Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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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

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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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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Don’t Miss These!

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TRANSCRIPTION:

Hey everybody. This is Heidi St. John. Welcome to the podcast. Today is Friday, November 15th. This is Meet My Friend Friday. It’s episode number 845. I’ve got a real treat for you guys here at the podcast today. Two of my favorite guys here at the Firmly Planted Family Homeschool Resource Center are here today, and we’re going to talk about a theory that some of you guys think actually isn’t gaining traction in the culture, but it is. That is the issue of flat Earth. 

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

All right, so lots of things going on in the culture right now and we’re going to address some of them today, but before I jump into that one, I’ll let you guys know where I’m going to be next. Thanks for everybody who came out for the speaking season. I’m winding down to a close. I’ve got one more event before the end of the year. I will be at Godspeak Calvary Chapel on Friday, December the 6th for their women’s event there. Come on out and see me if you’re anywhere in the area. Kind of cool. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. These guys- I mean who doesn’t want to go to California in the winter time? Right? So that’s where I’ll be if you’re looking for me. And so you can check it out. More information at heidistjohn.com/events. After that, I’m going to take some time off for Christmas. You’re welcome. And then we come back and I will be keynoting the FPEA Family Cruise. So we’re going to be going to the Caribbean. So if you guys haven’t found out more information about that, you can find that out at heidistjohn.com/events. I’m pretty sure that the cruise for FPEA is sold out, but I’m told that there are a couple more rooms at a regular rate. So just let us know you’re coming, and we’ll put you in with a group. So we’ll find out more about that.

I’ll be at the DFW winter summit on the 24th of January and again on the 31st of January. So, busy season for me coming up. You can find out where I will be at heidistjohn.com/events. Thanks for listening to the podcast today. I’m excited you guys are here because I’m going to do something I haven’t done before, and that is talk about the issue of flat Earth.

My friends, Pat Roy and Kyle Justice are here in the studio with me today. Pat served at the Institute for Creation Research for 12 years as the director of broadcast media. And during his time at the ICR he and his wife created an audio series that you guys are going to be familiar with, Jonathon Park, which was a creation based audio drama heard by literally millions around the world, including my kids. Pat’s someone of a legend around here at Firmly Planted, and he recently created a new audio drama called Time Chroniclers. So we’ll link back to that in the show notes today. Pat has served as director at Genesis Apologetics and traveled the nation speaking to hundreds of audiences of all ages about the importance of trusting God’s word.

I let Kyle into the studio today on a whim. Kyle is an Emmy nominated producer. Kyle Justice began producing television projects as a teenager. Some of you guys have teens that are interested in producing and being coming producers. I am always telling you, “Dude, let them go for it,” because we want to fold our kids where they’re bent. I think Kyle’s a great example of that. This 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 my friend Ken Ham at Answers in Genesis, to produce the first creation kid show called The X-Nilo Show. I didn’t know you did that. I watched that. We’ll get back to you. This eventually led him to establishing Awesome Science Media, a prolific producer of creation science media, used by homeschool families and aired throughout the world. Kyle is a homeschool dad of eight kids and married to his beautiful wife Dawn since 1991. Guys, welcome to the podcast.

[Kyle] Wow.

[Pat] Yeah. Thanks for having us here.

[Kyle] Yeah, that was a great intro.

[Pat] No kidding, thank you.

[Heidi] It’s almost like you wrote it yourself.

[Pat] Almost.

[Heidi] Almost. You guys, I’m excited that you’re here. So lots of stuff going on with you. You guys are out there getting it done. You’re what I like to call here at the podcast, we call it #offthebench. Off the bench and onto the battlefield and you guys are kind of in the middle of what can only be described I think, as a cultural battle. So I’m going to intro it this way. So my audience is used to me talking about controversial subjects. I actually love controversy because I feel like speaking truth into controversy actually sheds light on it, rather than just saying there’s a controversy. I say, let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about it from the position of the word of God, which you guys are doing. One of the things we started talking about here about four years ago was the topic of transgenderism.

