So I have a born again christian family member in their mid twenties who stated with complete confidence that there is a dome in the sky called the firmament and beyond it is where heaven is. She believes space doesn’t exist and rockets just blow up because the bible said so. She is not the brightest and normally I would let this sort of nonsense go but I work in aerospace and have multiple pieces of hardware in space so she is either calling me ignorant or a malicious agent for the devil purposely lying for her so I got pretty annoyed. I can’t find anything about this dome in a google search about religion and I suspect she ended up on a flat-earth YouTube channel that twisted a line in the bible to fit their beliefs and didn’t actually get it from her church. I know its probably hopeless to help her understand how dumb and frankly insulting this belief is but I can possibly talk some reason if I understand the source.
Are there any major or minor religions, christian or other that believe space is a lie and only god is outside our atmosphere?
friendly reminder that these people vote
That was not friendly at all. This reminder is quite destressing.
I feel distressed, tbh…
Lmao, well that’s embarrassing. Serves me right for going online after taking a sleeping pill.
Friendly reminder that depending upon where they live, their vote may be worth more than yours.
This was roughly the early cosmology of Judaism, but even by Jesus’s time was being abandoned. For example, the Greeks and Romans were familiar enough with both lunar eclipses and the Earth being round that the generally accepted explanation for lunar eclipses was that the Earth was eclipsing the sun and casting a shadow on the moon, which we know was popular because in De Rerum Natura Lucretius appeals to keep more of an open mind as that might not be the only explanation (meaning it was commonly enough endorsed that it was nearly considered the sole explanation in Lucretius’s circles).
This may even connect to the description of the three hour “crucifixion darkness” in the earliest copies of Luke where it is explained as being caused by the sun being eclipsed. That language is changed in later versions, and the language of ‘eclipse’ was criticized by early church commentators given that solar eclipses were known to be impossible on a full moon (such as Passover) and only last around 8 minutes.
But what’s often overlooked was that being written after 50 CE, visible nighttime lunar eclipses whose previous Saros cycle eclipses were during the daytime (and not visible) in the 30s CE would have allowed the latter to be trivially calculated by astronomers of the time.
Lunar eclipses take 3 hours, and have a 1 in 6 chance of occurring on Passover. We even know there was a daytime lunar eclipse on Passover of 33 CE, whose subsequent Saros cycle eclipse was visible in both Judea and Greece before any of the Synoptic gospels were written.
So not only was some of the anti-firmament cosmology known by the era of the New Testament, it’s quite possible that there was even originally text reflecting both knowledge the earth was round and that lunar eclipses are caused by the earth eclipsing the sun in the New Testament, but it may have been subsequently removed because later editors failed to realize the event was not an eyewitness testimony but a calculated celestial event and thus dismissed it as erroneously describing an impossible solar eclipse.
TL;DR: Your family member is nearly going pre-NT with the commitment to that cosmology there.
Amazingly thorough ! Nice ! I’ve encountered many flerfs talking about the firmament but never really wondered where that idea could have come from.
The bible apparently.
What wasn’t reasoned into her head, can’t be reasoned out.
Sounds like there’s a good chance that you may need to apply a method I use when dealing people who believe in conspiracy theories. It’s largely a psychological thing, and it has very little to do with proof, evidence, logic, reasoning and science. No amount of evidence is ever going to solve a problem that is psychological in nature. Religious cults and conspiracy groups share some characteristics, so maybe this is applicable in her case too.
The idea is that people believe in crazy BS because that makes them a member of a group. That gives them an identity and makes them feel like they’re a privileged group for knowing some “hidden truth” about something. It also produces an “us against them” dynamic between the in-group and the out-group. Many individuals in these groups also have sub-clinical psychosis, narcissism or paranoia accompanied by anxiety. This setup means that the misguided beliefs are essentially bullet proof. Fighting against these beliefs will only make them stronger.
These people need therapy more than evidence.
So what’s your method? I don’t think you ever actually spelled it out in the comment unless you meant sending them to therapy, which isn’t a bad idea.
Forget all the evidence and facts. Provide psychological support instead.
They’ll just consider psychological help as brainwash attempt and reject the help.
There’s no help for them. It’s sad really.
Just be kind. Be a human. Ask them how their day went. Listen to their worries. You don’t have to be a psychologist or pull any complex therapy maneuvers. Leave that to the professionals. Just having a normal every day chitchat can be surprisingly helpful to someone who is living in a completely different version of reality.
