How do Young Earth Creationists, known for not understanding or accepting science, dismiss Flat Earthers who do the same thing (and sometimes cite the Bible as proof that the Earth isn’t round)?

An episode of Answers in Genesis’ news show recently tackled that very topic. And the way they wrote off the Flat Earthers was by saying — wait for it — that no one takes the Bible literally.

The people famous for claiming the Book of Genesis is actual history of how God created everything in six 24-hour days are mocking Flat Earthers for just taking the Bible’s words at face value.

The full clip is here, but Godless Engineer captured the relevant parts below.

The hosts are Drs. Georgia Purdom and Danny Faulkner.

Before they talk about interpreting the Bible, they want everyone to know right off the bat that atheists are responsible for Flat Earthers.

FAULKNER: I want to point out that these arguments that people put forth today for the Flat Earth, supposedly from the Bible, don’t come, historically, positions of the church. The church never argued these points from scripture. This all arose in the 19th century. Surprisingly enough, these arguments that Flat Earthers are using, supposedly from the Bible to support Flat Earth, are ones that were put forth from the skeptics and the atheists in the 19th century, trying to bring disrepute upon the scripture, showing it’s not authoritative. So I’m puzzled, and it breaks my heart at the same time, to see people parroting arguments that are 140, 150 years old! PURDOM: [Laughing] From people who are skeptics! FAULKNER: And atheists! Folks, you’re using their arguments, not the church’s arguments. Check the history on that and you’ll find out what I’m telling you is the truth here…

As we all know, the Church has never been against the side of science. (Right, Galileo?)

Even if Faulkner is right that the modern Flat Earth movement uses arguments perpetuated by atheists as a way to discredit scripture (“The Bible says the world is flat!”), maybe he should be less concerned about the atheists than the fact that the Bible can be manipulated so easily to get people to believe bullshit.

And Young Earth Creationism was popularized by James Ussher in the 17th century. He’s the guy who put the date of Creation in 4004 BC. So adopting old arguments as if they’re modern science isn’t exactly new to Young Earthers.

It’s the next part of their discussion, though, that’s especially facepalm-worthy. It happens around the 1:07 mark.

FAULKNER: … Some people, they accuse us of believing everything in the Bible is literal. Well, we don’t believe everything in the Bible is literal! There are many idioms. There are figures of speech. There are also imagery, particularly in the poetic and the prophetic passages… For instance, Jesus said, “I am the door.” Well, did he have hinges? Did he have a latch on it? Did he have a handle? Of course not! We understand that it’s not a literal door. So nobody really believes that the Bible’s completely literal… PURDOM: We need to take the Bible as it’s written. Not everything literally. I don’t know anyone that does that…

Really? I can think of a few people who do that… (Hint: LOOK BEHIND YOU!)

Basically, the Creationists are laughing away the Flat Earthers for taking the wrong parts of the Bible literally when everyone knows only the first few pages are totally, 100% accurate. Obviously.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Unless you’re Answers in Genesis, in which case you’re making everything up.