I remember saying, “Oh, this will never… This is never going to take root in the culture. People are smarter than that”. No, they’re not. No, they’re not. And transgender is now of course, a force in the culture, largely because I think the church was silent and they thought like I did, “Oh, come on. Like no one’s going to believe this. Men can’t change into women, vice versa”. But I was wrong. And one of the… A similar topic is this issue of flat Earth. I heard about this right around four and a half years ago. I can’t remember where Jay and I were, but I met a woman at a homeschool conference. I was there with my friend Jay Wile, and he had a booth sort of behind me. You guys know Jay, sort of the… He is a physicist, right?

He’s a rocket scientist. I’m always like, what are you a rocket sci- oh nevermind. Yes you are. And this woman came up to me and I’m talking to her about what I’m passionate about, which is faith and culture. And she said, “what do you think about flat Earth?” And I started laughing and I was like, “Oh.” She wasn’t laughing, and I said, “Wait a minute, like you’re asking me for real?” And she said, “Yeah.” She said, “I really want to know.” And she began talking about her husband and basically it sounded almost cultish to me the way she was describing it. So I did my friend Jay Wile a favor, and I was like, hang on, I got someone you need to meet. So I took her, because I can’t answer this woman’s questions. I haven’t studied this thing.

All I wanted to say was, have you ever been in an airplane? Which I said to her, and she had this weird answer for me being in an airplane and how that did not- the curvature that I saw wasn’t actually right. And I thought, I can’t do this. So I took her over to Jay Wile and I said, Jay, I want you to meet my new friend and blah, blah, blah. I said, I can’t remember, let’s say her name is Mandy, for the sake of the discussion. I said, “Mandy”, I literally said this- in hindsight, maybe it wasn’t the right call, but I said, “Mandy, tell Dr. Wile what he’s won.”

And she kind of looked at me like, “what do you mean?” I said, “I’m so sorry. Tell him what you just told me”. And so she started saying, “Well, Heidi and I were just discussing the issue of flat Earth.” And Jay looked at me like, “are you for real right now?” And I was like, “Oh look at the time, I got to go.” And I left her there, right, to which this day, every time he sees me now out on the road, he’s just like, dude, you still owe me dinner. And he’s right.

But you guys deal with this issue all the time. And I guess the first one, the first thing I want to ask you, cause I know that my audience is like, “What? Is this really a thing? Is this really an issue?”

[Kyle] Well, I first started hearing about it through Dr. Danny Faulkner who works for Answers in Genesis, and he kept doing these posts on flat Earth. And I’m like, he’s joking. I think. April 1st came out last year or the year before, and he was all over it, and I’m like, is this for real or not? So, I called him up and he goes, yeah, it’s for real. And he’s even working on a book on it and selling. I’m like, I’m doing all these documentaries, and Pat and I had been working together on some other projects. It’s like, “Pat, maybe we should do a documentary on this.”

[Pat] Right. And at first it sounded like a really interesting topic, but the further we’ve gotten into this, the deeper the rabbit hole goes.

[Heidi] It’s terrifying.

[Pat] It really is and Heidi, I’ve become convinced that this is another distraction that is calling Christian men away from being fathers and being husbands and getting out the gospel. Because we have gotten emails from wives who say, I am desperate. My husband has pulled us out of church. We no longer read the scriptures except for to prove that the Earth is flat. He no longer interfaces with the children and he no longer talks to people about Christ, but now he’s a missionary of flat Earth. We’ve also heard of a church that has split over this issue and so we have gotten all kinds of messages from all kinds of people.

Heidi actually, I think about it this way. If I was say, trying to distract men from doing what they’re really called to, I would come up with an issue that doesn’t really matter and make it seem like it’s the most important thing on Earth. And that’s what we found, what the flat Earth movement is those that are convinced that the Earth is flat. They believe that it is the most important thing and that is how they spend all of their time— is trying to convince others that the Earth is flat.

