And even if you know the details, unless you’ve indulged existing flat-earth literature, you are unlikely - right here, right now - to be able to cogently, concisely, and comprehensively respond to the lengthy rebuttals flat-earthers will give to each and every scientific proof. But unless you’re unusual, you probably don’t know all of the details of the scientific proofs.

Perhaps you then start to appeal to science. The standard of proof is higher, they say. Or possibly you rely on the testimony of astronauts. Consider one, standard, flat-earth line: “Can you prove the world is round?” Maybe you point to the ( often artificially assembled) photos of Earth from space. This implies that the Devil presented this temptation to Jesus through some means other than literal human sight.Philosophy can explain why. The parallel account at Luke 4:5 says that the Devil showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth in an instant of time,” which would not be possible through normal human vision. This could be similar to the way a person uses a projector and a screen to show someone pictures of various places on earth. The Devil showed Jesus not only all the kingdoms but also “their glory.” Such details could not be seen from a great distance, so it seems that the Devil used some sort of vision to show these to Jesus. There is no literal mountain on earth from which all the kingdoms of the world are visible. Consider why this conclusion is reasonable.

However, the “unusually high mountain” in this account seems to be a metaphor and not a physical location. To tempt Jesus, “the Devil took him along to an unusually high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” ( Matthew 4:8) Some claim that this Bible account teaches that the entire world is visible from a single spot on a flat earth.

Flat earth planets