Summary
This sheet follows the version of the dome thesis that starts from Scripture. The King James Version of Genesis says that God made a firmament and divided the waters under it from the waters above it, and some flat-Earth believers read that word literally, as a solid vault set over a flat plain. Press accounts of flat-Earth conferences say that the organiser, Robbie Davidson, came to his belief from a biblical mindset after watching videos that cited the passage, and that he and other attendees picture the Earth encased in a dome like a giant snow globe. A speaker at a New Zealand meetup put it as the child's drawing of creation: a flat Earth with a dome on top. In the best-known model the dome closes the system above a circular wall of Antarctic ice. The YouTube series Flat Earth Clues, posted from 2015, is credited with spreading the idea of an indestructible dome fixed to the rim, and its author is described as believing that all life is enclosed in a structure like the one in The Truman Show. Another strand reads the twinkling of stars as a sign of a liquid-like substance overhead. The movement is not unified: the Flat Earth Society's own model is a disk with no dome, and the conferences are unaffiliated with it. This sheet records where these ideas circulate; none of it is evidence that a dome exists, and the sheets on the science of the sky say what is actually measured.
What the thesis says
The sources show where these claims circulate, not that they are true.
- Thesis
The organiser of the Flat Earth International Conference says he came to his flat-Earth belief from a "biblical mindset", after YouTube videos that cited Genesis 1.
- The Earth Is Flat, NASA and the Pope Are Liars: Things Learned at the Flat Earth Convention, Dallas Observer
says he came to his flat-Earth belief from a “biblical mindset.” He saw a series of YouTube videos that made reference to Genesis 1:7-9
- The Earth Is Flat, NASA and the Pope Are Liars: Things Learned at the Flat Earth Convention, Dallas Observer
- Thesis
From that verse, the believers at the conference picture the Earth as a flat plain encased in a dome, like a giant snow globe.
- The Earth Is Flat, NASA and the Pope Are Liars: Things Learned at the Flat Earth Convention, Dallas Observer
This seems to be the foundation for Davidson and other attendees’ belief that the Earth is a flat plain encased in a dome like a giant snow globe.
- The Earth Is Flat, NASA and the Pope Are Liars: Things Learned at the Flat Earth Convention, Dallas Observer
- Thesis
A speaker at a New Zealand flat-Earth meetup said that a child's drawing of the creation would show a flat Earth with a dome over the top, a firmament, and added that you cannot get past it.
- A day at the NZ meetup for the world's hottest conspiracy theory: Flat Earth, The Spinoff, 30 April 2019
“When it comes to the description of how God created the Earth, if you had a child drawing that… they would draw it as a flat earth with a dome over the top – a firmament.
- A day at the NZ meetup for the world's hottest conspiracy theory: Flat Earth, The Spinoff, 30 April 2019
- Thesis
In the most common flat-Earth picture, the Earth is a plane covered by a gigantic dome and surrounded by a wall of ice.
- A day at the NZ meetup for the world's hottest conspiracy theory: Flat Earth, The Spinoff, 30 April 2019
the earth is a flat plane, covered by a gigantic dome, surrounded by an ice wall three hundred feet high
- A day at the NZ meetup for the world's hottest conspiracy theory: Flat Earth, The Spinoff, 30 April 2019
- Thesis
The YouTube series Flat Earth Clues, from 2015, popularised a version in which an indestructible dome is attached to the rim of the ice wall, closing the system; its author is also described as believing that all life is enclosed in a "Truman Show"-like structure.
- Mark Sargent (flat Earth proponent), Wikipedia
An indestructible dome is claimed to be attached to the rim, making it a closed system.
- What in the World? Flat-Earthers Gather at First Conference, Space.com, 17 November 2017
the creator of the Flat Earth Clues YouTube Series, who believes all life is enclosed in a "Truman Show"-like dome structure
- Mark Sargent (flat Earth proponent), Wikipedia
- Thesis
One version holds that stars seen through a camera appear to twinkle or shine through a liquid-like substance, taken as a sign of water above the dome.
- Fact Check: The Earth Is NOT Flat And Operation Fish Bowl Was A High-Altitude Nuclear Proof Test, Lead Stories, 18 November 2022
if you look at the stars with your own eyes or zoom in on them with a camera, it seems to be twinkling or shining through a liquid-like substance
- Fact Check: The Earth Is NOT Flat And Operation Fish Bowl Was A High-Altitude Nuclear Proof Test, Lead Stories, 18 November 2022
- Thesis
The Flat Earth Society's own model has no dome: it describes a disk with the Sun and Moon rotating above it, and the conferences organised by Robbie Davidson are unaffiliated with the Society.
- Modern flat Earth beliefs, Wikipedia
Flat Earth Society believes the Earth is a disk, with the Sun and the Moon, both spherical, rotating above the disk.
- Modern flat Earth beliefs, Wikipedia
Verified facts
- Verified fact
The King James Version of Genesis 1:7 reads that God made the firmament and divided the waters under it from the waters above it; the dome thesis rests on a literal reading of this word.
- Genesis 1:6-8 KJV, Bible Gateway (King James Version, public domain)
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
- Genesis 1:6-8 KJV, Bible Gateway (King James Version, public domain)
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