Flatoberfest 2023

As many of you probably know, since 2016, I have been studying and reporting on the flat-earth movement. I have written numerous blogs and articles about the flat-earth movement on the Answers in Genesis website, and in 2019, I published a book about flat-earth claims. As part of my research, I attended and reported on the Flat Earth International Conferences (FEICs) in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Unfortunately, the FEICs were discontinued after 2019, but a new conference called Flatoberfest soon arose. I didn’t attend the early Flatoberfests. Part of the reason was that I had other commitments at the times of those meetings (October is often a busy month for me). Another reason was that the programs of the early Flatoberfests were very different from the FEICs. They seemed more like arts-and-crafts fairs with what seemed to be New Age presentations. I wasn’t interested in that sort of thing. However, this year’s Flatoberfest moved to a convention center, and the announced speakers and program seemed to resemble the FEICs more, so I decided to attend. As with the FEICs, there were no attendance figures released. My perception was that there were a few hundred people at the meeting. The attendance seemed about the same as the first FEIC but a little less than the second and third FEICs.

As with the FEICs, most of the people treated me very well. One person said some unkind things to me shortly before the program began the first day, but that was the exception. Mark Sargent was the emcee. Mark spotted me when I arrived early on the first day, so he introduced himself. We spoke for a while, and it was a very pleasant exchange. Cami Knodel, widow of Bob Knodel who died earlier this year, seemed happy to see me and said she wanted to talk to me. I had talked to Bob at two of the FEICs, but this was the first time Cami and I spoke to one another. She is a very pleasant person, and I enjoyed talking to her. We met up later, and we talked for about an hour. She tried very hard to get me to see her perspective, and it was a productive time as she cleared up a misunderstanding I had about her work. She was surprised that I knew about much of her work by watching/listening to her presentations on the GLOBEBUSTERS YouTube channel. I also briefly talked to Kyle Adams, someone with whom I have had some sharp exchanges on social media. However, our brief interaction was pleasant. I also introduced myself to a few other speakers and prominent flat-earthers in attendance.

I spoke even more to flat-earthers who are not well known but were simply attendees of the conference. There were several professing Christian flat-earthers at the conference, and they are of great interest to me. I had dinner one day with several of them. Some of them were surprised that I don’t believe the big bang model. Flat-earthers often assume that if one believes the earth is spherical that one also believes in all sorts of evolutionary models. I find this a bit odd because the Christian flat-earthers didn’t believe evolutionary ideas when they thought the earth was spherical, so why would it be strange to find Christian globe-earthers who reject evolutionary theories? After all, they often say that they were once like me.

This brings up an important point. The FEICs included speakers who would identify as Christian, but I don’t think any of the speakers of this Flatoberfest identify as Christian. That had to be discouraging to the professed Christians in attendance. In a private conversation, one of the organizers of Flatoberfest opined that the New Age element of the meeting probably kept some Christians away. Since professing Christians comprise a significant portion of the flat-earth movement, I would advise organizers of future Flatoberfests and any other flat-earth meetings to include more presentations from Christian flat-earthers.

Mark Sargent

The meeting kicked off with Mark Sargent making a few comments and introductions. Mark likes to dox himself by giving out his address, phone number, and email address. Partway through this, David Weiss (who is a prominent flat-earther but didn’t speak at the conference) called Mark’s cell phone, and Mark put the conversation on speaker, close to the microphone so that all could hear. David asked why Mark was talking to Professor Danny Faulkner, reiterating that I was at the meeting but not a flat-earther. They proceeded to have some fun at my expense, but it was good-natured and genuinely funny, so I laughed along with the gag. The people sitting at my table got a charge out of the routine and my reaction to it.

