Did God Create a Flat Earth?

The question came years ago from a colleague of mine who’d recently returned from a speaking engagement where he encountered a fellow who had printed out a large stack of evidence he claimed proved the earth that God created was flat.

Asking for more details about the encounter, my colleague assured me the flat-earth believer was also a fellow young-earth creationist. This was extremely surprising to me, as up to that point (over 10 years ago), I’d only heard Bible skeptics use the accusation of flat-earth belief as an anti-science slur towards creationists—I never thought there was any sort of identifiable group of Christians that held to such views.

Equating belief in a flat earth as similar to belief in biblical creation has been a favorite tactic for atheists as a cudgel to discredit and demean opposition to the story of evolution for quite a while. A typical example and smearing of these beliefs came from staunch atheist Daniel Dennett:

“ . . . insist on teaching your children falsehoods—that the earth is flat, that “Man” is not a product of evolution by natural selection—then you must expect, at the very least, that those of us who have freedom of speech will feel free to describe your teachings as the spreading of falsehoods, and will attempt to demonstrate this to your children at our earliest opportunity.”1

A standard comeback to skeptics I used around this encounter was pointing out (according to a 2011 Live Science article) that the head of the Flat Earth Society was an evolutionist and believed in global (read discal) warming!

The Flat Earth Society is an active organization currently led by a Virginian man named Daniel Shenton. Though Shenton believes in evolution and global warming, he and his hundreds, if not thousands, of followers worldwide also believe that the Earth is a disc that you can fall off of.2

So, while my colleague and I chatted briefly about it at the time, we both quickly dismissed it as a weird anomaly, only to have the same type of experience occur for me just two weeks later!

Becoming More Commonplace

Since then, I have witnessed the flat-earth beliefs grow in leaps and bounds; I have been billeted by folks with such beliefs while on speaking tours, have chatted with people in my home church who held to it, and engaged in online discussions with flat-earthers as well.

I personally do not believe that either Scripture or science supports such a belief. But I’ve dialogued with many who do, and let’s say it’s been an interesting experience over the past few years.

I’ve had several slurs sent my way from the flat-earth crowd; the favorite of my wife and I is when one of my detractors called me “spinning ball boy.” As one can imagine, that really stings to this day . . . (yes, that was a joke). I have also been accused of being non-biblical, a science denier, anti-God, Satan’s tool, spiritually deceived, and even a heretic.

I should mention at this point that just like any generalized group (such as young earth biblical creationists), flat earth believers are not monolithic in their views. I assume many are gracious and charitable in their exchanges (although personally, I have mostly experienced a rather negative dialog), so I do not wish that anyone with flat-earth beliefs reading this think I have painted them all with the same brush.

I freely admit that I have met other biblical creationists that were rather mean-spirited in their approach, and I have seen some express belief in evidence for creation that I do not find credible. Let’s face it; there are bad actors in every camp we could mention.

However, perhaps because the term “flat-earther” has become such an unkind moniker, so synonymous with claiming someone is perhaps backward, naïve, or downright unintelligent, it seems that many people who have come to accept that worldview (pun intended) are rather forthright, shall we say, when attempting to present their case.

Let’s Talk About It

I, however, believe that healthy, respectful dialog should always be maintained—especially among Christians. We are to be known for our love for one another (John 13:35) as we are all part of God’s family. So even though I disagree with flat-earth believers, I hope the following points against their views can be considered respectfully by them as we should be able to agree to disagree.

I want to emphasize that much of what I’ll discuss here comes from personal experience, so my points may not relate to others who have had different conversations with flat earth proponents.

To be honest, I don’t think this article will be of much help to those fully committed to flat earth beliefs, as I have found (for the most part) once they’ve embraced the concept fully, they are rather entrenched in their thinking, and most are unwilling to look at opposing arguments (again, I’m sure not all fall under this).

So I intended this article for those on the fence and who want to consider the topic carefully before perhaps descending the rabbit hole of countless hours of YouTube videos and popping out the other side fully on fire for the idea of a flat earth.

And in this brief article, I won’t be digging into the theological and scientific disagreements so much—rather, I’ll be dealing with three specific arguments I have heard repeatedly from flat-earth proponents that I hope to show aren’t valid.

The first argument in flat-earth favor is that those beliefs were originally taught by the church and have been corrupted away since; argument number two is the belief that there is a vast conspiracy to hide that the earth is flat from people; argument number three involves the thought that convincing people the earth is round keeps them from believing in God.

