“Faith on the Edge” with Pat Roy and Kyle Justice—PART TWO- 848

There’s a new wave of Christians converting to a belief in the flat earth, and it’s having a serious impact on our world. Are you equipped to give Biblical and scientific answers to questions that will inevitably come from family and friends? Join me for PART TWO of my interview with Pat Roy and Kyle Justice!

Transcribed version of podcast is below.
Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse

  • Isaiah 55:1-3

Resources Mentioned in Podcast

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Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.


Pat Roy served at the Institute for Creation Research for 12 years as the Director of Broadcast Media. It was during this time at ICR that he and his wife created the Jonathan Park audio dramas, a creation-based audio drama heard by millions around the world. They recently created a new audio drama called, Time Chroniclers. Pat has served as Director at Genesis Apologetics. He has traveled the nation speaking to hundreds of audiences, of all ages, about the importance of trusting God’s Word. 

Kyle Justice: Emmy nominated producer Kyle Justice began producing television projects as a teenager, which led him to work for and produce programming for major cable networks such as The Family Channel, ESPN, and National Geographic. In 1997 he partnered with Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis to produce the first creation kids show, “The X-Nilo Show”. This eventually led to him establishing Awesome Science Media, a prolific producer of creation science media used by homeschool families and aired throughout the world. Kyle is the homeschool dad of eight kids and married to Dawn since 1991.

Connect with Pat and Kyle: “Faith On The Edge” | The Creation Guys


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TRANSCRIPTION:

[Heidi] Hey everybody, this is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, November 22nd this is episode number 848. It’s Meet My Friend Friday and as promised, I’ve got two fantastic guys back on the show with me today. We’re going to be talking about the topic of Flat Earth. Pat Roy and Kyle Justice are here. They have a brand new documentary out called Faith On The Edge. This is a fascinating topic. Today, we’re going to hit the biblical aspect to a defense for a round Earth. 

Stick around, I think you’re going to be encouraged.

All right you guys, so a couple of things coming up on my schedule that I need you to know about. First of all, please do not forget that Thanksgiving is coming up. Nobody likes that. Send a card to your mother, at the very least. I hope you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We’re going to tail back… curtail rather I should say, the podcast just a little bit next week, to give you guys a little bit more breathing room. Really excited as we usher in the holiday season here at the podcast. And it is the most wonderful time of the year, because hopefully we get to focus on everything that we’re thankful for. I always love it when we come out of the Halloween season, right? Just get me away from October 31st and into a season of thankfulness and snow flurries and all of those things. So we’re excited about that.

I’m going to be speaking at Godspeed Calvary Chapel in California on Friday, December 6th, for their women’s tea, their Christmas tea. Kind of kicking off the holiday season there, really excited about that. If you are in the area… Actually, I didn’t have the city. But if you’re in California just go to HeidiStJohn.com/events and see if you’re going to be California-ish around where I am. I’d love to see you.

My schedule is pretty full for 2020 and I’m hoping I’m getting out to your neck of the woods. If you’re interested in hosting my women’s conference, Faith That Speaks, we would love to hear from you. I would also love to hear from you if you’ve got a question for Mailbox Monday. Especially, it might be a great time to submit those questions to Pat and Kyle, and I can get them to them. We will link back to how you can get ahold of these guys, in the show notes today. They’re having an incredible impact in the culture.

Last Friday, you heard me introduce them as really just sort of at the top of their field, really researching this issue of Flat Earth. I told you that when I first heard about it I was like, “This is not going to catch on.” And it is, because we are living in a generation that is really questioning everything. If we don’t come at things from a biblical worldview, the Bible says we’re going to be disappointed, sorely disappointed and definitely deceived. That’s certainly been the case with this issue.

If you missed my introduction last time, briefly, Pat Roy, kind of a legend here at the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center. He helped us, he and Kyle actually, helped us build the studio that we are sitting in right now for the podcast. Pat served at the Institute For Creation Research, for 12 years. He was the Director of Broadcast Media. He is also the creator, along with his wife, of Jonathan Park. So some of you guys are like, “I knew that name was familiar.” That’s why. Jonathan Park was a creation-based audio drama that was heard, literally, by millions around the world. And now they have a brand new one called Time Chroniclers. This guy is a very special part of the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center, and I hope you guys will check out what he’s been working on. I’ll link back to it, in the show notes today.

Kyle Justice is also here. Kyle is a little bit of a funny man, which is part of why I like having him. He’s also an Emmy-nominated producer. He began producing television projects as a teenager, which led him to work for and produce programming for major cable networks such as the Family Channel, ESPN, and National Geographic. He is a prolific producer of creation-science media used by homeschool families and aired throughout the world. Kyle is a homeschool dad of eight kids, married to the lovely Dawn Justice since 1991. Hey guys, welcome back to the show.