Mark then entertained questions from the audience, so people lined up at a microphone perhaps a dozen feet from where I was seated. One of the people asked a question that involved me, and Mark pointed out how close I was to him and suggested that he ask me directly (he didn’t). Eventually, the man sitting next to me leaned over and asked what they had against me. I laughed and told him that I am not a flat-earther and that they were just poking me a bit. As it turns out, he wasn’t a flat-earther either—he was there for the same reason I was, to learn more about the flat-earth movement. What is the probability that he sat down next to perhaps the only serious non-flat-earther at the meeting? I say “serious non-flat-earther” because there were some trolls at the meeting. For instance, one of the people in line to ask Mark questions had a series of questions about his strained relationship with his girlfriend (he said he is a flat-earther and she isn’t). Many of us at the time thought that he was a phony, and sure enough, before the meeting was over, he made a scene, which was recorded by his video man. He soon posted his escapade on YouTube. This sort of thing went on at every FEIC too. That is so unnecessary. Simply mocking and ridiculing people you disagree with accomplishes nothing.

Jeran Campanella

Next up was Jeran Campanella, who has a popular flat-earth YouTube channel. Jeran asked if we could trust anything that comes from space agencies. This extreme skepticism is common among flat-earthers. Many flat-earthers credit NASA with most astronomical facts, such as the earth’s distance from the sun, though NASA had nothing to do with gaining much of this knowledge. Jeran criticized the foundation of science, saying that it had no rational basis. He said that the present and future are like the past. This reference to and criticism of uniformitarianism seems to have been borrowed from creationists. Flat-earthers often use arguments that creationists have been using for years, though not as effectively as creationists use them. For instance, there are no uniformitarian assumptions in determining the earth’s shape or measuring the earth’s size and distance from the sun.

Jeran presented a brief review of the history of how courts handled photographic evidence. He said that, at first, courts did not accept photographic evidence in trials but eventually came around to admit photographic evidence. The concern was how reliable photographic evidence is, especially considering that photographs can be manipulated. Before digital photography, an expert could easily determine whether a photograph had been altered, but now, it is nearly impossible for experts to detect well-done digital editing. Jeran asked whether photographs are now sufficient evidence to establish facts, and he concluded that they are not. That strikes me as a strange standard for a flat-earther, seeing that flat-earthers often use photographs and videos to argue their case and often demand images for evidence from those who disagree with them.

Jeran mentioned parallax, saying that it can be checked on earth, but apparently, he thinks that parallax applied to objects not on the earth cannot be checked. That emasculates all parallax measurements (including those on earth) unless one checks the distances determined by parallax by some other means. But if some other means are used, then why use parallax in the first place? Can Jeran give examples of parallax measurements that were shown to be wrong by measuring distance by other means? I don’t think he can. Simply expressing personal incredulity hardly amounts to refutation. But what is the alternative for flat-earthers? Parallax measurements are real, and if the distances they imply are real, then the (flat earth) zetetic model cannot be true.

Jeran said that the Hubble relation cannot be true because there can be no Doppler motion in space where there is no medium. There is much wrong with this. Technically, cosmological redshifts are not Doppler shifts, though observationally there is no difference between the two. Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism published more than 150 years ago surprisingly provided the medium of light—mutually perpendicular oscillating electric and magnetic fields. Therefore, there is a medium for light, and there can be Doppler shift in otherwise empty space. Finally, this glosses over the fact that for nearly 150 years there has been measured annual periodic Doppler shifts in stars due to the earth’s orbital motion around the sun. I doubt that any flat-earthers know about this; otherwise, they wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss Doppler motions.

Mark Devlin

Next up was Mark Devlin. A DJ, Mark has written several books about satanic influences in the recording industry (Musical Truth, Musical Truth 2, and Musical Truth 3). I’ve heard this sort of thing more than a half century ago from various pastors and other Christian authors. The most egregious example was John Todd, who in the 1970s was spinning fantastic tales about the popular music industry.