Just talk about other every day things, and avoid the topic of delusion.
A lot of “control” based conspiracy theories are born out of fear. The world is a chaotic, messy place and the idea that NO ONE is truly at the helm and we’re all just stumbling through the world is absolutely terrifying to some people. It’s far more comforting for them to believe there is some evil cabal or secret organization pulling the strings and that THEY’RE the reason bad things happen; rather than accepting that the world is complicated and most of us are barely removed from monkeys throwing poo at each other.
the idea that NO ONE is truly at the helm and we’re all just stumbling through the world is absolutely terrifying to some people.
What’s hilarious to me is once I had this realization it was so relieving. I fucking hated the idea of me having to suck up to some asshole sky daddy just because I had the audacity to be born.
Absolutely. Fear and uncertainty are a huge part of many conspiracy theories. It’s actually quite human to be uncomfortable with uncertainty.
However, in the case of Conspiratorial Thinking (CT), that uncertainty just goes wild and the person in question will seek out unorthodox methods to cope with it. Even if the explanation is complete BS, it’s still more comforting than having no explanation at all. It’s comforting and appealing, but it does not solve the underlying problem, and that’s why people with CT have a hard time getting back to normal thinking.
The world is big, scary and full of complex interactions. If you can come up with a miserably flimsy excuse of an explanation that will at least calm you down, you’re absolutely going to hold on to it. Humans are pretty bad at tolerating uncertainty, and some people will feel absolutely devastated in the face of global economic turmoil and political unrest. Some people will go to great lengths to mitigate uncertainty, and resorting to CT isn’t even the most extreme example of this behavior.
I’m confused, can you describe the method you use directly? my only tool for dealing with people like this is ignoring them and cutting contact, it’d be nice to have some tools in case it happens to someone I actually like
These people might be in a vulnerable spot, so help and support are the types of things they really need. Be a human to another human. Provide social interaction, friendship and understanding.
Facts and debate will only push them further away from reality and deeper into a fantasy realm of their own. They find it appealing, but it won’t actually address their problems.
Interesting, because it seems that lack of identity and hobbies is causing this. It is like when people become fan of product such as sport teams, a car manufacturer, an operating system so they can feel included.
The difference is, the low fee entry to believe systems, you don’t need to think or spend money, just listen or watch YouTube videos.
Maybe OP need to take these family members to join club or something else where they replace this passive lifestyle with a little bit active one.
That’s true. The feeling of community plays an important part in many conspiracy theories. Humans are social animals, so social interaction is essential for wellbeing. If you’re lonely, you’ll naturally crave for a sense of community, and that’s exactly what many conspiracy theories will provide. Alternatively, you could build a kite and go to the nearest park and talk to all the other people flying their kites, but it’s a lot easier to watch conspiracy videos and join those forums.
On top of that, there’s a strong sense of in-group vs. out-group. That’s basically just a modern version of tribalism. It’s the usual “us against them” setup all over again.
Like others have said, this is flat earther stuff. A lot of Christian evangelical types question things like the Big Bang and how old the universe/Earth really are, but afaik there isn’t an entire religion with this as a belief.
I used to work at a space museum and we would get Christian folks who would sometimes argue with us over the number that was on the sign telling them the age of our Moon rock, but never that the earth was flat. If that is a thing, it must be new.
Questioning The Big Bang is somewhat ironic, as it was initially Georges Lemaître, a physicist and Catholic Priest who was the outlier.
That’s why I specifically said Evangelicals.
Here is just one example:
Deutsch gained notoriety in late 2005 and early 2006, when it was reported that he had instructed a NASA website designer to add the word “theory” after every occurrence of the phrase Big Bang.[1] In his memo to the website designer, Deutsch wrote that the Big Bang is “not proven fact; it is opinion… It is not NASA’s place, nor should it be to make a declaration such as this about the existence of the universe that discounts intelligent design by a creator… This is more than a science issue, it is a religious issue.” The memo also noted that the AP Stylebook calls for the usage of the phrase “Big Bang theory”.[1]
Prior to the 2004 Bush/Cheney presidential campaign, Deutsch had been a student at Texas A&M University. His NASA résumé falsely asserted that he had a B.A. degree in journalism, but in February 2006 a blogger at The Scientific Activist discovered that he had never graduated.[2] This was subsequently confirmed by Texas A&M, and Deutsch resigned from NASA.[3] Deutsch later returned to Texas A&M and completed his degree that year.[4]
James E. Hansen, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and several other career NASA scientists and public affairs officials had been interviewed by The New York Times in January 2006. In these interviews, they complained about “intensifying efforts by political appointees in NASA, including Deutsch, to control more closely” the content of their public statements.[5] Deutsch, speaking to the New York Times, gave his opinion that Hansen had exaggerated the threat of global warming. He denied lying to NASA about his college degree.[5]
Didn’t they just find things that suggest it’s 4 million years older? Heh.
