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Completely round the bend...

Slumberfreeze

Slumberfreeze

Seasoned Member
Real Person
Male
In my never ending quest to be less sane than the Jones's, I have discovered that I needed to push harder.

Not content with simple alienation, I demanded more and have reached a new personal best.

I now literally and not even joking believe that the earth is not a sphere, but is in fact a flat(ish) circle that is not spinning or moving at all.

The beginning of this is the reality that my bible calls the earth "immovable" at least 4 times, which I cannot seem to resolve; when the scientific community would tell me that the earth is spinning and revolving around, and being dragged along by the sun. So, far from being immovable, the earth is literally incapable of doing anything BUT move.

Someone's gotta be wrong here, and I've made my choice. I'd rather distrust NASA than my bible.

There's more to it than that, but I didn't intend to try and lay out the whole case for the flat earth here. Mostly I just showed up to assure you that I wasn't resting on my nutbar laurels.

I hope someone feels slightly more grounded now, at least by comparison.
 
Thanks for the grounding, lol! Having been on a nonstop flight from Nebraska to Thailand I have trouble wrapping my mind around the idea of the world being flat(ish), but you do you and I can like you anyway!
 
Hey, I finally get to contribute!

Actual NASA engineer here. Earth's round, dude. Tons of very careful scientific measurements leave no doubt, not to mention going "far away" and looking back at it. The methods are public, so you can go repeat them yourself if you like.

And yes, scripture is inerrant, but our interpretation isn't. In particular, "the bible can double as a modern scientific reference" is not a correct interpretation. Better to keep it in its intended role, namely teaching us how to relate to God and to each other.

If it helps, the earth certainly is immovable, from yours or my point of view. God could move it, but He seem happy to leave it where it is.
 
I haven't done any research on the topic, just going off the cuff here, but that sounds like a solid interpretation based on what's been said. Does the scripture say that the Earth "doesn't move" or when it says it is immovable is it saying "Man cannot move it". Because that makes a lot of sense.
 
UntoldGlory - Happy to be of service! I'm glad you can still like me! I had deja vu talking to a friend of mine about this, as he became very angry and short with me for even bringing it up. I got the same "I'm worried for you as a friend" bit from him as I did when I was first researching poly. I might actually crave these reactions to some extent..

Jeff - Hi! Talking sense into me is probably going to be an uphill struggle. I gave away the last of my marbles a couple years ago. I'm gladdened that my frothing at the mouth brought you out of lurking, though.

Actually, I am curious which repeatable measurement you would recommend I repeat. If it's not too expensive, I would be interested in trying some things out.
 
oops I didn't see your second post.

The reference verses I'm picking this up from are 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, and Isaiah 45:18.

Unfortunately for me I can't treat the Hebrew like it was Greek, so I can't even make my usual sad attempts at dissecting the words.

Of course, if I can allow Enoch in the room, (and you know how I feel about him), he goes into rather more detail that is unambiguous.

Thank God for spell check because I cannot spell unambiguous.
 
Lol, Slumber I can always count on you to make me feel sane. That should scare you sir because I've been voted "most likely to be shot by a helicopter while running through the national forest."
 
Slumberfreeze said:
Jeff - Actually, I am curious which repeatable measurement you would recommend I repeat. If it's not too expensive, I would be interested in trying some things out.
Click to expand...

Just type "how do we know the world is round" into google. You will find suggestions that fit the budgets of elementary school children, and proceed upward as high as you care to spend.
 
Zec- Well I won't challenge you on that one! I hate running...

Jeff - Did you really come out like Moses coming down the mountain with "Behold, google! Now thou mayest answer thine own questions!"??
Fair enough. But I take issue with barring the bible from the discussion when the big boys sit down to talk science. After all, Ecclesiastes 1:7, 11:3, Psalm 135:7, Amos 9:6, Jeremiah 10:16, and Isaiah 55:8-11 do a good (and consistent) job of describing what we refer to as the water cycle, which wasn't 'officially' discovered until long after these verses were written. Which is to say that the bible was accurate to modern scientific standards before modern was modern.