Mark’s presentation focused on predictive programming, placing ideas in popular culture to influence and condition people, a concept credited to Alan Watt. Mark gave many examples of what he thought was predictive programming. One example was the 1979 Supertramp album Breakfast in America, where a mirror image of a portion of the cover looks like the World Trade Center attack on September 11, 2001. Another example was a 1998 Prince song that included a warning that Osama bin Laden would attack the United States three years before 9/11. Mark went on to discuss the deaths of several singers and musicians, suggesting that they were killed because they knew about and participated in predictive programming and the powers that be considered them risks of exposing the various agendas promoted by predictive programming. Examples Mark gave included Prince, Michael Jackson, George Michael, and David Bowie, though Mark suggested that some of these deaths were faked, with the supposed deceased assuming new identities.

Mark also touched upon various conspiracy theories, such as COVID-19 being a hoax. He cited some movies and television show episodes prior to 2020 about pandemics that he said were predictive programming to prepare people for the COVID-19 “plandemic.” Mark gave a couple of examples of predictive programming references in popular culture with respect to the Apollo moon landings. One was a clip from the 1971 James Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever, in which Sean Connery as Agent 007 steals a moon buggy from what appears to be a movie set where an Apollo moon landing was being faked. Another example was the 1992 R.E.M. song and music video “Man on the Moon.” I found this to be very confusing. This movie and this song happened after the first moon landings. If they were part of a predictive programming project, wouldn’t it require that they be released prior to the Apollo moon landings? Furthermore, since this movie scene and this video possibly could be construed as casting doubt whether the moon landings actually occurred, then why would the powers that be want to condition the public to disbelieve the moon landings when they expended so much effort to believe they were real? I don’t think Mark thought this through carefully.

Mark gave several examples from popular music of what he thought was predictive programming for globe belief. These included the Beatles’ 1967 song and video “The Fool on the Hill,” Head East’s 1975 song “Flat as a Pancake,” and the Eurythmics’ 1983 song and video “Sweet Dreams,” among others. Mark repeated flat-earther claims of the number 33 showing up in numerous places. The significance of this number is related either to Freemasonry or the number 666, or both. Examples included Buzz Aldrin and Elvis Presley flashing (what Mark thought was) a 666 sign, the earth’s tilt (expressed as the complement of the 23.4-degree tilt), the number of vertebrae humans have, the earth’s orbital velocity (66,600 mph), the sun’s orbital velocity in the galaxy (reported by Mark to be 333,000 mph, but this is not correct, so I have no idea where that value came from), and the age of Jesus when he died. How this is predictive programming is a mystery to me.

Austin Whitsitt

Austin Whitsitt spoke next. I discussed Austin in two blogs last year. Austin is one of the few flat-earthers producing new material. Austin speaks quickly and confidently, and he uses many technical-sounding terms. Many flat-earthers find Austin very convincing, though I doubt that any of them truly understand what Austin says. Many critics of the flat-earth movement accuse Austin of word salad, but Austin disagrees, claiming that word salad is the use of unrelated words so that they lack syntax. Austin is correct about this. What Austin engages in is more properly known as technobabble, using incomprehensible technical jargon. This practice is captured beautifully by the term “turbo encabulator,” created 80 years ago to describe the overuse of jargon in technical publications. In the 1970s, a man who narrated technical films for General Motors made a hilarious spoof of technobabble while extolling the virtues of the turbo encabulator.

Austin’s technobabble may impress most people, but it is meaningless to those with expertise in the relevant fields. I recently wrote down a few examples of Austin’s technobabble: “centrifugal divergence,” “centripetal convergence,” and “conjugate geometrical expression.” As someone with extensive knowledge of physics and mathematics, these are meaningless things. Austin frequently mentions equipotentials and Gaussian surfaces. These are real things in electromagnetism, though from the way Austin uses them, Austin clearly does not understand their meanings. I couldn’t write down examples from his presentation at Flatoberfest (as I said, Austin speaks quickly), so I don’t recall if he used these terms. A new friend that I met at Flatoberfest managed to write this one down: “The Fibonacci Sequence is a geometric expression of vibrational displacement and pressure mediation.” Terms that I was able to jot down included “torus field,” “harmonic oscillations,” “toroidal vortex flow,” “reciprocation,” “conjugation,” and “block domain wall.” Some of these are real terms in mathematics and physics, but I doubt Austin understands them. Here are a few more terms that make no sense to me: “conjugate geometry,” “charging is the spatial toroidal divergent magnetic aspect,” and “optical convergence.” Michael Toon, who is a critic of the flat-earth movement, tells me that Austin got much of this verbiage from Ken Wheeler, a name that Austin mentioned in his presentation.