[Heidi] Isn’t that amazing? It seems to me that we are very, I mean this was from Genesis. We are a very easily deceived people, right? I mean you can hear Satan whispering in Eve’s ear, :you won’t surely die, it’s not that. God didn’t mean it. Did God really say:- and God really did say. So, when you guys see how this is affecting Christian families and you see how it’s affecting the world around you, your response has been to say, “Oh no, we’re going to show you, let’s actually take this up from a scientific standpoint,” which is largely what Answers in Genesis been doing all this time saying, listen, the Bible can actually stand up to your criticism. Let’s have the conversation and you guys have found a really unique way to do that. How did you come up with this idea, and sort of where is it taking you?

[Kyle] Well, it’s interesting because it seems like there’s two camps in the flat Earth movement. There’s the secular flat Earth movement, and then there’s the biblical, flat Earth movement. I mean, Heidi you said, “Hey, let’s show them the scriptures, it would make sense,” but there’s a whole camp of Christians that are using the scriptures to prove that the Earth is flat.

[Heidi] That’s the lady at my booth, she was quoting scriptures to me and I was like, okay, I don’t even know what to do with you now.

[Kyle] And I mean all over history you have different groups that are quoting scriptures to prove their little points and so on. And so what we have really had to do when we looked at the documentary and what did we have to present in it was, gee, I think we have to go after, not just the scientific side first, but the biblical whole model of what verses are they using? And then did they really work?

[Heidi] So we’re talking about this to a lot of people who have never heard of flat- they’re like, uh-uh, it’s kind of a big deal though. Like if you were to get on the Internet and start searching the flat Earth theories- and I saw a guy in the airport, before the show aired, I was telling you guys, I used to think, Oh, this will never catch on. Just like the lie of transgenders, and which it really is a lie, right? That we’ve just believed. And I saw a guy in the airport not too long ago and he had- yes, the Earth is flat. Asked me why, and I was like, I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole.

Then I think what you guys are doing is so cool because what you’re saying is, we need to engage. As Christians, we need to understand the argument, right? And be able to engage and the Bible says that we’re supposed to be able to give an answer for the hope that lies within us. And what you’re doing is you’re equipping Christians to engage in this discussion with an answer. And so, where do we start? You’re saying it’s relevant. Pat why do you say it’s relevant? Why should people care about this issue?

[Pat] Well, Heidi I think that there are more people converting to the idea of the flat Earth than any other time in history. I think it’s really affecting churches. I think most churches, from what I’ve seen, most of them have never even heard of this, right? People just disappear from their congregations and they don’t know why. Or, the other response is, well, that’s ridiculous. That’ll never catch on.

[Heidi] That was me. Are you making fun of me right now, Pat? You making fun of me on my own podcast?

[Pat] There you go.

[Heidi] Back it up there, brother.

[Kyle] Never, never.

[Pat] So I think those are the ways. And so, either they’re ignoring it or they think it’s ridiculous. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people are converting to this idea that the Earth is flat, and I just think it’s a dangerous idea. I think it’s having a huge impact on families and churches and nobody even really realizes it’s an issue.

[Heidi] Well, why should we care? I mean, you’re saying it’s a dangerous idea. And I’m like, who cares? So they think the Earth is flat, why do I care?.

[Pat] Well, again, I think the shape of the Earth really doesn’t matter, right? It really doesn’t matter. But what does matter is the fruits that we see from it. And again, we’re getting emails from wives whose husbands have completely pulled them out of church. We’ve gotten emails from churches that have said that they have split. We’re just seeing negative fruits from all of this. And my goodness, Heidi, once you get involved in the flat Earth, it seems like it consumes these people, and then all of a sudden they’re not out sharing the gospel anymore.

[Kyle] And not just in the U.S., too. I’ve heard Latin America, it’s spreading like wildfire there, too. So you know, it’s going around the world.

[Pat] Around the world.

[Heidi] What look what just happened! There are flat Earthers all around the globe.

[Pat] We actually, in our documentary went out on the streets. And I’ve got a clip with me where we actually went out onto the streets and talk to people about what they thought about the flat Earth.

[Heidi] So this is your documentary, your new one, Faith on the Edge, right? And this is a sampling of you guys talking to ordinary people about what they think. Let’s hear it.