If the Ecclesiastes verses were factually incorrect, we would have to reverse our understanding of Solomon's address, as he relied upon the accuracy of these statements to support his logic.

Worse in my opinion, if Psalm 135 was incorrect! David telling us to praise God for things He does not do!
Or Amos, who relies upon scientific accuracy to identify the Lord.

One of the intended roles of the bible, (even the chief intention) is to tell us how to relate to God, as you say. This is not to the exclusion of letting God tell us about science. We relate to Him by faith, not by allegorizing His teachings, but by accepting them even when they are hard to understand.

Luke 24:5 - And He said to them, "O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in ALL that the prophets have spoken!" (capitalization mine)

The early disciples believed everything the prophets had spoken, except for those things regarding the things they did not want to believe about the Messiah.

It is my contention that the Church readily accepts the teachings of the Prophets regarding our Christ, but has a dissenting opinion on everything else.
 
You are right Slumber that where the Bible makes a scientific statement we have to assume its correct. If the Creator wrote the book then you have to figure He knows the creation better than it knows itself. Science may not have caught up with scripture but we always have to assume that it will one day. As far as knowing if the world is flat or round, I think scripture makes it pretty clear its round. Look at Christ's prophecy about the rapture, one will be sleeping and one will be working, sounds like a round world to me.
 
Amen Zec!

To be clear, I believe the earth to be round as well, just round in the 'circular' sense as opposed to 'globular'.

The basic 'flat earth model' is a circle with the north pole at the center (UN map-ish), with the sun following a circuit loosely following what we call the equator, the sun only illuminating the general area that it is over, similar to a flashlight pointed downwards. In that model, there would be time zones, with day and night occurring simultaneously.

But, speaking of round, Isaiah 40:22 was one of the verses that I would lift up to demonstrate the scientific accuracy of the bible because it speaks of the earth as round, showing that scripture states that the earth is a globe long before. It unravels a bit there, though, because the word used to describe the earth is 'circle'. And there is not room for us to say "well in the Hebrew the word for circle also means sphere because a sphere is just a three dimensional circle". I mean, I've said it, but only because I was aping some other very intelligent people whose opinions I respect. In truth however, Isaiah demonstrates that Hebrew has a separate word for "ball" and he is well acquainted with it (Is 22:18). This is probably the defining point in my belief, because I don't know how everything really works. I don't know, for instance, how the lunar cycle or lunar eclipses are supposed to work in a flat earth model. It is my understanding that none of the flat earth crowd has quite got a handle on that either.

But, as you say, I am content to wait for science to catch up with scripture.

ok I guess that is a lie. Not when so much science is aimed at contradicting God. At this point I'm convinced that waiting for science to catch up with scripture is like waiting for a drug dealer to report that one of his clients ripped him off. It could happen, but he has a personal interest in making sure that doesn't happen.
 
You mentioned the verses about the Earth being immovable, but why would that necessitate a flat earth? Can't a round earth be set in one place in space as well?

And what about the visual confirmation of astronauts? What would a flat-earther do with that?

As far as experiments, I think a good one for this question would be to attach a camera to a high-altitude ballon. There are several such videos available publicly (youtube), but doing it yourself would probably be more convincing. Maybe not the cheapest.
 
An immobile earth doesn't necessitate a flat earth by itself, although it still takes us back to the curiosity that Copernicus was trying to solve in the first place: the retrograde motion of the planets. But in my opinion the rest of the bible verses that describe the earth, moon, sun, and stars require less mental gymnastics if the earth is both immobile and flat.

This flat earther suspects visual confirmation by astronauts to be intentional disinformation. I purposefully use those words because I suspect that at least initially, those astronauts were motivated by duty to country and national security to confirm what they confirmed. Not to say that I agree with it, but if it went down like I think it did, I could respect it. BUt yeah, the tin-foil hat has to be completely on.