Austin said that gravity was debunked more than a century ago. That is hardly the case. This claim merely reflects Austin’s misunderstanding of Newtonian gravity and general relativity. Austin claimed that dark matter and dark energy are bunk. I beg to differ on both dark matter and dark energy. He went on to say that relativity requires dark matter. This is incorrect, for the case of dark matter mostly relies upon Newtonian gravity, not general relativity. That is why the alternative to dark matter is modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND), not modified general relativity, something that Austin mentioned in this context but apparently didn’t see the contradiction in his claim. Austin dismissed the wave-particle duality of modern physics, calling it “stupid.” For that matter, Austin ripped the standard physics definition of energy as the ability to do work.

Austin ventured a little into astronomy. He referred to photographs and videos of badly out-of-focus stars that flat-earthers often take, claiming that these are evidence that stars are caused by sonoluminescence and that stars are not what astronomers say that they are. With the wave of a hand, Austin dismissed that these are out of focus. I’ve been using telescopes regularly for more than a half century. You would think that after all that time I would know what a good focus is and what a bad focus is. Silly me—I should realize that Austin, who may have never used a telescope, knows far more about proper focusing than I ever will.

Austin further claimed that polarization causes the same effect as eclipses. I believe that he got this claim from Cami Knodel. It is false. Related to eclipses, Austin asked how the shadow of the moon can be smaller than the moon and how the shadow of the earth can be smaller than the earth. This is easy to answer, if one realizes that the sun is larger than the earth and moon. Though it is of low quality, I have recorded a video that demonstrates this. For a long time, flat-earthers have repeated the claim that all shadows increase in size with increasing distance. This is true for light sources that are smaller than objects casting shadows. However, it is not true for light sources that are larger than the objects casting shadows. Why haven’t any flat-earthers (such as Austin) tested this for themselves rather than repeating the lie?

Austin brought up the question of how star trails work on a flat earth. Austin explained them with “optical convergence,” another term that makes no sense, though I’m sure nearly all the flat-earthers in attendance thought it did.

Austin also said that all sporadic meteors come from only four points in the sky. Austin has said this before. I have no idea where he got this false notion.

The end of Austin’s talk focused on geocentrism, using a famous quote from Einstein that “no optical experiment” can detect the earth’s motion. Austin and other geocentrists don’t understand what the modifier “optical” means. Flat-earthers don’t seem to realize that an argument for geocentrism is not an argument for a flat earth. While all flat-earthers are geocentrists, not all geocentrists are flat-earthers.

Austin is widely known and respected by flat-earthers (though he has detractors within the flat-earth movement). Many people in attendance gave him a standing ovation.

Jason Lindgren

The final presentation on the first day was by Jason Lindgren. He acknowledged that he drew upon the Mystery Babylon series of books by William Cooper. This sort of thing is sure to be popular with flat-earthers, but it doesn’t directly relate to a flat earth. Symbolism looms large in this sort of topic, and Jason did not disappoint. He referred to symbolism that he saw in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

There were some astronomical problems in this presentation. Jason referred to “precision of the equinoxes.” The correct term is precession of the equinoxes. He also said that the sun is in the constellation Crux (the Southern Cross) in December. The sun is never in the constellation Crux, but the sun is closest to Crux in October, not December. I suspect that Jason meant to say the sun is in the constellation Ophiuchus in December, but I have no idea how he conflated Crux with Ophiuchus.

Jason said some things about the constellation Coma Berenices that came straight out of the “gospel in the stars” created by Francis Rolleston 160 years ago. I’ve examined the gospel in the stars thesis and found it has serious problems. I especially discussed the mess that Rolleston made of the Coma Berenices.