[Pat] Thanks for having us.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Heidi] I’m glad you guys are here. So tell me, you got any Thanksgiving plans?

[Kyle] Oh my, it’s always busy in a Justice household.

[Heidi] Yeah?

[Kyle] We usually do one event at our house, which is in the evening and then we go over to my folks during the day. So, we have two meals.

[Heidi] Oh, my goodness.

[Kyle] One year I over-ate and boy, I was pretty sick.

[Heidi] Oh, yeah. No kidding.

[Pat] Boy, none of us have ever done that before, Kyle.

[Kyle] I have to pace myself, you know?

[Heidi] Pace yourself. Pace… Just don’t eat.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Heidi] Actually, this is a great time. I mean it’s Friday-

[Kyle] Sure.

[Heidi] … so you could just stop eating, like right now.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Heidi] Then by Thursday…

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Heidi] … you could eat all the food you wanted to and it won’t affect you at all.

[Kyle] I’ll be starved.

[Pat] Ah.

[Heidi] It probably will still be a net loss for you.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Pat] Yeah.

[Kyle] Good idea, Heidi. Thanks. 

[Heidi] You’d be half dead.

[Pat] I double-dog dare you.

[Heidi] I know. He’s like, “Good idea. Not really, you’re stupid. Moving on.” Yes. Well, we’ve got… I actually didn’t say, you were a homeschool dad, too. Right, Pat?

[Pat] Yes, as well.

[Heidi] That’s not in your bio. We need to fix that.

[Pat] Yeah, that’s true. All the way through.

[Heidi] You’re a homeschool family, all the way through. I know that it’s important to you, this issue of education. The Bible says in Luke 6:40 that, “When a student is fully trained, he’ll be like his teacher.” I think it’s important for us, as parents, to acknowledge what’s happening in the culture and to be able to come at everything that is coming at us, from a biblical worldview.

The Bible teaches us that, “God’sWord is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.” This issue of Flat Earth is really no different. God’s Word is the lamp, even for this issue. I really want to kind of start the conversation off today by just talking a little bit about that. Because obviously, you’ve done your homework on this and I want to just ask you guys to, for our audience, sort of outline a biblical defense for your position. What do you say from God’s Word, to someone who comes up to you and says, “Hey, I think that the Earth is flat”?

[Pat] Yeah. You know, Heidi, I think this is the pivotal issue. Because I think most people in the Flat Earth claim, “If you just believe God’s word, you’ll see that it’s flat. The Bible has over 200 verses that say it’s flat.” This is what they claim. “The Bible is a Flat Earth book, from cover to cover,” is what they’ll tell us. And I think that that’s what sucks a lot of Christians in, is they start to read some of the verses and they go, “Wow, they’re right.” Then their challenge is, “Who are you going to believe? Man and NASA, or are you going to believe God?” If you’re going to believe God, just read his word and believe it’s flat.

[Heidi] Who are you going to believe? Man and the Hubble telescope…

[Pat] Right.

[Heidi] … or God’s word?

[Pat] Right, exactly. So, I think that this is very important. Heidi, when you start looking at the scriptures, we went through the 200 scriptures, what we found is that most of them really don’t have a whole lot to do with the Flat Earth. Right? They just latch onto a word here and there. But there are several substantial verses that actually seem to talk about their Flat Earth model. Now, remember what they say about the Flat Earth. They believe it’s a disk. Okay? So, they believe it’s like a Frisbee. They believe that there’s a hard dome over the top of that.

[Heidi] So you can’t fall off it?

[Pat] You can’t fall off of it, because there’s impassable ice mountains.

[Heidi] So, we’re like in the Truman Show then?

[Pat] That’s right. It’s a terrarium, is what they’ll say.

[Heidi] Okay.

[Pat] As a matter of fact, that’s one of the things they’ll say is, “Do you want to believe in your ball that’s hurdling through space or do you want to believe that God created a terrarium for us to live in?” So, that’s one of the things that they’ll say.

[Heidi] I feel safer already.

[Pat] There you go.

[Heidi] Terrarium versus ball of fire hurdling through space. Yeah.

[Kyle] Just a big rock.

[Heidi] You’re converting me already.

[Pat] There you go. Whoops.

[Heidi] Whoops.