Actually, that is exactly the experiment that I intend to do first :D
 
Slumberfreeze, I admire your willingness to admit the conclusions you have been coming to on this. This sort of stuff tends to not be shared because people don't want to be looked at strangely, so it never gets to be discussed. And personally I think this really does need to be discussed. Because many deep-thinking Bible-focussed Christians are thinking it. And, because it's probably wrong. :D

I spent some time discussing this last year with a man who has come to believe in a flat earth, and we went into some detail on how it works. I have also read the book "Zetetic Astronomy: Earth not a globe!", and pondered it carefully. I am very open to the idea that we may have been severely misled, we are being deliberately misled by the global system over many matters, this is entirely plausible also.

However, it just doesn't seem to work logically. I fully agree you should test it out for yourself, and this is reasonably simple to do.

The flashlight model for instance. We know that during the winter the night is longer, and during the summer the night is shorter, and we also know that the northern and southern hemispheres have winter and summer at opposite times. I would encourage you to try drawing the line between day and night on a flat, circular earth map, during north summer / south winter and then during north winter / south summer. In other words, the flashlight footprint. The flashlight cannot have a circular footprint, it just doesn't work. The footprint ends up a very strange shape in one season, and a completely different shape in a different one. Moving from summer to winter is not just a matter of moving the sun from the centre towards the edge, the actual shape of the light cast by the sun has to change completely. In north winter / south summer, much of the rim of the flat earth must be light, while much of the centre is dark - so a single light source positioned near the centre must illuminate the edges that are most distant from it, while somehow leaving the centre that is near it in darkness. Just try drawing it and you'll see what I mean. Try to cast that pattern with a flashlight, you'll struggle. On the other hand, the day and night length perfectly fits a globe model of the earth, again you can check that using a globe and a flashlight.

The book I mentioned before is linked to below, and contains a large number of experimental "proofs" that the earth is flat. Many of these are simple enough to try for yourself - but be very careful to consider all the assumptions behind them, to be sure that the experiment actually does prove the earth is flat and doesn't just make it look flat to convince the naive.
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/libr ... han%29.pdf

Some of these experiments are very deceptive. For instance, on page 67-68, it is stated that if the earth is rotating, a ball thrown vertically into the air would fall back beside where it was thrown from, not back to the same place, because the earth would have moved while it was in the air. An experiment is outlined where a gun was used to fire a bullet vertically, and it is claimed the bullet fell very close, sometimes even down the barrel, and this is proof the earth did not move. This completely ignores very basic physics. If the gun is moving sideways at a constant velocity, so is the ball. When the ball is fired upwards, it is also moving sideways at the same speed as the gun, and will fall back down onto the gun. This is why you can throw a ball from one side of a moving car to another, and it actually goes where you throw it rather than flying into the back window the moment you let go of it. So, you need to exercise extreme caution and keep your logic engaged when considering flat-earth arguments, many can be highly deceptive.

One very simple experiment that would be valid is to look at the angle to the horizon from a high point. If the earth is a plane, the horizon should be essentially horizontal from the viewer to quite a high altitude. If it is a globe, the horizon should be below horizontal. In this book, the author only tests this from a tall building at the seashore, so still essentially at sea level, making his measurements essentially invalid. I have a hill near our house that reaches around 350m above sea level, but looks over plains with the sea on the horizon. I have been meaning for months to go up there and take a photograph of a builders level pointing at the horizon, to demonstrate if it is horizontal (i.e. the earth is flat), or below horizontal (i.e. the earth is round). I will try to do this in the next few days, if I haven't posted with a photo by the end of the week please remind me.

