How Do You Love a Flat Earther?
For most of my life, I've heard about people who believe the earth is flat, but I'd never met one. Until now. The problem is, that individual is a family member. A not-very-distant one. What should I do, and what does that have to do with being a Christian?
For me, it's a struggle.
The very essence of being a Christian is loving one's neighbor. Christ told us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. There was no caveat. The Apostle Paul said loving one's neighbor is the fulfillment of the law. What law? God's law. If you love your neighbor, you are fulfilling God's perfect law. But that's easier said than done.
The problem with flat earthers is they don't just believe something that isn't true. They actually evangelize others to believe it too. And the movement is growing.
In my family member's case, he takes certain Bible verses that seem to indicate the earth is flat if read literally and uses those to bolster his belief in the flat earth. Yikes!
Paul exhorted his protege Timothy to refrain from quarreling. I've done my best to do that since becoming a Christian 30 years ago, and I've been pretty good about it for the most part. But I find myself easily irked when I encounter ridiculous ideas, particularly ideas that turn common knowledge on its ear. And it seems the more ridiculous the idea, and the closer in relation to me of the person pertaining to that idea, or the more I respect the individual holding the idea, the more difficult it is for me contain myself. I wince, both inside and outside. Figuratively and literally.
An acquaintance of mine once said to me, "If you love someone and you see them going down the wrong path or subscribing to incorrect views, your love should motivate you to confront them about their beliefs and attempt to persuade them of their error."
It sounds like wisdom, but personal experience has taught me that such attempts are rarely successful. A lot of people have some really wacky ideas!
I know this is my weakness. It has nothing to do with others who espouse questionable ideas. Still, I'm at a loss as to what to do about it. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe love doesn't always motivate an individual to correct incorrect thinking.
Or maybe it does and I should just man up. But if this is true, I'll need lots of backup prayer to ensure I don't lose my mind.
What's your take?
Allen Taylor is the author of I Am Not the King.
First published by Author Allen Taylor at Paragraph. Image from Unsplash.
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Thanks for a thoughtful post. It's apparent that you care about your family member. There are many sub-orbital, high resolution images these days of our curved globe https://phys.org/news/2017-01-students-breathtaking-curvature-earth-high-altitude.html
...and there's always this gem:
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That's a funny image! Posted by the Flat Earth Society, with members all around the "globe." Made me laugh.
The problem is, these people don't believe those images are real. They're fake, they say. It makes me shake my head.
My wife and I deal with something similar. Her brother is part of the Hebrew Israelite movement, that absolutely loves to debate. And while I'm fine with debating and proving facts through scripture, they don't debate, they like to control the conversation and have it one way.
We've come to the conclusion that....All you can do is pray lol As simple as a solution as that sounds, I just remember scripture when it comes to dealing with division, debates and the spirit of confrontation.
Might not be the answer you are looking for when it comes to the flat earthers (they are fun) but that's all I know how to deal with things like this....Make your point, provide truth and if they don't want to hear it, all you can do is pray.
Debate is healthy only if both sides are willing to change their minds should facts challenge their thinking. I've found that most people aren't willing to change the way they think about things even if facts can show that they are wrong. We live in an age when people are more than comfortable changing the facts at their discretion or choosing which facts they wish to believe. It can drive a thinking person insane, if you let it.
One can construct Euclidean geometries on non-Euclidean surfaces and one can construct non-Euclidean geometry on Euclidean surfaces. A serious study of logic is fun. The world is full of logical paradoxes.
The flat earth game plays on a logical paradox between Euclidean and Non-Euclidean space.
Sadly, people who boldly claim that the earth is flat aren't interested in the complex mathematical arguments. Flatearthers seek controversy and bash people over the head with their stupid paradoxical geometries.
When people loudly claim "The Earth is Flat" they are telling the world that they have zero interest in rational discourse; so you simply have to ignore them whenever they start talking physics or politics.
The challenge is to find less controversial topics like the local bowling league or the color of the carpet.
!WINE
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I'm inclined to agree with you. I know my nephew, and I know my family. They've never found a conspiracy theory they couldn't like. None of them know how to reason through these kinds of things. All Aristotle had to do was walk out and look at the stars.
En Santiago 3 habla que la lengua 👅 inflama la rueda de la creación, allí hay un ejemplo como sabía el apóstol que la tierra era redonda..
That's an interesting takeaway from James 3. I don't see what you see. I do see that the apostle proclaims that the tongue is a difficult thing, if not impossible, to control. I do see any evidence that he knew the earth was round, or that he even cared. Maybe he did, if he read Aristotle. But the last two verses are incredibly pertinent for my situation:
Thanks for leading me to that.
lengua esta puesta entre nuestros miembros, y contamina todo el cuerpo, e inflama la rueda de la creación, y ella misma es inflamada por el infierno” (Santiago 3:5–6). cuando dice rueda de la creación se refiere al planeta tierra.
Thanks for the comment. I'm wondering where this phrase "wheel of creation" comes from? Is that how the text reads in Spanish? English versions of the Bible translate the phrase "world of wickedness" or "world of unrighteousness".