[Pat] But there are several scriptures that do point out that there are some things that go along with their model. For example, Isaiah 40:22 says that, “The Earth is a circle.” Okay? They point out that it’s not a ball. Isaiah 41:9 says that, “There’s ends to the Earth.” Psalm 104:5 five says that, “It’s immovable.” 1 Samuel 2:8 says that, “There are pillars of the Earth.”

[Kyle] Under the Earth.

[Pat] That’s correct.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Pat] That, “There’s pillars under the Earth.” They believe that the Flat Earth is sitting up on pillars. Job 37:18 says that, “The firmament is like a molten glass,” that it’s actually hard. So, they say that we are under this dome. So, a lot of people began to read these verses and they say, “Wow, they’re right. The Bible says that the Earth is flat.”

[Heidi] That’s fascinating. I’m literally speechless, because I can’t get the idea of a terrarium out of my head. I’m so sorry. I have a terrarium at my house right now, the frogs are…

[Pat] We are nothing but lizards.

[Heidi] I know. We are nothing but, yeah, amphibians. So, what’s your defense? When they read these verses to you, if somebody doesn’t have a working knowledge of the word of God, then it’s pretty easy to go, “Okay,” if you don’t want to do your homework. So, what do you say when you come back at this? Because right, we want to always… This what I’m always telling people, because I teach a Bible study here every Wednesdays from MomStrong International. I always tell people, “Let scripture interpret scripture. This is the most important thing. We’re not looking to outside sources, we’re looking to scripture.”

I will say in this case though, the obvious outside source is just the Earth itself. I have a really hard time believing that the Hubble telescope is lying to me and that all these images that we’ve seen for all these years is just a conspiracy theory. But I understand that we’re questioning basic science right now. We are questioning male and female, whether or not you can change gender, which I also thought, “This is pretty settled science.” But you’re saying the settled science, it’s not settled at all.

[Kyle] Well, you got to remember that since Darwin came out with his Origins book in 1859, there’s just been mass movement of “science” that is all evolutionary anti-Bible.

[Heidi] Yeah.

[Kyle] And so, a lot of the ideas of science that might be used to prove a round Earth, they kind of throw that out, along with NASA, and say, “Let’s get back to the word of God and see what it says.” But a lot of it has to do with context of scripture.

[Pat] Right. A matter of fact, Heidi, I love this verse and I think this is so important. 2 Timothy 2:15, “Study to show thyself approved unto God. A workman that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of God.” Well, what does that mean? Well, here’s what we found. As we looked into every single scripture that they use to support the Flat Earth, every single one of them is metaphorical. Okay? So now they say, “Take the word of God literally, take it literally. Take it literal, literal, literal, literal,” is what they’ll say. Okay? Which really sounds great. Because as Bible believers, we want to take God at what he said. Right? But think about all of the different ways, all of the different literary styles that God has got in His word. There’s historical accounts, like Genesis and Exodus, and we’ve got statutory, like the giving of the laws. We’ve got poetry…

[Heidi] Poetry, yeah.

[Pat] … like in Psalms and the Song of Solomon. Right?

[Heidi] Mm-hmm.

[Pat] We’ve got prophecies that are metaphorical. We’ve got epistles…

[Heidi] You got allegory.

[Pat] Right, exactly. So, what we need to do is we need to look at the scripture and say, “How is God speaking to us right now?” And when you go back and look at every single scripture that they use, you begin to realize that it’s using metaphorical language. For example, 1 Chronicles 16 that says that, “The Earth should not be moved.” It also says that, “The trees sing.” Okay? So, trees are singing. In 2 Samuel, the one about the pillars, it says that, “God is a rock.”

Now, here’s what I’ve been doing recently because as you can imagine, I’m always talking to hundreds of Flat Earthers all of the time. They always come at me and say, “Pat, just believe the literal scriptures. Just believe what God wrote.” And so, a lot of times I’ll say to them, “Do you believe that the trees sing? Do you believe that rivers clap their hands? Do you believe that God is a rock?” You know what they always answer, is, “No, I don’t believe any of those.” And I’ll say, “That’s great, because otherwise you would be a pantheist.” Right?

[Heidi] That God’s in everything.

[Pat] Right, that God’s in everything. So they’ll say, “No, I don’t believe that that’s literal.” So the next question I ask them is, “Well, now you’ve got a real problem. Because in the same passage, you’re taking some stuff as literal and some stuff you’re not taking literally. What are the rules that you use to decide between when you take something literal and when you don’t?” And guess what? They never have rules for that.