The reason I think it is important to investigate this is because I believe we are entering a time of increased persecution of the church. If many of the most solid, Bible-focussed Christians believe in a flat earth, they can easily be dismissed by the world as nutters. This could give great ammunition to the enemies of the church, and lead to Christians eventually being put into mental institutions. That's the last place anyone wants to be. In a prison, you can argue that you shouldn't be there, have a lawyer help you, get heard by a judge, and have your perspective at least listened to. In a mental institution, you can say you shouldn't be there however much you want, use whatever reasoning you like, but you'll just be told "yes, I know you feel that way, but you're very ill, I think we'll have to increase your dose of pills". I fear that Satan is actually prompting this purely to give him another tool to use against the church in the very near future. I'm deadly serious. The world is looking very nasty right now, and many signs point towards this potentially being the end times - it obviously may not be, many past generations have thought that and were wrong, but in case it is we have to live like it is, and be continually prepared. So, we have to investigate such things carefully, to ensure we both understand the Bible correctly and are not taken in by deception. So we need to very carefully test matters like this, and only accept them if they are very clearly correct.

Personally, the flashlight experiment I described above is enough to show me that the world is a globe, and the verses that talk about the world being firmly established should be interpreted in this light. But I will do the level experiment too to be absolutely certain and to demonstrate this here. Remind me if I don't do it.
 
FollowingHim said:
I would encourage you to try drawing the line between day and night on a flat, circular earth map, during north summer / south winter and then during north winter / south summer. In other words, the flashlight footprint. The flashlight cannot have a circular footprint, it just doesn't work. The footprint ends up a very strange shape in one season, and a completely different shape in a different one. Moving from summer to winter is not just a matter of moving the sun from the centre towards the edge, the actual shape of the light cast by the sun has to change completely. In north winter / south summer, much of the rim of the flat earth must be light, while much of the centre is dark - so a single light source positioned near the centre must illuminate the edges that are most distant from it, while somehow leaving the centre that is near it in darkness. Just try drawing it and you'll see what I mean. Try to cast that pattern with a flashlight, you'll struggle. On the other hand, the day and night length perfectly fits a globe model of the earth, again you can check that using a globe and a flashlight.
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I think I understand what you're describing. You're not saying the path of the flashlight would not be circular, but the shape of the area illuminated by the flashlight would not be circular? I don't think I have a problem with that if I'm actually picking up what you're putting down, unless there is a biblical imperative for believing the sun's illumination footprint must be circular? With a flashlight I am able to tilt the flashlight so that, as I move the 'sun' in a circle I am also able to illuminate the furthest reaches of the 'earth' while leaving the 'central' hemisphere that is closer to the 'suns' actual position in darkness. Likewise I was able to shift the focus away from the edges and towards the center by changing the tilt. Although I didn't use a flashlight because for some reason I don't seem to own one. I used one of those round push button nightlights, but I was still able to get the effect the (I believe) you are talking about.

Thank you for the link! I had been avoiding reading anything with the word zetetic in it, because I don't know what zetetic means, but it makes me think of a 70's suicide cult. Like all the zetites jumped off a cliff in 1972 when the moon was in neptune's gate or something. (I just looked it up, and the disappointment was real.) I'll read up on it, but I will be careful to follow your advice and not drink the kool-aid.

I really am a big fan of using human observation to prove biblical concepts, but what I am most hungry for is a biblical basis for believing the earth is a globe. I used to have one, but it broke. I would happily replace it if I can be shown how the consensus of scripture more accurately describes a globe earth.

I have no doubt that any belief in a flat earth or geocentric universe will be used to marginalize and discredit the Church. I would argue that the ship already sailed on that one. I'm already on the chopping block for being a backward thinking luddite with regards to feminism or gender equality. The overwhelming majority of the Church would like to keep their distance from me anyways, and the world already equates polygyny with child abuse, while gay couples are the brave men and women of the new world. When the waves of persecution come for me, I'm a dead man anyways.
 