Wouldn’t have mattered.
The idea of a firmament is definitely a thing and has been for thousands of years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firmament
I’ve heard about it all my life from mainstream Christian churches too. Though it’s more of a metaphorical thing than physical. Like it’s a supernatural reason why we can never get to Mars rather than being a glass dome.
I always had the impression that firmament was synonymous with atmosphere for some reason. I’m not sure where I got that idea.
there’s been a lot of ways of rectifying what’s obviously true and scriptures over the years.
which is amusing because they’ll do anything to not admit their scripture-writers were wrong. It was written by people with a fixed- and flawed- understanding of the world they lived in. (We too have a fixed and flawed understanding, in point of fact. Its a bit better than theirs, mind, but it’s still flawed.)
“yeah. they believed that. they were wrong” isn’t really all that damaging to the over all story. But they think it is.
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Some religions update their interpretations. The Catholic Church, for example, has taken different points of view over the centuries on various things as they were proven to be false.
most denominations and sects do, yes. There are still those more fringe-cases that absolutely do not.
If I remember correctly, the Catholic Church doesn’t even rule out alien life at the moment. I remember reading a while ago that they were skeptical, but if aliens are proven to exist, they hope to find an alien species that did not betray God like humanity did in the garden of Eden.
It’s not a betrayal, because they were innocents and had no knowledge. in that story, god created the scenario and then allowed it to happen… and then gaslit the shit out of humanity ever since.
WDYM we also have a fixed understanding? I’m as fluid as science.
History is full of great and not so great scientists who just couldn’t accept a paradigm shift that totally changed their field of science.
Germ theory for example was a big one that got rejected by most of the medical scientists and professionals for decades.
I mean our conception is fixed to what we currently know. (Or “know”) in the broad scheme of things it would be rather rare to come across something that changes your fundamental understanding, right.
Looking back we can see that a lot of what people thought was straight up stupid. like barnacle geese… coming from… barnacles
But an observer looking back from far in the future at us… will likely see some of our beliefs as ridiculous.
I guess the realistic equivalent might be our local group. We can reach galaxies within it, but everything outside is moving away too fast for us to reach?
You can’t reason anyone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into. She believes this because it’s a follow-up on the “the bible is literally true” position she has taken as an apparently core part of her personality.
Unless you’re looking for a fight, consider just ignoring this person. Otherwise, call her out and make her call you a liar in front a crowd.
This is dipshit flatearther stuff. Ask them about the ice wall around the disc of the earth next time you see them.
Let it go, friend. Don’t let a moron get you riled up. If it helps, just take comfort in the fact that the majority of the problems in this person’s life will be self-created, but they will be too goddamn stupid to realize it or take the actions in their power to correct them.
You’re going to have to accept that she is stupid and insane. Don’t take it personally when the mentally ill person denies that your profession exists. She is delusional, and we must be patient with the crazies.
I’m curious if anyone else is able to provide an example here. Personally, I grew up in an extremely right-wing, very isolated, very culty version of the southern baptist church. I was around young-earthers, anti-vaxxers, anti-evolution folks, dinosaur/man co-existence, believing black people are black because they’re cursed—all sorts of crazy whackadoodle shit. I never once met someone who didn’t believe in space. I think you’re right that this was a YouTube Fact™ that she picked up somewhere.
Yeah, I came from the same background. Dinosaurs bones are a test put there by the devil to make believers doubt the young earth shit, the asteroid belt was originally the planet that Lucifer dwelt on, and God destroyed it when he cast him out, and that’s why it’s there, all kinds of shit. Never had someone tell me space wasn’t real, though. I’m sure a lot of them had a geocentric model stuck in their brains, or maybe didn’t believe in existence outside of the solar system, but the shepherds needed the star to guide them to Bethlehem, so they at least believed in space.
