By the way, I tried to bring this eclipse up with a Flat-Earther at work. I made the mistake of bringing up the Sun, and that triggered him into preaching about the Son of God. The Flat-Earthers all seem to be Biblical Literalists:

I wonder whether we sciency types might be responsible for the resurgence of Flat-Earthism:

When they supported Creationism with Biblical examples, we pointed out the evidence for an old universe and biological evolution and pointed out that they cherry-picked. On the cherry-picking front, we pointed out that they Bible says that the Earth is flat. I suspect, that rather than making them take the Bible less Literally, we made them believe that the Earth is flat by pointing out that is what the Bible says.

6733349 I think most flat-earthers are intellectuals that take this as training in a debate. You don't have to believe the side you're arguing for if you know how to debate. If you can debate in the support of a flat Earth, you can debate anything.

6733363

I do not know about most Flat-Earthers, but this 1 from work is very religious and literal.

6733372 You know what? From now on, I'll be a flat Earth apologetic.

I'll debate anypony who claim the Earth isn't flat. I will make up an excuse for any counter argument one throws my way. That's how religions apologetics do it, and they seem to think it suffices in defending the truth. Either they're wrong and making up excuses (apologies) isn't enough to justify your position, or they're right and Earth is flat because I can defend that position just as ferociously as religious nuts apologetics can defend theirs.

6733373

Okay.

6733349
I don't think the Bible says that the earth is flat.
It was a dogma created by the catholic church, and that same church later confirmed that the Earth is round.

Some religious nutjobs are just more nuts than religious. Sometimes the two are not as closely related as it looks.

6733406 Are you sure you know your Bible?
https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-flat-earth/

6733427
I don't have a Bible.
https://www.anwersingenesis.org/earth/does-bible-teach-earth-flat
It does not say that the Earth is flat.
Also, the article says it was never even taught by the church? The English translation has changed in 2011.

Walabio is 100% right. It was a misinterpretation of the Bible that caused the conflict theory problem and finally the flat-earther cult.

6733406

The Catholic church never really taught that the earth was flat, just that it was the center of the universe. In the middle ages, most educated people would know the earth was round, you'd have to go back to ancient times to find people who thought it was flat.... which just so happens to be when most of the Bible was written.

The Bible not only seems to think the earth is flat and the center of the universe, but that it's underneath a giant glass dome. Of course, most Christians recognize that there is no dome and 'interpret' these to be 'metaphors' so that they don't have to worry about it being wrong.

6733427
Much of the Bible uses poetic language. We still say the sun RISES rather than "the earth is rotating towards the sun."

6733476 Isn't the Bible supposed to teach us how things are? Imagine if the physics books were written in a poetic language. Would you not ask yourself why people would do such a thing? You'd never know what the correct answer is on the exam because you couldn't tell what is poetic and what is factual.
Imagine a cooking recipe being written in a poetic language. Would you even dare eat what you end up making?

Tell me something. What would the Bible have to say that you couldn't excuse by 'poetic language' or 'a metaphor'? Write down a sentence that people wouldn't end up defending like you're defending descriptions of flat Earth now. I'd love to hear it because I doubt anyone could make up such a sentence.

6733462
You did not read the article. Some of those passages are said by pagan characters, others are changed by the chain of translations,
and the rest happen in dreams. There is one that could arguably imply that, but it is clearly metaphoric.

Noah's ark is the weakest point of the whole fairytale IMO. Other parts can be argued to be metaphorical by the „non-fundamentalists”

6733514

I posted that reply at the exact same time as you posted yours, so I'm not sure how I could have possibly read that article in time.

But yeah, like I said there are ways to dismiss anything in the Bible. Clearly every character in the bible thinks the earth is flat but some of those were dreams, some of those were non-christians, some of the language can be interpreted another way so it's okay! Of course, at the same time AIG takes things like Noah's arc and young earth creationism as literal, they like that part so we can just take that as face value... but then Christians who realize that geology and evolution are right say those things are all just metaphors that can be dismissed. And oh wait, the flat earth Christians say all that flat earth stuff the bible says does count!

And it goes on and on like that for every subject in morality, theology and cosmology. Everything the bible says that you like is the bible being brilliant, everything it says that you don't is just a metaphor or added later or something. If the Bible does have an opinion on any of this stuff it's that the earth is flat, the center of the universe, a few thousand years old and with all species created at once. However, it is a book and books mean whatever you want them to mean. That's why the bible is basically useless.

6733476
"Four corners of the earth" (a phrase that appears multiple times, such as Isaiah 11:12 and Revelation 7:1) is also absolutely poetic language still used occasionally today. You can't really accuse flat-earthers of being literalist Christians here either, since they generally believe in a flat round earth, not a square one.

6733373

excuses (apologies)

While Christian apologists do generally have absolutely awful arguments, the modern usage of the word "apology" is only etymologically related to the discipline of apologetics, but the meaning is entirely different. Apologetics comes from what was, essentially, the defense half of a trial in ancient Greece. The prosecution delivered one speech (kategoria) and the defense delivered a rebuttal speech (apologia).

Apologia means "in defense of", which isn't really what an apology is in modern English.

6734421

Now I want to find if there are and square earthers out there... and see if the disc earthers think they are ridiculous.