Slumberfreeze said:
You're not saying the path of the flashlight would not be circular, but the shape of the area illuminated by the flashlight would not be circular?
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Yes.
I don't think I have a problem with that if I'm actually picking up what you're putting down, unless there is a biblical imperative for believing the sun's illumination footprint must be circular? With a flashlight I am able to tilt the flashlight so that, as I move the 'sun' in a circle I am also able to illuminate the furthest reaches of the 'earth' while leaving the 'central' hemisphere that is closer to the 'suns' actual position in darkness. Likewise I was able to shift the focus away from the edges and towards the center by changing the tilt.
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I don't think you appreciate exactly how complex the pattern needs to be. This is a map of the sunshine at the December Solstice.
day-and-night-december-solstice-2015.jpg

Try plotting that onto a disk-shaped earth. The entire rim of the disk needs to be in bright light (not just have some light hitting it, be in bright constant sunlight), while a big off-centre blob needs to be in total darkness.

Now certainly it is theoretically possible to have a flashlight with a footprint that is not circular. You just need a flashlight with a odd shape, and you can project an image that is an odd shape. So, what shape is the sun? Is it a big donut with a black hole in the middle at the December solstice, that gradually changes to be round by the June solstice, then back again? Or, is there a big floating shade in the sky that can cause an eclipse during night-time for selected areas of the earth? Or does it stay round all the time? The answer is something you can very easily check by eye (carefully...).

Now, look carefully at the Antarctic peninsula on that map (the area extending up towards South America). It is in constant daylight. What direction is the sunlight coming from?
- On a disk, they would be seeing the sun to the North (ie coming over the centre of the disk and South America to reach them), and it would stay in this general area of the sky throughout the entire 24-hour days of mid-summer, just wobbling around a bit.
- On a globe, they would see the sun to the South at this point. It would then move around the entire horizon line, staying just above the horizon, over the next 24 hours.
So, what does the sun actually do? Does it move around the entire horizon or stay in one place during an Antarctic day? It moves around the entire horizon, just as it does in the Arctic. This is consistent with the earth being a globe, and contradicts the idea that it is a disk.

There is a very important principle in logic called Occam's razor. Basically, it means the simplest explanation is generally correct - or more technically "If a thing can be done adequately by means of one, it is superfluous to do it by means of several; for we observe that nature does not employ two instruments [if] one suffices." (Thomas Aquinus, 13th century).

Yes, it is theoretically possible to have a disk-shaped earth, provided we have:
- A sun that moves on a spiral course, maintaining this by:
- changing direction over time, and
- changing velocity over time, both using some unknown mechanism, presumably supernatural
- A sun that projects a complex pattern of light, and changes the pattern of light over the year, again by an unknown and presumably supernatural mechanism
- A sun that somehow actually appears to be in a completely different location to what it actually is for some areas of the world at some times, so seems to be in multiple places at once depending on where you are looking at it from.
- A moon that moves on a similarly complex course and appears in similarly deceptive positions, using an unknown mechanism
- Planets that move on even more complex courses, changing both direction and velocity over time, again using unknown mechanisms.
Etc. This all gets very very complicated very rapidly.

It is also theoretically possible to have a globe-shaped earth, provided you have:
- A single static light source.
- A earth that rotates and travels on an established path, never being shaken from its course
- A moon that orbits on a similarly constant path
This is far simpler.

So, when we look at the sky, it looks like we are on an earth that is a globe. That is the message YHWH is sending to us, through the way everything appears, so that is what most people conclude.

If the earth is flat (which it could be, all things are possible with YHWH), then YHWH has designed an incredibly complex system of lighting and planetary motion, that just happens to perfectly simulate what it would look like if the earth were actually a globe. He is trying to trick us into thinking it's a globe. Why would He do that? Why wouldn't everything actually behave in a way that made better sense if the earth were flat? Why would he put us in a bubble and project a lie at us? What type of God would He be?
I really am a big fan of using human observation to prove biblical concepts, but what I am most hungry for is a biblical basis for believing the earth is a globe. I used to have one, but it broke. I would happily replace it if I can be shown how the consensus of scripture more accurately describes a globe earth.
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Romans 1:18-20 said:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
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What YHWH does is "plain" and "clearly perceived". He created this world for us to observe, and understand, and it would be clearly obvious. And the clearest, plainest understanding when we study it is that it behaves as if it is a globe - so it is a globe. If it is not, then what He is revealing is not plain and clearly perceived, but complex and a deliberate smoke-and-mirrors act.

