizon, while approaching ships move into our view and above the horizon. We would never experience this phenomenon if the planet Earth was flat.

VARYING STAR CONSTELLATIONS

The round shape of the Earth was an observation made by Aristotle, who declared the Earth was round judging from the different constellations we see when moving away from the equator. The farther you go from the equator, the farther the ‘known’ constellations go towards the horizon, and are replaced by different stars. When we look into the night sky at the North Pole, we see different stars, than the stars we see in the night sky at the South Pole. This would not have happened if the world was flat. Only a spherical Earth would support this observation.

OUTER SPACE IMAGES

Since the late 1940s, the space exploration era of humanity’s history began. We have launched satellites, probes, and people into outer space. Some of them return to Earth, some of them remain floating through the solar system and transmit amazing images over to our receivers on Earth. The following list mentions pictures we have seen from space throughout the years.

On October 24, 1946, a group of scientists in the New Mexico desert saw the first grainy photo of the Earth. The photograph was taken from a height of 104.6 kilometers by a 35-millimeter motion picture camera riding on a V-2 missile. On August 14, 1959, the first crude photo of the Earth came from the Explorer VI satellite. The photo showed a sun-lit area of the Pacific Ocean and cloud coverage. It was taken from about 27,350 kilometers above the surface. On June 5, 1966, Astronaut Eugene Cernan took this amazing picture of Gemini 9 and the Earth during his Extra Vehicular Activity. The spacecraft itself and Cernan’s “umbilical”, which was the cord that keeps him connected to the spacecraft’s systems, are visible on top of a beautiful background of the Earth. On August 23, 1966, the first view of Earth from the Moon. This picture was taken by Lunar Orbiter I when the spacecraft was on its 16th orbit and was just about to pass behind the Moon. On December 29, 1966, a spectacular view of the rising Earth from the Moon, taken by the crew of Apollo 8 after coming out from the other side of the Moon, approximately 384,000 kilometers from Earth. On December 1, 1968, a photo of Earth was taken from Apollo 8. This photograph was taken by an 80-mm lense, at a point very close to the Moon. Finally, more pictures from the NASA Missions throughout the years can be found at NASA GRIN Website: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov/index.html

BIBLICAL PASSAGES

The prophet Isaiah mentions a round Earth when he wrote “It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, Who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, And spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” (Isaiah 40:22). The Hebrew word for circle describes a 3 dimensional circle, which is a sphere. According to Job 10:26 the Earth’s shape is round. The author wrote that “He drew a circular horizon on the face of the waters, at the boundary of light and darkness.” The Hebrew word for circle in this passage appears to describe a 3 dimensional circle, which is a sphere or round ball.

ANALYSIS

The belief in a flat Earth originates from a lack of education and a complete failure to apply correct biblical hermeneutics, accurate scriptural interpretation, and good common sense. Many Christians who believe in a flat Earth over interpret passages in God’s word and they employ hyper-literalism woven in their failure to understand biblical phenomenological lan

guage, which is the language of experience and appearance. Because the bible uses non-scientific language, it describes events the way we would experience them or how things appear rather than in precise scientific description. While the bible contains information that have been confirmed by modern science, the bible is simply not and never will be a book about science because modern science did not exists during the days when the authors wrote the bible.

PRIMARY SOURCE:

Top 10 Ways to Know the Earth is not Flat; Moriel Schottlender; 2008. New King James Version (NKJV)