The Second Day

The program on the second day began with a concert that is best described as being New Age. New Age elements were not that prevalent on the first day of Flatoberfest, but they were much more present on the second day.

Ben Balderson

For instance, the first presentation on the second day was on alchemy, and it had many New Age elements. While alchemy is now considered a discredited idea, apparently it still has appeal. While flat-earthers are very open to far-out ideas, I’m not sure how accepting the crowd was of this talk. Ben Balderson led with a pagan notion of creation, a sort of sexual dualism where the father is material, and the mother is immaterial. Frankly, I found much of Ben’s presentation to be incomprehensible.

Dave Murphy

Ben was followed by two presentations from Dave Murphy, a person well-known in the flat-earth community. While perhaps less New Age than Ben’s talk, there still were New Age elements. Dave began with references to The Matrix trilogy of movies, in which humans, in a sort of prison, are fed a version of reality. Dave said that the world uses language to modify our interpretation of reality. There was more about this a little later in Dave’s presentation.

Dave said that the Nephilim of Genesis 6:4 resulted from 200 angels that wandered down to Mount Hermon and impregnated women, thus introducing a wicked, corrupted bloodline. He noted that Mount Hermon is at latitude 33 degrees north and at longitude 33 degrees east of Paris. There’s that number 33 again. I wondered what significance this had before modern times when latitude and angles were defined in such a way as to make the latitude of Mount Hermon 33 degrees. Even more important, why does it matter that the longitude of Mount Hermon be expressed with respect to Paris (the standard reference is Greenwich)? With this sort of loose interpretation, one could make almost anything out of anything. For instance, I just checked—my desk at work is 33 steps from the printer/copier. I wonder what that means. Or consider this: I entered my first and last name on this website, and it quickly generated several ways that my name can be ciphered into 666 using the simple substitution of A = 1, B = 2, etc. Oh, and Dave Murphy works too.

Dave then gave some traits of the corrupted bloodlines: excess body hair, tails, lack of melanin, blue eyes, and Rh-negative blood types. Uh-oh. I fit a few of those traits. Dave claimed that the corrupted bloodline ended up as the ruling class, running countries and owning all the banks. The corrupted bloodline is cunning and wicked, carrying out wars, mass murder, genocide, and owning all the pharmaceutical companies. Quoting from the (non-canonical) book of 1 Enoch, Dave said that when members of the corrupted bloodline die, their spirits can’t go anywhere and hence inhabit things. Quoting Genesis 6:12 about all flesh being corrupted, Dave concluded that Noah’s wife was corrupted too, but Noah and his son Shem were not. He also said that Esau was corrupted but that Jacob was not.

Dave began his discussion of languages by saying that the oldest alphabet, paleo-Hebrew, is a language of pictures. He further said that paleo-Hebrew is right-brained and that our brains think in a right-brained manner naturally. Dave then brought up the confusion of languages in Genesis 11:6–7. David contrasted Western languages with paleo-Hebrew, saying that they are left-brained, emphasizing the logical, symbolic, and abstract. This gave rise to Greek philosophy, a system of logical, left-brained thinking, but this is Nephilim thinking, emphasizing control, regulation, rules, and making order out of chaos. Dave criticized our education system as being 16–20 years of training to live in our left brains when our natural tendency is to live in our right brains. He then said that English is two languages. He gave examples of words, such as cure, suffer, and doctor, that have two very different, even contradictory meanings. Dave concluded that English is a programming language for the human mind. Considering the haphazard way that English came into existence, this is a difficult claim to accept. I suppose that Dave would respond that English was cleverly designed over the ages by evil forces beyond human control.