CLIP:

[Pat] Okay. So Kyle, we’ve heard that this idea is really popular, but I would like to hear what people are actually thinking.

[Kyle] Let’s take it to the street.

[Pat] Many people these days are starting to believe that the Earth is flat. What do you think about that?

Person 1: That’s still a thing?

Person 2: It’s round, just keeps going around and around and around, man.

Person 3: It looks pretty flat to me, but I think it’s round. Saturn’s round, Jupiter round. Everything else is round.

Person 4: I was actually reading something the other day that said, the Earth is in a donut shape.

[Pat] And the moon is a coffee, right?

Person 4: You never know, it could be flat.

Person 5: I think that it’s whatever they tell us.

[Kyle] Okay, whatever they tell us so… But there’s some people that say round, some that say flat. What do you think?

Person 5: I think unless we actually go out there and explore it for ourselves, there’s no way that we can actually know what it is.

Person 6: No, I don’t think the Earth is flat.

[Pat] You think it’s round?

Person 6: Yeah, I guess- yeah, you’re right. I guess it’s round.

[Pat] Really? I just convinced you just like that?

Person 7: There’s a lot of compelling evidence that, the possibility that the Earth is flat. While in other cases the Earth is actually around, and the Bible doesn’t really talk about the Earth being round.

[Pat] What shape do you think the Earth is?

Person 8: Triangle? I feel like that’d be a tough sell.

[Pat] You think it’d be a- I bet it’s not as tough as you would think it would be.

Person 9: I don’t know. I think the Earth is definitely round. For people that believe the Earth is flat, maybe that’s true.

[Kyle] It wouldn’t be the two different shapes at the same time though. Is that what you’re saying?

Person 9: I don’t know. I mean our personal beliefs create our realities I guess, so I think it can kind of be both at the same time.

[Kyle] So do you know anybody who does believe in the flat Earth?

Person 9: Yes. One of my good friends is a flat Earther, yes.

Person 10: No, I don’t have any friends.

Person 11: Tons of boys at my school.

Person 12: Yeah, definitely.

Person 13: There’s people who say they do. I think it’s definitely a cultural trend.

Person 14: Kind of caught me by surprise when I found out, but yeah.

[Kyle] Why did they become so passionate about it, it almost seems like they become evangelists of the Flat Earth.

Person 15: It’s like it’s an anti kind of movement.

Person 16: A lot of people now are just starting to identify in an idea or a party versus themselves.

Person 17: Those people need to find hobbies.

[Kyle] Maybe that is their hobby. Just using your own observations, why do you think the Earth is round?

Person 18: Well, I can… Got me right there.

Person 19: Why the Earth is round… It’s very hard to explain that. I don’t…

Person 18: My own senses. Nothing I’ve been told.

Person 20: I would say just from the pull of gravity and then also you look at the day night cycle to the rest of the world.

Person 24: Until they show evidence, that’s when I will actually start looking into it.

Person 21: But he’s saying the same thing about people who believe that the Earth is round. We’ve been given these facts.

Person 22: To say that the Earth is flat is basically rejecting all of the scientific evidence that we’ve compiled.

[Kyle] Why do you think that young, younger people are the ones that are having a harder time accepting these things?

Person 23: Where do you look next for young people to be upset? Kind of overthrow the man, overthrow the machine, is going to be at the government. And I think that’s where a lot of these tensions and these questions kind of raise from.

[Kyle] Well, Pat that was really fascinating to learn what everyday people are thinking about the flat Earth.

[Pat] It was interesting that some of them were actually questioning the shape of the Earth. And then almost all of them had friends or family that believed that the Earth was flat. And then it was also interesting that they couldn’t defend their own observable facts on why the Earth is round.

[Kyle] That’s fascinating. My favorite guy was the guy who said “whatever your truth is, that’s what the Earth is shaped.”

[Pat] That was really interesting to me.

END CLIP

[Heidi] All right, so you’ve got a pretty good smattering of people there with kind of differing ideas and differing opinions. I thought it was really interesting that when you say, well, why do you say that the Earth is round? Some we’re like— “uhhh”. I mean if somebody asked me why the Earth is round, I’ll just be like, cause I saw a picture of it.