YHWH never lies (Titus 1:2). If the earth is flat, but behaves as a globe, He is lying to us through the things He has made.
 
Ok, now I'm going to go even further around the bend, to explain why I believe you should not be around the bend... :D

The church for many years has been predicting a one-world-religion in the last days as the clearest interpretation of various aspects of Biblical prophecy. How on earth do you achieve a one-world religion, on a planet full of atheists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews...? It seems impossible. But it's actually very simple, and secular media has been pushing us towards this for a long time. Here's the simple script:

"Aliens did it all. They planted humans on earth (panspermia, which many atheists already believe). They taught them technology. They were worshipped as gods. All religions stem from different aliens teaching different groups of people different things. All differences in religion are simply due to misunderstandings. Now the aliens have returned. Here are the true original facts. Here is how it has been distorted over time. Here is how we can run the world as a true global harmonious community."

Aliens don't exist, cannot exist, based on the basic Biblical salvation message. But a fake alien origin for everything can unite all religions including atheism. There is no other way to do it. The media has been pushing for this for many years. Now the Vatican is pushing for unity between all religions, and saying that they would theoretically be willing to baptise an alien (seriously, they have actually said that, why on earth would you even say it?).

There is a great deception coming. This won't be exactly right, I'm not perfect. But theoretically, what if it is?

Aliens can only exist if the earth is a globe and the standard model of cosmology is correct. Now, you end up with a group of deep-thinking Christians who believe the earth is flat, there are no other planets (just small lights in the sky simulating them), and space travel is completely impossible. They believe this is absolutely foundational to the Bible, and if it is wrong then God is a liar. Then, "aliens" appear (very convincingly, using Satan's supernatural powers foretold to be used in the last days to make everyone believe the antichrist). They look real. Clearly, space travel does exist. Clearly, the Bible is a lie, all Christianity is wrong.

Suddenly, the most fervent believers who you most seriously believed were certainly in the "elect" are the most fervent opponents of Biblical Christianity, and the greatest enthusiasts for the great deception. The impossible has been achieved, a deception has arisen that can deceive "if it were possible, even the elect".

Ponder it. I could say more, I think this is enough though. I'm not saying this is correct. Just that it's plausible, and we need to be very careful not to set ourselves up to have our faith destroyed.
 
The picture does help explain what you're saying. I see that It wouldn't be a mere matter of 'tilting' the light source. I am terribly skeptical regarding the information that is coming out at the South pole, though. Who makes these maps? I'll have to look into it.

I have always been Occam's disciple! Except I apply his razor to scriptural interpretation. If the inerrant God says the earth is immovable and that the sun "hastens", the simplest explanation for me would not be a model in which they only appear to be doing these things when in fact the opposite is happening. I don't have a strong opinion about appearances though, because "it is the Glory of God to conceal a matter"

I wouldn't say that if a thing appears to be other than it is, that God was lying. God may indeed be concealing the matter, for the studious and diligent king to search it out.

I am totally on board with your version of the great deception, the panspermia bit. That's my guess for the great deception too. Buuut I don't follow the logic. You are saying that if a group of people who believe what the bible says, and Satan shows them a complete alien fabrication that appears to contradict it, that these people will immediately lose their faith and switch sides. So far so good.

But I don't see how believing in a globe earth, planets, and space travel will inoculate a person from this particular lie. These are, in fact, necessary principle elements for the lie to be plausible. The people I know would see the president shaking hands with an "extra terrestrial", spit on the ground, and comment "Danged nephilim... I know'd they'd try to get us like this. Come quickly, Lord Jesus". What I've seen of the flat earth crowd leads me to believe none of these people believe the official government version of anything, but somehow this extremely belligerent minority are the most likely to swallow a lie that doesn't even fit their paradigm? As opposed to the majority of Christians that already believe that the universe is a cornucopia of possibly habitable worlds orbiting the innumerable stars in our sky?