It’s because they want the Earth to be flat. So when they read these passages, they take the trees singing as being figurative. But then when they get to the pillars or whatever, they want to take that as literal. But that’s not a consistent way to rightly divide the word of God. What we need to do is say, “How is this passage written? Is it historical, is it metaphorical?” Then, we need to take it the way that God wrote it. Once you do that, all of their verses disappear.

[Heidi] Yeah. What you’re doing is you’re letting scripture interpret scripture.

[Pat] That’s exactly it.

[Heidi] That’s what you’re doing. And truly, I mean this is where a lot of the issues, I would say 90% of the issues that we’re struggling with in the church right now, have come from so-called Christians who are taking God’s word out of context. We’re having to do theological and doctrinal backflips to come to our position, because we want our position to interpret what the scriptures are saying rather than the scripture informing our world view. And really, that’s what you’re saying. Right?

[Pat] Right, exactly. In fact, Heidi, it kind of reminds me clear back in 1994, that’s how old I am…

[Heidi] In 1994, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

[Pat] There was a Bible teacher who was teaching that the world was going to end in September of 1994.

[Heidi] I remember that.

[Pat] I think it was September 6th, 1994.

[Heidi] Mm-hmm.

[Pat] He wrote a thick book. Now if you read that book, almost every page of that book had scripture on it. So, it looked very biblical on the outside. A matter of fact, the followers came to me and said the same thing that I’m hearing the Flat Earthers say is, “Pat, just accept what the scriptures say.” Then they would hand me the book and say, “Look, it’s all about the scriptures. Why don’t you believe that September 6th, 1994 is the end of the world?” Well, guess what? There was one fact, it was about to completely invalidate their whole belief. That was September 7th, 1994. Right?

So, I say the same thing with the Flat Earthers. Yeah. They’ve put together this thing that looks so biblical on the outside, but when you actually look at it, they’re using their own interpretation of scriptures. And there’s one observable fact that proves that they’re wrong. That’s that we don’t have to go back and prove that the Earth is round or anything, we can observe it right now, in the here and now.

[Heidi] That’s right.

[Pat] So, it’s the same thing. Is that God’s world and his word are never going to be in conflict with each other, because he’s the author of both.

[Heidi] That’s right.

[Pat] Kyle and I even did some experiments on our own, where we actually saw the curvature with our own eyes. A lot of times people say, “Why are you believing NASA over God’s word?” And my answer to that is, “No, I don’t care what NASA says. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

[Heidi] That’s right, yeah. That’s right. A lot of people, I mean, I hate to keep bringing this up, but this goes back to the transgender topic. Right? I feel like the emperor has no clothes. Right? When we talk about this, it’s observable with our own eyes. We can see that there are male and female. And yet, I’ve talked to and been around Christians who are saying, “Oh no, the Bible doesn’t say,” blah blah blah. I was like, “No you guys, we’re twisting… We’re trying to make it say what we want it to say, to fit our narrative.” We got to turn that around and say, “No, the narrative belongs to the Creator.”

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Heidi] It’s His narrative, we don’t get to change it.

[Kyle] Well, and that’s why the whole second part of the documentary, it’s that God’s word should confirm His world. That’s going out and searching things out, and it seems like a lot of the people who believe in the Flat Earth and scripture, that they are not that interested in going out into the world. Even so, if they went up in a spaceship, we’ve talked to these guys long enough that it’s like, “Oh, well…” they might even come up with an idea that, “Well, we were drugged and they put screens on the spaceship and they pretend…” It’s like, come on. Where does it end?

[Heidi] Yeah.

[Kyle] So that’s the thing, is we wanted to go do these experiments. So we got invited, a gentleman who was doing a balloon experiment and sending up a 360 camera, up into the atmosphere about 22 miles, to measure what’s called the fall off. That basically is the horizon, at almost sea level or when you’re close to the surface of the Earth, the horizon should be right about 180 degrees of sky and 180 degrees of Earth. But as you get higher up, if the Earth falls off the higher you get up, that horizon will drop. That’s what he was trying to prove. And before, people would send up cameras, like GoPros, and they would say, “The Earth…”

[Pat] It looks round.

[Kyle] Yeah, “It looks round because it’s a fisheye lens, and that it’s naturally going to curve that way anyway. So, it’s not proof.” But this is not a fisheye lens. This is where it took a 360 image video of the ascent, and they did measurements on this. How far did it go up, Pat?

[Pat] We were just a little over 3% within accuracy of what the known circumference of the Earth is.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Pat] So, this was an experiment that had never been done before. And to date, nobody has answered that. But it was clear observation that the Earth is, in fact, curved, believe it or not.

[Heidi] Mm-hmm.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Pat] Heidi, we showed that the Earth was round. Did you know that?