I can’t find anything about this dome in a google search
I gotta question your methodology here a bit, because just googling “firmament” will get you quite a lot of results and you don’t have to read very far into the actual Bible to come across the term (depending on the version of the Bible you read, different translations use different terms, sometimes I’ve seen “vault” used instead) its probably going to be right there on the first page of Genesis.
Now the Bible doesn’t exactly do a great job of describing the firmament. Coming up with an actual model for for the heavens and the earth kind of fell to various scholars over the years trying to make sense of it.
In general, if you take it literally, the firmament is normally interpreted as a sort of solid structure somewhere up above the sky that separates heaven and a whole bunch of water from the rest of creation and probably more or less resembles a dome above a flat earth. The exact structure of all of that will vary quite a bit depending on which denomination and scholars you listen to.
Even the word firmament should kind of clue you in that it’s supposed to be kind of solid, you can really go down a linguistic rabbit hole through all manner of English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, etc. words with this but for the most part you’ll get the impression that you’re supposed to believe there is some sort of physical barrier there
Most of the mainstream sects have adopted somewhat less-literal interpretations over the years because obviously the science doesn’t support that interpretation at all.
But of course there are a whole lot of absolutely wacky Christian denominations (all of them are at least a bit wacky, but some really go the extra mile into the heart of crazytown) and even in the less-insane denominations some individuals pick and choose and come up with their own batshit interpretations of things.
Off the top of my head, I don’t know which sects stick to a literal interpretation of it being a solid dome, but I’m absolutely sure they’re out there, but most of them are probably not very mainstream, most of them are probably independent churches not affiliated or only loosely affiliated with any larger organization. And a lot of people who believe it are probably picking it up outside of any organized church and either coming up with their own interpretations or getting it from some wackadoo on the internet.
Trying to talk sense into her is probably an exercise in futility and I would not have even the faintest idea of how to go about doing that. If you do want to learn more about her specific beliefs though, a good place to start is probably going right to the source and figuring out which church she goes to and where she’s getting her info- what websites, books, YouTube channels, etc. and the best way to do that is probably just to ask her. Don’t try to argue with her and convince her she’s wrong, you’re not going to get anywhere, just get some links and recommendations, she’s probably going to view it as a chance to convert you and born again types are all about that, she’ll probably dump a whole bunch on you.
Now the Bible doesn’t exactly do a great job of describing the firmament.
It simply doesn’t describe it at all.
Also, the Bible does not even try to be a lecture on physics, or astronomy, or an engineer’s manual…
Bible does not even try to be a lecture on physics, or astronomy, or an engineer’s manual…
And yet we have all met Christians like OP has who try to use it to guide their understanding of the physical world.
Christians who believe the earth is six thousand years old. Who think the whole earth flooded. Who believe that women were made from men…
There are Christians who will excommunicate you if you suggest the Bible isn’t entirely and literally true.
How do birds fly inside a solid barrier?
Genesis 1:20, KJV:
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”
A fish bowl is a solid barrier, how do fish swim in it?
Look up biblical cosmology on Wikipedia.
Space between church and state?
The empty space between her ears.
I agree with others, this seems like a flat-earther belief that has gotten mixed with Christianity’s creation story.
I’ve heard of it before while browsing the internet, but not from any Christians I personally know. All the Christians I interact with (myself included) believe in a literal interpretation of the creation but nobe of us believe in a physical firmament. I will note that a single man I know denies the moon landing (for reasons I haven’t bothered to ask) but even he still believes in a spherical earth and heliocentric orbit.
My understanding of Genesis 1:6-8 is that the firmament mentioned is the earth’s sky or atmosphere itself, and not a physical barrier at the edge of the atmosphere. The easiest way to show this would be Genesis 1:20 where birds are described as “flying in the firmament of heaven”. If the firmament was a solid object, birds could not fly in it.
The moon landing was faked. NASA hired Kubrick and he insisted on shooting “on location” for “authenticity”
This is a classic conspiracy theory back from the days when you could have fun with them rather than hearing about “the global elite are drinking the blood of children in a pizza parlor basement” and having to actually defend against such nonsense.
While you’re up there, mind bringing back some rocks for us?
Even by fundamentalist/Young Earth types, it’s considered pretty extreme, but yes, literal belief in the firmament is a thing.