These are just my initial thoughts. I will absolutely not fail to ponder and look into everything that you've said here. For myself though, they could zap me with their ray guns, load me into their spaceship, fly me around our totally globular earth and make me observe it, jump to light speed and drop me on their home planet in a galaxy far away and make me live out the rest of my life in their strange alien world learning their language, history, and their sophisticated understanding of the processes of evolution, and I will still trust in Jesus till my dying day. I know in whom I have believed.
 
Those maps show the daylight hours at any point on the earth, all you need to do to confirm them is to check if they look right at your latitude, and ring a few other people around the world to check the hours are what they're seeing at their latitudes also. But it's pretty solidly understood. I can assure you that, right now, in New Zealand, we are in autumn, the days were longer in December and will be shorter in June, if that helps you to confirm that the map is correct! Although I could be lying as part of the deception too of course. :D

Regarding Antarctica, thousands of people go down there every year, and New Zealand is the base for a range of countries to work from, the USA's antarctic expedition is actually based in Christchurch, not far from where I live. I know several people who have been there. They all head down during the summer period, so they can work in daylight, and all confirm that there is 24-hour sunlight. This isn't a conspiracy, you can't fake that.

You mentioned Enoch earlier, and I'm a big fan of that book, as it explains where demons come from which the rest of the Bible does not (glad you're already onto the nephilim issue). If it was good enough to be cited in scripture, it's good enough for me. Enoch is often cited to back up the flat-earth theory. However, Enoch states that the sun comes out a window in the east, moves across the sky, then goes back into a window in the west when it sets (as I recall from when I last read it). But the standard flat-earth view is that the sun goes round and round over top of the disk of the earth and never disappears through a window at all. Enoch's illustration would make the whole earth in day or the whole earth in night, the flat-earthers of today recognise that day and night are simultaneous. So, was Enoch wrong? Or was he just speaking in allegorical terms? If Enoch was saying an allegory, could not every other mention of the earth being immovable be allegory?

Anyway, the Bible doesn't exactly say the earth is immovable. It says it is firm / stable / established (kuwn), and cannot be shaken / dislodged (mowt) - 1 Chr 16:30. This is equally compatible with the concept of earth being in a stable orbit that it cannot be dislodged from. There is no need to ignore our own eyes and have blind faith in an interpretation of scripture that disagrees with what we see - scripture is equally able to be interpreted to be consistent with what we see, and consistent with what Occam's razor when applied to the natural world would conclude.

Unfortunately it's too cloudy today to get my level out and see all the way to the horizon, I'm waiting for the sun to come out and give me a good view for you!
 
Uriel perplexes me with the windows (my version says gates) talk, and well... most of what he tells Enoch there. I cannot for the life of me think of what his massively detailed (and mind numbingly boring.... not that I'm criticizing) teaching on the movement of the sun and moon is supposed to be an allegory for.

One of my criteria for fully accepting any earth and sky model is whether or not it conforms to Uriel's doctrine, and to my knowledge nobody has an adequate one yet. Even if I knew the spiritual or moral or prophetic significance's of all the gates, directions, and durations in those 8 chapters... I would probably still believe them to be literally true as well. There's enough in the bible that I have failed to take literally enough that I've decided to take everything literal unless there is a compelling (biblical) reason not to.

I'll admit... this approach has led me to believe strange things in the past. Like I thought that calling the beasts of Revelation anything other than Godzilla style monsters was a cop out, because I didn't know Daniel very well. So there's always room for me to have gotten the cart before the horse again...

But those are the errors that I've deliberately chosen. I would much rather face the Judgment as Amelia Bedelia, having taken things too literally, than be accused of any other misstep of hermaneutics. I have no idea if I spelled that right.
 
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