And again, if you are reading this and believe in a flat earth but don’t use or believe in these arguments, I am not trying to tar every flat-earther with the same brush and set up a straw man here. I am just drawing from my personal experience to address the points I have heard from many, not all, so I’m not accusing all flat-earth proponents of holding these views.

So, let’s begin with number one—the claim that the church originally taught the earth was flat and that the practice has been corrupted in modern times.

The Flat-Earth Myth

Despite what is commonly thought today by many secularists and some flat-earth proponents, the overwhelmingly vast majority of the Christian church has never held to the idea of a flat earth. The common fable that the church taught the earth was flat throughout the Middle Ages was invented by two atheistic skeptics, Andrew White and John Draper, in the late nineteenth century.

Even famous atheistic evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould (obviously a hostile witness to Christian beliefs in general, and specifically creationists) confirmed what historian Jeffrey Russell’s definitive study on flat earth titled Inventing the Flat Earth revealed:

“There never was a period of ‘flat earth darkness’ among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology.”3

“All major medieval scholars,” of course, include scholars within Christendom, where thousands of Christian scientists, theologians, and artists of all socio-economic levels unambiguously affirmed that the earth was spherical in nature.

Many today have bought into a very simplistic faux history surrounding the topic of humankind’s understanding of the earth’s shape, with most in the West being taught that everyone thought the earth was flat until the time of Christopher Columbus when everyone realized it wasn’t—it was a sphere.

But this is patently false. Neither the Bible nor the church taught that the earth is flat, but this alternate history is prevalent in the flat-earth community. Interestingly, White and Draper invented the “medieval Christians believed the earth was flat” myth to promote the story of evolution! The promotional blurb on the Amazon listing of Inventing the Flat Earth outlines as much after establishing:

“Neither Christopher Columbus, nor his contemporaries, believed the earth was flat.”4

It explains how the idea was perpetuated.

. . . the error was first propagated in the 1820s and 1830s… He [Russel] shows how later day historians followed these original mistakes, and how this snowball effect grew to outrageous proportions in the late nineteenth century, when Christians opposed to Darwinism were labelled as similar to Medieval Christians who (allegedly) thought the earth was flat.5

The explanation of why these beliefs still linger is also noteworthy.

. . . this curious illusion persists today, firmly established with the help of the media, textbooks, teachers--even noted historians.6

Russell demonstrates that out of the hundreds of theologians that argued the earth was round, the leading Christian proponents of flat earth theory were only two rather obscure figures named Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes.7

Meanwhile, medieval church scholars and scientists such as Roger Bacon, John Buridan, the Venerable Bede, Nicholas Oresme, John of Sacrobosco, Thomas Aquinas, and many, many more not only believed in an orb-shaped earth, but studied, wrote, and taught about it as well.

So, while a flat-earth believer might attempt to argue that perhaps the Christian church was somehow corrupted away from belief in a flat earth very early on, it’s simply not reasonable (or just plain honest) to say sweeping statements like “the majority of Christians believed the earth was flat in the past,” or that “the modern church has been corrupted away from its former belief in a flat earth,” based on the common revisionist history arguments mentioned earlier.

In summary, Christian flat-earth advocates who promote the belief that the church was somehow corrupted away from flat earth and that it was once commonplace in Christendom should understand they are participating in propping up fake news advanced by atheists.

The Mother of All Conspiracies

The second claim I have heard almost every time I’ve engaged with a flat-earth believer is the proposal of a vast conspiracy being perpetrated upon the earth’s citizenry to convince them the earth is round rather than its true shape (flat).

And almost to a T, whenever I’ve voiced doubt—and when they know I’m involved in creation apologetics—they immediately equate the story of evolution to conspiracy level as well, stating something like, “Well, you believe that people are deceived about evolution, don’t you?” And this reveals a real misunderstanding of what we are talking about regarding deception, false beliefs, and conspiracy theories.

You see, I used to be an evolutionist. However, when I say I used to believe in evolution—I really believed in evolution! I wasn’t going to bed at night twirling my mustache thinking, “Hehehe—I know evolution is a fraud, but I’m going to keep trying to deceive people into thinking it’s real.”

I believe the reason most people believe in evolution is the same as me—they have been overwhelmingly taught that it’s a fact and science and have accepted it as such. This is the reason many Christians have accepted evolution, for example. It’s not a conspiracy in the sense that they profess belief in something they truly know is false—i.e., they are lying about it.