[Heidi] That’s amazing. You sure that the Earth is round? I thought I could do that by just going up in an airplane, but apparently that doesn’t work. You have actual… Do you have a clip for us? Because we talked about this earlier, you did something called… This is the Bedford Level experience, why we can see things over the curve of the Earth. I know that there are a lot of people going, “Wait a second…”

I mean, I appreciate what you guys are saying a lot because we really can trust our own eyes that God gave us. Right? There are things we can’t trust. Mostly, it’s our mind. Right? Because the Bible says that, “Our heart is wicked and our minds are easily deceived.” But creation balances that we’re without excuse, even for evidence of a Creator because it’s all around us. And so, we actually can trust our eyes in a lot of scenarios, for sure. And so, you did this thing called the Bedford Level experience. You have a clip for us?

[Pat] Right. So, one of the guests on our documentary was Dr. Danny Faulkner. He’s a PhD astronomer from Answers In Genesis. He started off by talking about our Bedford Level experiment.

Audio: –Dr. Faulkner, I’ve been researching this whole issue. It seems like one of the most convincing arguments they have is the Bedford Level experiment.

–That’s the thing that really has set all of this off. There was a man named Samuel Rowbotham, he was English. He did a famous experiment in the mid-part of the 19th century. The Bedford Level is a drainage canal in East side of England and it’s a very flat area near the ocean. There’s this one section, just straight as an arrow. If you had an object off in the distance over the curvature of the Earth as you’re looking at it, you couldn’t see it because the curvature of Earth would get in the way.

Now, you can do a simple calculation. It’s an approximation, but it actually works very well for most distances of question here. If you go a mile, you’d get a drop of curvature of eight inches. So, if you mount a telescope eight inches above the surface of the water, then in a miles distance it would be tangent to the Earth surface and then it would start to fall away beyond that. And each mile it’s squared. So after two miles, it would be a four times eight, which is 32 inches, a little less than three feet. Then it would be six feet at three miles, and so forth. By the time you get out to five miles, six miles, the curvature would be close to 20 feet or so.

He reasons that if the Earth is curved, he should not see the boat, he shouldn’t see the person in the boat. He shouldn’t even see the mast with a flag on it. Well, lo and behold, he sees the mast, the flag, the boat, the person. He sees every bit of it. So he concludes that the Earth is not curved. It must be as flat as my desktop right here in front of me, and that way he can see the thing the entire way.

–Rowbotham experiments seem to clearly show the Earth was flat, and that’s what eventually led him to start the Zetetic Society, which was the beginning of the modern Flat Earth Movement.

[Pat] So Heidi, I have spent hundreds of hours watching video after video that’s out on YouTube by the Flat Earthers. Out of everything that they’ve ever presented, to me this is the most compelling argument, is the Bedford Level experiment.

[Kyle] Yeah, I mean, if the Earth curves then… I mean, you can go out to the ocean and watch ships go out and they slowly disappear over the horizon. That would seem that the Earth is curved. But in this case of Rowbotham, he did this experiment and he could see, six miles away, that it was still there. So, that was something that we were really curious about and we actually tried to do our own experiment. And actually, it was successful.

[Pat] Yeah. So, we basically went out to the mouth of the Columbia River and we found a section that was six miles away…

[Kyle] Six to seven miles from the spit, way out by the jetty. Then looking back towards Astoria, near Young’s Bay. What we did was I went out with a very high-power 1200 millimeter lens and I shot it across the bay, and it was…

[Heidi] How’d you do that?

[Kyle] How did I shot it across the bay?

[Heidi] Yeah. When you say you took out your lens, to the mom who’s just like…

[Kyle] Yeah, sure.

[Heidi] So, you have to position yourself a particular way? You’re just going out, an ordinary guy with a high-powered lens and you’re aiming…

[Kyle] Wow.

[Heidi] Can anybody do that? Can I go do that?

[Kyle] Generally speaking, you could. One of the times, we rented…

[Heidi] You would suck at it, but you could.

[Kyle] Yeah. You have a-

[Pat] Well, you’d need a very high-power lens.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Pat] Then, you also need the weather conditions to be amazing.

[Kyle] Yeah, you really do. On that day, it was in August. We went out and it was beautiful. Actually, it was early September, because we tried a couple of different locations and the one that we show in the documentary was for that. I kind of knew, generally, where Pat was because we could look at a bridge that comes across and meets the land. He was right there, where the land met the bridge. We shot across the bay and I could kind of see over the bridge, but you could really tell that the curvature on the water was happening. Because I couldn’t quite see where Pat was. I had him go up a little bit and down and back and forth, still couldn’t see him. And we thought, “Well, that’s pretty good. I it shows that it’s right.” But at the same time…

[Heidi] And you can’t blame that on a conspiracy over it NASA.