Dave began the second part of his presentation with clips from two movies, Michael Douglas in The Game and Harrison Ford in Regarding Henry. He also included allusions to several things, such as Schrodinger’s cat and Roger Bannister running the mile in less than four minutes. Dave dispensed several bits of advice. I’ll put them in quotes, though they may not be exact quotes. “There is always a solution—find it.” “Change your data processing rate—it will slow down time.” “Create your own reality.” “We are part of a larger whole—live like a cell in a body.” “Find your purpose.” “The cold, dog-eat-dog world is an illusion.” “The big secret is that you’re going to die—life is about doing the right thing, even if it costs you your life.” While I could agree with some of these quotations with clarification, the advice Dave dispensed in his conclusion was diametrically opposed to the biblical worldview. “You weren’t born in original sin.” “Hell is here—wicked remains.” “The idea of heaven is here.” “Heaven and hell are here.”

I note that none of what Dave said is directly related to the earth’s shape. However, with the conspiratorial bent that flat-earthers have, much of what Dave said was eagerly accepted by the audience. Many in attendance gave Dave a standing ovation when he finished.

Amanda Vollmer

The next presentation was the most disturbing to me. Early in her presentation, Amanda Vollmer said that she has a doctorate in medicine. Some might infer, then, that she is an MD. But I thought it was odd that she worded her degree that way, so I looked up her biography. Sure enough, her doctorate is from the Canadian College of Naturopathic Medicine. Naturopathy is a form of alternative medicine that is not usually considered credible by the medical profession, except in some minor areas like allergies and chronic pain. I note that what Amanda does and what she spoke about is not related to the earth’s shape. I suppose that she has gained some following among flat-earthers because she believes the earth is flat, and flat-earthers are susceptible to all sorts of alternative explanations and practices.

Amanda spoke only for a little while, devoting most of her time to answering questions from the audience. I will briefly mention some of the things that Amanda taught in her session, either directly or indirectly through answering questions. Of course, she opined that COVID-19 is not a disease, something that is widely believed by flat-earthers. But if COVID-19 is not a disease, then what is it? I don’t recall that Amanda answered that question, but it doesn’t matter because opinions about the nature of COVID-19 among flat-earthers are broad. When asked what disease is, Amanda said that it is the result of bad food. She rejects the germ theory of disease. She further said that viruses don’t exist. She claimed that viruses have never been isolated. This has a parallel to flat-earth arguments involving science—flat-earthers often claim that many scientific facts and theories have never been proven (gravity is a good example). Amanda also mentioned “harmonic resonance” as a vehicle for transmitting illness in close populations, such as within families, suggesting the transmission of disease empathically.

When asked about how she responds to the criticism that she is not an MD, Amanda said, “I wasn’t indoctrinated.” This, too, has a parallel to flat earth. When people like me who have expertise in scientific fields point out the many problems with flat earth making it impossible to take flat-earth arguments seriously, we often are told that we were simply indoctrinated in globe earth to the extent that we cannot see the evidence for the earth being flat.

One member of the audience asked about STDs, which brought a mocking response from Amanda. That was highly unprofessional. Amanda went on to throw out all sorts of possibilities for the cause of STDs—two pieces of flesh rubbing together (even lips), dye in underwear, and magnetic fields. These answers fly in the face of reality. A 100% monogamous couple can have a very long, active sex life and wear dyed underwear without developing any STDs, which disproves those cause STDs. It is well documented that people with STDs spread STDs to other people through sexual contact. That alone suggests STDs are spread by some agent (viruses or bacteria) that is transmitted via sexual contact. Furthermore, most bacterial STDs respond well to appropriate antibiotics.