When creation apologetic ministries like AiG expose fraudulent examples used to promote evolution, like the famous Haeckel embryo drawings, we aren’t saying they were made by someone who didn’t truly believe in evolution but forged them to promote evolution despite that. Rather, we are saying some people believe in evolution to such a degree that they are willing to lie and fabricate evidence to promote it because of the strength of their belief!

Atheistic professors and scientists that promote evolution have bought into the concept of naturalism (nature is all there is). So they operate according to methodological naturalism and conclude evolution is a fact and, therefore, God doesn’t exist. But they truly believe in evolution—they aren’t lying about it.

No, when flat-earthers say there is a conspiracy to convince people that the earth is round, they mean that people are actively lying. And we’re not talking just a few people. We are, in fact, talking about millions and millions of people worldwide and throughout history who, despite them believing the contrary, are fully committed to convincing the rest of the world’s population that the earth is round rather than flat.

And remember, that group would have included thousands and thousands of professing Christians who were willing to lie, despite knowing God condemns it. It would also have included Christians who are/were biblical creationists willing to lie specifically about how God created.

It is truly overwhelming when you ponder the vast scope of this supposed operation and the sheer breadth of time, money, planning, and coordination for this conspiracy to be real. Consider how many airline pilots, stewardesses, air traffic controllers, satellite manufacturers, astronauts, GPS software designers, smart phone makers, scientists, engineers, and a myriad of other occupations that must all be involved!

And not just them, but what about their spouses? Do they keep it from them or let them in on the secret as well? What about their mom and dad, their kids, and their best friends? How do you get into the club in the first place—what are the criteria? Do they recruit you when you are young? Who are “they,” by the way? I’m not trying to sound overly facetious here—I really want to know!

Thinking about questions like this reminds me of a time I was discussing the earth’s shape with a flat-earther—their idea was that the continents were centered in a spherical, disc-shaped earth and that the ice sheets surrounded the outer perimeter of that circle. (Caveat: I understand not all flat-earthers hold to the same model—in this instance, I was asking about what they believed in particular.)

When I asked them the hypothetical question as to what would happen if I got in a boat and sailed to the edge of the earth to prove the earth was flat, they said, “That’s when the guys with the machine guns come out.”

I was confused about what they were saying, so I asked further, and they implied that they believed there were people assigned around the entire perimeter of the outer ice wall that would murder anyone that discovered the secret and could take the information back to the rest of the world!

Guys with machine guns? How many guys? Who feeds these guys, and how do they get paid? Who are their families, and how do they get to work? Yet they held their ground. Such is the level of conspiracy thinking flat-earthers sometimes come to from pressing the natural outworking of their beliefs.

For example, flat-earthers deny that there are any satellites or true astronauts that have gone into outer space. We haven’t traveled to the moon, there’s no International Space Station, and all the photos and videos of earth and space are fakes. I’ve had flat-earthers declare that NASA projects images into the sky to trick people and that it’s a sham organization that has lied about everything it has supposedly done.

Truly, suppose the flat-earthers that hold to this level of conspiracy are, in fact, correct. It must be the most expensive, ambitious, multi-generational, and sophisticatedly coordinated operation that could ever be imagined.

Remember, this kind of ultra-coordinated deception, supposedly perpetrated by millions upon billions of other people, was also all apparently done before the invention of the internet and, for many flat-earthers, before the telephone, the automobile, or the airplane was invented.

The resources and problems involved in planning, communicating, and carrying it out globally without such real-time communication or trans-continental travel would have been truly staggering!

Which then begs the ultimate question—why?

What Motivates This Supposed Conspiracy?

After many years of discussing the topic of a flat earth with believers, I realize now that most will not be swayed by the scientific arguments, and many have waved away my objections surrounding the impossibility of such a vast conspiracy being carried out throughout the ages as me just being naïve.

So, I usually cut to the chase now and simply ask, “Why? Why would some nebulous group spend all of this time and money in order to hoodwink the world’s population about the shape of the earth?” And the overwhelming response I have received is the demonstrably false claim, “To turn people away from God and belief in the Bible!”

The reason I say “demonstrably false” is the fact that the person asking the question (myself) is a former atheistic-evolutionist-turned-Christian creationist and someone who never had the topic of the earth’s shape come up as a question regarding faith in Jesus or trust in Scripture during my entire conversion process or afterward.