[Kyle] No, no, no. What was interesting is we took a look at the conditions, it was in the 60s, the water was in the 50s, and that actually plays in to how light goes across water, temperature, and so on. But the other thing that we tried to do was to try different experiments, as far as height. Meaning, where my camera was first was about five feet off the water. Then we went up a little farther. Since I couldn’t see Pat, I’m like, “Well shoot, I got to get a little farther up to see him.”

[Heidi] Right.

[Kyle] Even at about 11 feet, 12 feet off the water, I still couldn’t see him. We thought, “Well, it’d be nice to prove that we either can or can’t see him.” What was also interesting is I noticed behind him, about another 150, 200 feet where these radio towers. We went back and we looked at the footage, and sure enough as I went up with the camera, I could see more and more of the bottom of the towers. Which would lead us to believe, optically, if it was curving and I couldn’t see the bottom of the towers because I was lower. But as I went up, I could see them.

[Pat] Okay. So basically what happens, Heidi, is that the Flat Earthers will post these videos where you can see Chicago and they’ll say, “Well, the curve should be blocking Chicago. But the fact that you can see Chicago proves that the Earth is flat.” Then the ball people post their videos that show that the curvature is actually blocking Chicago. Then, there’s even a video that you can watch where Chicago, with a camera running, is jumping up and down, up and down, up and down.

And so, the Flat Earthers come away and show their videos and say, “Ha ha, that proves our point.” The Round Earthers, they show their videos and say, “Ha ha, that proves our point.” Then the people that don’t know watch both sides and they say, “Well that’s funny. Sometimes you can see it and sometimes you can’t, so I guess there’s no real answer to that.” Right?

[Heidi] Wow.

[Pat] But the answer is, and this is explained in our documentary, is it all comes down to the water and the air temperature. When you get the right conditions, you get an inversion layer and the inversion layer can actually bend light. And so, there is a scientific, predictable answer. So the Flat Earthers, they use their videos and say, “Look, this proves that the Earth is flat.” But then there’s not really a way for them to explain when you can’t see around the curve. Right? So they say, “Well, maybe there’s some atmospheric conditions,” but they have no specifics on that. It’s almost like they call out a mysterious force that’s blocking you from being able to see. Whereas the ball Earthers can say, “No, there’s actually atmospheric conditions. We can actually predict when we can see around the curve and when we can’t.”

[Heidi] I think it’s so interesting, we keep going back to the mysterious force. Like when we come up against a wall, it’s a mysterious force. It’s a conspiracy theory or it’s a, “Well, that wasn’t right because this and it’s this mysterious…” And it seems to me like a spirit, because we have the same thing that’s happening with so many of these issues in the culture right now, like transgenderism, like the arguments that we’re making for things that are absolutely unscientific. I think it’s fascinating. Even the abortion topic, right? So, we talk about abortion until we can see these babies. Our eyes don’t lie to us. We see a baby on ultrasound and then, I heard a woman on CNN a couple of months ago say, “Well, that’s not a baby.” I was like, “What?” And it is a spirit of deception.

I mean, we are such a deceived people right now. Like a blanket of deception has fallen over this nation and really, God’s people should be stewards of truth. Am I right?

[Pat] Mm-hmm.

[Heidi] So, we should be shepherds of the gospel, right? Pushing the gospel board. But in the process of doing that, we are also, because the gospel is truth, we are also shepherding and stewarding truth. That goes into every aspect of life. It in the abortion debate, it’s in the issue of transgender. As a man, it’s in the issue of Flat Earth. So many these things which we’re dealing with today. I just thought when you said that, when you’re talking about this mysterious force, well part of me is like, “The mysterious force is no mystery at all.” Right? It’s a cloak of deception. When we come up against it, if we don’t have the Holy spirit, if we don’t have the indwelling power of God’s spirit, then the only answer is, “Well, it’s so mysterious.” You know?

[Pat] Right. And so, Heidi, I know we’re about out of time here, but I just wanted to mention that scientifically, think of all the problems for the Flat Earth model. How do you explain satellites? How do you explain seasons? What are some other things that we tackle?

[Kyle] The moon changing throughout the month.

[Pat] Right. The sunrise, the sunset.

[Kyle] Yeah, yeah.