[Pat] But those were all faked by NASA.

[Heidi] I heard that.

[Kyle] Now, Heidi what’s interesting is when I go out to speak now on general creation topics, not even talking about the flat Earth, but just talk about scientific evidence for creation. I now will ask the audience, how many of you either believe the Earth is flat, or know somebody personally that does believe that the Earth is flat? And about a third of the hands go up, nowadays.

[Heidi] That’s crazy town. I mean it seems crazy to me. I was thinking about this as I’m listening to these people, I’m all for being open minded, right. That’s a big thing. Tolerance, open-minded. It’s like we’ve gotten so open-minded that our brains have fallen out. And I was thinking that really what’s happening0 and this is kind of where I’d like to sort of segue this conversation a little bit.

And I heard you talking about these women are writing you, and they’re saying their husbands are leaving their families, they’re pulling their kids out of church. They’re basically worshiping at the idol— of the altar of flat Earth right now. And it seems like a distraction. But I wrote in my notes it seems to me that evangelism for anything else is really idolatry. We can do this in the homeschool movement, right? I mean I can sit here, Pat, you and I have had this discussion, over the last couple of years for sure. People that we have seen that worshiped homeschooling. And homeschooling is the answer and homeschooling this, and homeschooling that. If we’re not turning people back toward Jesus, then it doesn’t really matter what we’re saying. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if the Earth is round or the Earth is flat. These guys, if they don’t have the gospel, they’re going to Hell. And that’s the bottom line.

[Pat] Well, I would say for the Christian flat Earth movement, I think most of them are actually Christians who have trusted Christ the savior. I just feel like they’re distracted. And so I want to say very clearly, I don’t think the flat Earth is a salvation issue. But what I do think is it’s a distraction issue. I think it’s taking people away from the gospel, from their wives, from their children, from their families, from their churches. That’s what I think is happening.

[Kyle] You think about Pilgrim’s Progress and how, Christians, that these different groups would get distracted in these towns and stuff, and not go the path that God has for them.

[Heidi] He’s on his way to the Celestial City but he forgot. He forgot!

[Kyle] And I’ve compared the flat Earth to that type of thing. Where these men, and training their families onto the next generation to serve and love the Lord. It’s not happening now because of the flat Earth.

[Heidi] And when you guys meet people who like me, I’m going to kind of swing it back around to this because I always feel like whenever I address topics like this with an audience that’s feeling already overwhelmed, right? There’s so many problems like Heidi, do you have to talk about one more thing? Next week I’m just going to have somebody come on and we’re going to talk about how to bake gingerbread cookies, all right? That’ll be the next thing we do because we don’t have to argue about it, or wonder if the gingerbread is actually real or if it’s flat or not. You can add more baking powder and it’ll be a little rounder or…

[Kyle] You believe gingerbread is flat?

[Heidi] But so here’s my thing. How can we encourage, cause we’re going to run out of time for today’s show. I’m going to bring you guys back because I want to talk about the scientific problems with the flat Earth theory. I want our listeners to really hear the science behind it, but I’d like to leave them today with an understanding of why this matters to them and is there a reason for them to engage in the conversation, to where if they encounter somebody that believes this, they will have an answer because it rather than just say, here’s another big problem for you guys, I want to give them kind of hope. Really that’s what you’re doing. That’s what your new documentary Faith on the Edge is about. You guys have been out there, you’re doing the research for us. Thank you very much. Doing the research for us, so that we can get a better of the issue at hand. Right? Was that the motivation behind the documentary?

[Kyle] Well, we began talking about this right at the beginning, because we realized that usually flat Earthers are so committed that you don’t often see them come back out of believing in the flat Earth again. So we said, well, what is the purpose of our documentary? Is it to try and turn flat Earthers back into round Earthers? Well, no, not really. I think more what our calling has been with this is to try and educate people. So if they are a wife, or children or whatever, they understand the issues. But I think most importantly of all, it’s to stop people from going to the flat Earth in the first place. We feel like if we can give them the evidence ahead of time, that when they’re confronted with it, that they already understand what the issues are, and already understand why the flat Earth is not a valid position.

