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?

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
    8·
    11 months ago

    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.

    The Bible being a translation of a man-made interpretation of God by a primitive people doesn’t even make it too difficult to go “we have new proof, we need to re-evaluate the scripture to find out its true meaning”. Take the firmament, turn it into a metaphorical argument about God putting us in a universe expanding at the speed of light (making it impossible to reach other planets where we could possibly live) and boom, science compatible religion.

    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 sceptical, 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.

    The problem with admitting that you’re wrong is that people will ask “then what else could be wrong?”. Once you learn Santa isn’t real, the Easter Bunny suddenly becomes extremely suspect.

    That said, churches like the Catholic Church are generally less strict then these extremists. The Catholic Church doesn’t deny the existence of dinosaurs, nor space, nor strictly speaking even evolution (as in, “souls are made by God” + “God guided all species through evolution” is not completely unacceptable). If you’re religious enough to think the Catholic Church has a liberal take on the Bible, you’re probably going to hold some batshit insane beliefs.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      11 months ago

      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.