[Pat] There are so many problems… Matter of fact, Flat Earthers say that, “There is no such thing as gravity.” When you start denying all of these pieces of science, you get into some serious problems. And so Kyle, we found out that the Flat Earthers, all the time, are using rescuing devices.

[Kyle] Mm-hmm.

[Pat] Basically, a rescuing device… Why don’t you explain what it is?

[Kyle] Well, a rescuing devices is that…

[Heidi] I need one of those in my house. Can I have one?

[Pat] They come in handy.

[Heidi] I need a rescuing device.

[Kyle] It’s something that it doesn’t make sense scientifically, and so they come up with some extra thing that… Well, they throw it in. It isn’t scientific at all. Like our universe looks so well designed and yet evolution, it shouldn’t have happened.

[Heidi] It’s chaos.

[Kyle] Evolution, right? So they come up with a multi-verse and they say, “Well, we just happen to live in the universe that has the right, different, physical laws and physics and so on. But there’s other universes that are just totally whacked.” You know? The thing is, it’s never been proven.

[Pat] Right.

[Kyle] It’s just an idea.

[Pat] Right.

[Kyle] It’s a rescuing device.

[Pat] Right, or the origin of life. Right? That non-living materials became alive. There is no answer for that, right? So they say, Well, it evolved possibly on the backs of crystals.” Well, that’s a rescuing device. And as we got into this Flat Earth thing, we’ve noticed that the Flat Earthers have a rescuing device for every single issue that you bring up. But when you look into them, I think they fall apart, scientifically. Usually, they are just jerry-rig rescuing devices to try and get around the fact that the science clearly shows that our Earth is round.

[Heidi] Wow. I know this is a lot of information from people to digest. Like I’m sitting here, my head’s spinning counter-clockwise on my neck right now, just trying to take all this in.

[Pat] I know. It’s been interesting to watch, by the way.

[Heidi] Yes, it’s fascinating. Yes. These are things we love to do, here in the studio. When you talk to people about this and their question always is, “I don’t even know where to start.” How do people equip themselves with truth, if they’re going to get out there and engage the culture? You guys have made an awesome DVD that people can watch and sort of get educated. Because really, you want people to at the very least, be ready for the question. So when someone comes up to you, don’t do what I did at a homeschool conference four-and-half years ago and start laughing, and assume that they’re kidding.

[Kyle] And tell them what they won.

[Heidi] Right, and tell them what they won. I think it’s important that we understand, this is actually happening. I think the same thing is true for so many of the very confusing things that we’re dealing with in the culture today. So how do people equip themselves with the truth?

[Pat] Well, I think, again, I think they usually say, “It’s a biblical issue.” I think it’s important to look through the Bible verses that they use and say, “Is God communicating historical text here or is this a metaphorical passage?” I think it’s good for people to know what those passages are and know why they are metaphorical. And then, scientifically, I think it’s also good just to go out and know why you believe what the shape of the Earth is. Because like you saw in the interviews that we did last week is, you’ll notice that a lot of people, when I ask them, “What evidence do you have that the Earth is round,” most people couldn’t answer that question. So, I think it’s important to answer those questions.

Again, I think you can find those in, “How would seasons work? How does the sun rise, how does the sun set?” When you just look at basic things, you began to realize right away that the Flat Earth model cannot work the way they believe it should.

[Heidi] Well, it’s basic things. I love that you said that. Because really, we’re complicating things beyond what human reason even would support or sustain. We’re doing that in so many areas of life right now.

[Pat] Right.

[Heidi] Again, this is just another area where we really seen the work of deception in the culture.

[Pat] Right. And it’s simple things, just like you said. I mean, just the sunrise and sunset alone. Now in the Flat Earth model, they believe the sun and the Earth are traveling in a circle above the Earth, right? It never sets in their model. And yet, you can go out to a beach or, actually, you could stand anywhere in the world and watch the sun rise and the sun set. Right?

So again, it comes down to a rescuing device and they’ve got to explain all this phenomenon that somehow mysteriously makes it look like the sun’s setting. Well, it’s very clear that the sun is rising and the sun is setting. So…

[Heidi] If you got a homeschool mom who’s listening to this right now, and she’s got a couple of high school kids and she’s trying to figure out, “What’s a good research paper,” if you guys have a project this year. This would be a great one.

[Pat] That is true.

[Heidi] It really would be.

[Pat] That is interesting.

[Heidi] People can get really great information from you guys. I really want to say, just thanks for being willing to get out there and talk about this stuff, and help God’s people become more educated and more… First it’s aware, right, that it’s happening. Then it’s educated from a perspective of God’s word, that it really is backed up with science. Because we don’t, as Christians, need to run away from the science. The science follows us wherever we go, because the science belongs to the Lord at the end of the day. So, you guys are fantastic. Anything else that you want listeners to… Where can they find you online?