[Pat] I think so many of the— what how many verses? Like 200 references to the flat Earth, the flat Earthers.

[Kyle] Right and hopefully in our next episode we can talk about those because that’s really the commitment of a lot of flat Earthers is they believe that the biblical positions says that the Earth is flat. And so I think we need to kind of address that a little bit and show why that…

[Pat] And the thing is we wanted to help other Christians who run into this, these verses that are being used. Really what the context of the passage is. So they’re not sitting there going, “Oh wow, it does say that.”

[Heidi] Right, so they’re not confused.

[Pat] And then they begin to question. So, we’re doing some apologetics at the same time. And that was a big goal, especially the first half of the documentary.

[Heidi] And the Christian Church really doesn’t see this as an issue right now. I mean I don’t hear churches talking about this. I don’t feel like I kind of feel like it’s going to slap them upside the head. Frankly, like the transgenderism issue. And when I wrote Becoming MomStrong two years ago, a lot of what I was saying, the premise behind that was, this generation of parents is dealing with questions that previous generations didn’t even see coming. And so part of the reason why I want to have you guys on the show is to say, get ready cause this question is coming. You are going to get asked it. Somebody at some point is going to say, “Hey, I believe blah, blah, blah,” which really a lie from the enemy, right? And it is I think a source of distraction, but also it takes away from the creator. And, and we do this. I mean this is the enemy, right? Over time, just distracting us with different things. And so in that regard, it really does matter.

One more thing before I wrap the show up for today. When someone says to you, let’s say just a mom or a dad is listening. I know there’s a lot of men listening to this today, and they’re like, “what? This isn’t really a thing.” Why should they care about this issue? Why should it matter to the average person who’s like, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to even be and why should I care one way or the other?”

[Pat] Well, I think you’re definitely, if you haven’t already, you’re going to encounter somebody who believes in the flat Earth. It has become so common now. Everybody is going to run into somebody who believes it.

[Kyle] And their kids, a lot of their kids are running into this. And we’re hearing about kids asking their parents, “Hey, what about this? So, how do I interpret what they’re saying?” And the parents often don’t have the answers. And so we want to prepare parents to be able, when their kids have questions, they’ll be able to say, “oh yeah, here’s the context and here’s the science of behind it”. So we’re providing tools for parents to be able to talk to the kids about this.

[Heidi] And so really what you’re helping parents do is to get ahead of it, to get out ahead of it. And I love that. I’m going to read from the back of your new DVD that just cause- is it out available for people right now?

[Kyle] Came out last March.

[Heidi] Fantastic. So it says on the back, it says 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? And you guys have some really great guests on this with you. Dr. Charlie Duke. You said he was Capcom for Apollo 11 and an astronaut for Apollo 16, he’s on here?

[Pat] Yes.

[Kyle] Yes.

[Heidi] Wow. What was that like?

[Kyle] You were on the moon, what do you think, round or flat? You’re going to be surprised by the answer.

[Pat] He was great. I interviewed him. He was awesome.

[Heidi] Oh, that’s fantastic. So you got a really great a range of guests on here speaking to this issue. It’s a fascinating topic and I’d love it, would you guys come back next Friday and we can finish this conversation?

[Pat] We’d love to.

[Kyle] We’d love to do that.

[Heidi] All right. We’ll plan it. We’re going to come back next Friday. This is too much for one show and so I’d like these guys to come back next Friday. My friends Pat Roy and Kyle Justice here, talking about the flat Earth and why it should matter to you. And what is the answer that you can give. Thanks for listening everybody. Stay faithful 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

Submit your questions to MailBox Monday.

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Hal and Melanie Young are the parents of six boys and two girls, and award-winning authors of eight books on parenting, marriage, and Biblical family life. Their podcast “Making Biblical Family Life Practical” can be found on the Ultimate Homeschool Podcast Network, iTunes, Spotify, and iHeartRadio.

Connect with Hal and Melanie Young: Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitter

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