One question was about urine therapy, something that Amanda believes in and recommended to the audience. In case you haven’t heard of urine therapy, it is the practice of drinking one’s own urine and/or applying it topically. This is a thing among some flat-earthers, though some flat-earthers are very critical of it. The crowd at Flatoberfest seemed generally favorable, though I have no idea how many of the people there practice urine therapy or are simply tolerant of it (frankly, I didn’t want to know). Amanda said that contrary to popular belief, urine is not a waste product. Rather, urine is unfiltered plasma, excess from the body, containing nutrients that we can use. Amanda said that 95% of urine is water and that only about 3–4% is waste. Do the math—that leaves only 1%, and if all that 1% is beneficial, that leaves 3–4 times as much waste as beneficial substances. I drink far more water than most people, especially first thing in the morning, so I’m sure my urine early in the day is more than 95% water. On the other hand, I often dissolve a vitamin C lozenge in my mouth early in the day (I like the taste of the tablets made from rosehips, and the vitamin C is good for me). Being water-soluble, there is far more vitamin C in those lozenges than my body can handle, so much of it is voided. But I can always get more vitamin C into my system, without resorting to disgusting practices—it’s cheap to simply take another lozenge tomorrow. Amanda shared an anecdote (or is it antidote?) about applying a few drops of urine under the tongue and topically immediately after a wasp sting, claiming that there was no pain or swelling. She then claimed that urine therapy was an effective treatment of (venomous) snake bites. That sort of advice can kill people.

Other questions were about seizure disorders, migraines, the polio vaccine, and glaucoma. I don’t think Amanda really answered the question about seizures. Amanda blamed migraines on pinched nerves or lifestyle. She said that polio is poison in the water. That is half true—polio is caused by a virus that often is transmitted by water. Amanda recommended traditional Chinese medicine for glaucoma. I wasn’t interested in asking a question at the time, but over the past six months, I’m beginning to struggle with arthritis in my right knee (imagine that at my age). In retrospect, I would have liked to have learned her opinion on the cause and effective treatment of arthritis.

Greg Reese

Greg Reese was the final speaker at Flatoberfest. Greg began by asking, “Why would you believe in an unproven theory?” I think that was meant to be a rhetorical question. Greg quoted Matthew 7:7–8, which I suppose that he interpreted as an invitation to seek out answers. Greg then asked, “What makes a good scientific model?” to which he gave several characteristics:

• Based on reliable observations
• Able to explain characteristics of observations used to formulate it
• Predictive
• Explain phenomena not used to develop the model
• Can be refined

This is not a bad list of characteristics of a good model, though I would distill it down to a model, or theory, must have explanatory power (explain what we already know) and predictive power (predict the results of experiments or future observations). I thought that this was a bit misplaced in a flat-earth conference, but, alas, Greg failed to develop this the way that it ought to go.

Greg spent some time talking about heliocentrism. As I often point out, arguments for geocentrism are not arguments for a flat earth. For instance, the Ptolemaic model (which Greg criticized) was a geocentric model, but it hardly incorporated flat earth (at the beginning of his book, Almagest, Ptolemy clearly stated that the earth is spherical, and he gave reasons for that belief). Ultimately, Greg argued that heliocentrism is not a good model, claiming that it has not been proven and that its origin is suspect. The latter is a common tack of flat-earthers, not realizing that it commits the genetic fallacy.

Conclusion

Flatoberfest wrapped up with questions posed to a panel of all the speakers at the meeting. There were typical questions, such as the Antarctic Treaty and NASA, along with some health questions directed to Amanda. Someone asked about the UFO phenomenon. The answers varied, but most of them accepted the demonic interpretation of UFOs. This is a common answer among Christians now. I intend to take up this issue in some programs and writings soon. I didn’t find this part of Flatoberfest that informative. However, I was most interested in some of the comments about God and the Bible that came up in answers the panel provided. Amanda said that “we are god.” Dave said that the Hebrew Scriptures are real, but the New Testament is not. Not surprisingly, he said that the Hebrew Scriptures are a story of bloodlines. These statements went unchallenged, which was consistent with the missing Christian element that had been present in the FEICs.

I was glad that I went to Flatoberfest 2023. After a four-year gap of not meeting and engaging flat-earthers dinner, it was nice to renew that experience. I talked with people I had previously met, and I met some new people too. I’m glad to report that we are mostly on friendly terms. If Flatoberfest continues to happen, my attendance will depend upon the location, dates, and the program. I do hope that the organizers of future flat-earth conventions will attempt to include presentations of professed Christians.