[Kyle] Ah. Thecreationguys.com is our main website.

[Pat] And it’s the creation guys.

[Kyle] Thecreationguys.com.

[Heidi] Because you guys are the ones. Yes.

[Pat] You just have to remember to put the T-H-E in there.

[Heidi] I’m THE Busy Mom, so I understand.

[Pat] By the way, Heidi, I appreciate that you are willing to take tough stands and to dive into these kind of issues. Great job.

[Heidi] Well, thanks.

[Pat] Thanks for standing for truth.

[Heidi] You know what? I always tell my husband, “I’ll try anything once.” Let’s talk about this and see how many cannons we can dodge. But I think it’s important, in the culture. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me.” And as God’s people, we need to be in constant defense of truth. So, I appreciate it.

[Kyle] Well, and I greatly appreciate what you’re doing here. I think you’ve said it many times, but the enemy is trying to polarize and divide and get us distracted.

[Heidi] Mm-hmm.

[Kyle] And if you run into somebody who believes in the Flat Earth and they keep going, and it’s like, “Well, wait a minute.” There are times through scripture, when God says, “Come, let us reason together.” Right?

[Heidi] Mm-hmm.

[Kyle] Part of, I would hope, that you could say, “Hey, listen. We’re going to agree to disagree here. You know? But what are the things that we do agree on?”

[Heidi] Mm-hmm.

[Kyle] I think that’s really important, is to focus back on Christ and say, “Okay…”

[Pat] I’m so glad you said that, Kyle.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Pat] Because I think that’s true through our journey. We have learned that, I think, God is more happy with unity than with us being right. There have been so many times when I’ve been in these back-and-forth with Flat Earthers and finally I’ll just say, “Hey, you know what? The shape of the Earth, who cares? We’re both brothers in Christ. Let’s encourage one another. Let’s pray for each other and lift each other up.” 

[Kyle] I think at that point, the enemy’s going, “Ah. Oh, man.” You know?

[Pat] I think so too. Because I think, a lot of times… As a matter of fact, Heidi, it’s sad when you go on Facebook or the internet, you can see the ball Earthers and the Flat Earthers just duking it out. Right?

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Pat] They’re both Christians and you just see that they’re attacking each other viciously. God always calls us to be kind, to be gracious. So, I think unity is super important.

[Heidi] That’s right. Well, I really appreciate you guys coming on and addressing this topic. It’s fascinating. I think it’s interesting to hear. If you guys are interested in more information on the ministry that these guys are doing, can find them at thecreationguys.com. Right, dot com? And I will link that. Is your video on Amazon? Can they get it there or no? Where can they get it?

[Kyle] We’re putting it on in the next month or two, yeah.

[Heidi] All right.

[Kyle] But there are other video on-demand platforms.

[Pat] Right. But if you start at thecreationguys.com, it will actually link you to where you can watch it online. You can also rent it online, if you don’t want to purchase.

[Kyle] Yeah.

[Heidi] Right on.

[Pat] You can watch it just by renting.

[Kyle] Yup.

[Heidi] All right, right on. So, I will link back to that. If you guys are interested in watching the documentary Faith On The Edge, Exploring The Biblical And Scientific Case Against The Flat Earth. Check it out in the show notes today.

I appreciate you guys listening. As always, if you are blessed by the podcast, please leave us a review at the show notes. You guys know that my Christmas card-palooza is on right now and we would love to hear from you. It will encourage our staff here at the Resource Center, to see your faces and hear from you. Just a short note about what God’s doing. You can send us your picture and your Christmas card too Firmly Planted Family, 11100 Northeast 34th Circle, Vancouver, Washington 98682.

Thanks for listening everybody and I’ll see you back here on Monday. 

Write to [Heidi]
Heidi St. John
c/o Firmly Planted Family
11100 NE 34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

Support this ministry by donating through E-giving. You can also send donations to: 11100 NE34th Cir, Vancouver, WA 98682

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About Heidi St. John

Heidi has been married to her husband Jay since 1989. Together they have seven children and three grandchildren! The St. Johns homeschooled their kids all the way through high school. Heidi is the the author of seven books, host of the popular podcast "Off the Bench," and the founder of MomStrong International, an online community of women learning God's Word and how to apply it to every day life. She and her husband Jay are also the founders of Firmly Planted Family and the Firmly Planted Homeschool Resource Center, located in Vancouver, Washington.