My friend, Danny Faulkner (a PhD astronomer on staff with AiG–US), has interacted with the flat-earth movement much more than I have and has had similar experiences regarding this claim. In his blog article discussing the second flat-earth conference he attended, he mentions a conference speaker (Garcia) on one of the scheduled Q&A panels opening with a statement saying, “flat earth had everything to do with salvation.”8 But it simply doesn’t.

For example, in a discussion recently with our small group Bible study my wife and I hold in our home, I brought the topic of flat earth up with our folks. Not a single person (the majority being mature Christian believers who’ve read their Bibles cover to cover numerous times and continue to do so) had even considered the shape of the earth to be other than round and were surprised to hear that there was a large contingent of Christians that have adopted flat-earth ideas.

Considering my pastor and elders in my current church (and the former churches I’ve attended), my colleagues at Answers in Genesis, other ministry leaders I know and interact with here in Canada (such as our good friends at Bible Discovery TV or the Cross Current), and the vast majority of solid, Bible-believing Christians I know have never even considered the idea of a flat earth, let alone being a barrier to faith. How can flat-earthers claim that this “hidden knowledge” is a barrier to salvation issue with a straight face?

Also, the fact that all of the flat-earth believing Christians I’ve dialogued with made a profession of faith and called themselves Christians before them accepting flat-earth beliefs demonstrates its weakness (although I’m sure in a world with 8+ billion people, someone out there likely has a testimony that discovering the earth is flat caused them to accept Jesus).

And yet, I have honestly never heard another answer from a Christian flat-earth believer regarding how the motivation behind a conspiracy to promote a globe-shaped earth would be enacted, and yet it can be so easily shown as false that it seems incredibly contrived.

The best they might say is that they believe it might turn people away from God—but they’re not remotely close to having a large group of people testify to that claim.

I can’t even imagine what a non-Christian flat-earther might propose as a reason for this supposed incredible scheme. But I speak from personal experience, and have never spoken to one about it. However, the final conundrum seems to be this—how does a Christian who is a flat-earther explain the following:

If this coordinated effort to deceive the world into thinking the world is round is to convince people away from God and the authority of the Bible, then how is it that it includes thousands of professing believers in God—and Jesus Christ specifically as Lord and Savior—perpetrating the hoax? How are these not completely at odds with one another for that large segment of participants?

Why would Christians who, by definition, want others to accept Christ participate in an enterprise designed to make people distrust God and his Word? The only answer I could give is that they weren’t truly believers at all!

Christians reading this: seriously consider what you would be saying. Do you really want to go there? Considering the warning Jesus gave in Scripture regarding anger and calling your brother a fool, how much worse is declaring thousands who claimed Christ as their Savior to be heretics and false Christians?

“But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.” (Matthew 5:22)

Flat-Earth Arguments from Science and Theology

Now, if you are new to this topic and wish to dive more deeply into it beyond what I’ve mentioned here, I would recommend the following resources from my friend and fellow AiG speaker mentioned earlier.

Dr. Danny Faulkner holds a PhD in astronomy from Indiana University and was a university professor, teaching for over 26 years. He also has a master’s in science from Clemson University and serves as editor of the Creation Research Society Quarterly.

Danny is a researcher and author, having published over 100 scientific papers in various journals; he has also written many articles dealing with this issue, having attended many flat-earth conferences in the true spirit of having a good understanding of what the best and most robust flat-earth arguments are, and then engaging with not only the scientific arguments flat-earth proponents often bring forth but the biblical arguments from Christian flat-earth believers as well.

He has even written a 385-page book called Falling Flat and has produced an hour-long video presentation tackling this issue. For those on both sides of the debate looking for a good scientific analysis of flat-earth arguments and a sound biblical refutation of flat-earth arguments, I believe he will do a far better job than I could in answering those types of questions. A keyword search of “flat earth” on the AiG website will yield many of his excellent articles.

Final Thoughts

My final thoughts to fellow believers in Christ are cautionary. Please carefully consider whether this idea of a flat earth really makes sense before you buy into it. Get answers from credible sources before throwing support behind an idea that was primarily begun by atheistic groups bent on mocking Christians and discrediting the Bible’s authority.

In my opinion, unlike the biblical creationist movement, where we’ve received countless testimonies documenting how people came to trust Genesis 1-11 as real history invigorated their faith, this flat-earth movement has certainly not contributed to the cause of Christ.