Flat Earthers believe that the Earth is flat rather than round. The sky above is a dome or “firmament” which holds back the waters which once covered the Earth in Noah’s Flood. This position is most commonly based upon a literal reading of the Bible, for example references to the “four corners of the earth” and the “circle of the earth.” Although some believe that all Christians used to think that the Earth is flat, that isn’t the case.
Geocentrists believe that the Earth is the center of the solar system and, in some cases, the entire universe. They agree with Flat Earthers about the existence of a firmament and their ideas are also based upon a literalist reading of the Bible. They deny that the plain meaning of the words in the Bible can be made to support anything other than a stationary Earth at the center of existence.
Some will argue, with some validity, that these positions have nothing inherently to do with creationism and do not belong in any taxonomy of creationist views. Moreover, it can also be argued that by putting such extreme ideas next to more common creationist positions, it looks like an attempt to attack creationism by associating it with Flat Earth and Geocentrist beliefs.
However, the similarities and relationship between these two positions and more "mainstream" creationism is strong enough to justify placing them in this taxonomy. In the first place, Flat Earthers and Geocentrists base their ideas on the same sort of literalist reading of biblical texts as do the creationists. If the former are mistaken, then questions are raised about the latter.
Secondly, Flat Earthers and Geocentrists are also quite often Creationists as well. Tom Willis, for example, runs The Creation Science Association for Mid-America, a creationist group which has played an important role in Kansas in changing the elementary school standards to remove references not only to evolution, but also earth history and even science methodology. Willis, of course, is not just a creationist, but also a Geocentrist.
On the group's web site it states:
- “...all experiments to demonstrate that the earth moves at all have failed. All seem to indicate the earth does not move at all. There is much evidence that the earth is young and cannot possibly be millions, much less billions of years old... The Bible does not say that the earth is at the center of the universe. But, anyone looking up can see that the sun, planets and stars are moving. Galileo argued that this motion was relative, that really the earth was spinning and it only looks like these other objects move. But, both the observations and the Bible indicate quite strongly that the earth does not move. If that is so, then the rest of this “stuff” must be moving.”
Lance F. contributed information for this FAQ entry.
