Edmonton hosts Flat Earth International Conference

In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. II Peter 2:3a (NIV)

The Fantasyland Hotel is an appropriate venue for this conference. The reader will notice the outrageous admission fees, which sound like those a televangelist might charge. As reported by Kevin Maimann of StarMetro Edmonton, August 9, 2018:

EDMONTON—Faith took centre stage at Edmonton’s Fantasyland Hotel Thursday as 250 people packed in for the Flat Earth International Conference.

Flat-Earthers from around North America came to listen to speakers such as Indiana radio host Rick Hummer, who told them to pull their kids out of public schools and ignore the consensus of the scientific community.

“If I were you, I’d get them out of the schools, because they’re not learning the truth,” Hummer told the crowd.

“I believe there’s a movement by the Almighty and his hand is all over this (flat-Earth movement). Because things are being revealed in the last days.”

Presenter Matt Long, a YouTuber from Texas, said he has a “healthy obsession with the Bible and truth” and claimed the Bible is “unequivocally a flat-Earth book.”

Many flat-Earthers believe the Earth is a disc, despite overwhelming scientific and photographic evidence that it is spherical.

Most who subscribe to this idea believe humans have not stumbled over the edge of the Earth because it is encircled in a wall of ice, making ground travel impossible, and pilots are too scared to make the trek.

Many still believe the other planets in our galaxy are round.

YouTuber Mark Sargent, who spoke and took questions from the audience Thursday, thinks the universe is a planetarium with man-made projections of a fake moon and stars.

He spoke derisively of scientists, none of whom were among the presenters at the conference.

“We are the new scientists, and we’re heading straight for you,” Sargent said. “We’ll take the cities, we’ll take the suburbs, we’ll take the countryside.”

Many who attended the conference came to believe in a flat Earth through other conspiracy theories, and were convinced by YouTube videos and articles they read on the internet.

Several said their journey into skepticism started with the debunked theory that humans have never actually walked on the moon.

In most cases, it was an unwavering faith in God that seemed to make the flat-Earth theory fit their world view.

“If the shape of the Earth is flat, then that means that it’s been constructed. And if it’s been constructed, we didn’t just blow up out of nothing,” said attendee John Wahlstrom, who travelled from Chilliwack, B.C. for the conference.

“That means there’s a whole lot more relevance in the fabric of our lives, rather than just coming from mud to fish to monkey to human beings as the evolutionists put forward.”

Lindsey Clark from Saskatchewan said the flat-Earth concept seemed simple for her because she doesn’t believe that we “came from monkeys.”

As far as what scientists could stand to gain by imposing such a massive hoax on humanity, some suggested it goes much deeper, beyond even the government.

“I think it reaches right into secret societies that have been manipulating us for hundreds of years,” Lawrie McLeod, of Edmonton, said.

Attendees shelled out at least $150 for a two-day pass, and some paid $300 for VIP passes that include front-row seating in the ballroom and a special speakers’ dinner.

There was plenty of merchandise for sale in the foyer, including T-shirts, posters with flat-Earth maps, and stickers with slogans such as “Space is Fake.”

But not everyone was buying in.

Matthew Rolheiser, who has a science degree and an education degree, said he came to the conference out of curiosity to understand how flat-Earthers think.

He empathized with the other attendees on some level, and concluded that the scientific community needs to do a better job reaching out and explaining its expertise in ways the average person can understand.

He pointed out that many who attended the conference asked good questions — it was the answers they got that were problematic.

“I would strongly encourage subject-matter experts to talk to people who have some very good, valid scientific questions about gravity, about space travel, about how do we know what we know, about planetary motion, about atmospheric science, about satellites,” he said.

“I think that people here are very intelligent and they are very curious, but they’re reaching a dead end whenever they try to really find out how something works.”

Science Literacy Week founder Jesse Hildebrand also said scientists could be better at communicating their work, and he strives to facilitate that as a science literacy advocate.

He said it’s important to note that, while the flat-Earth community is growing and its conferences have proven to be popular, it still makes up a “very infinitesimal” portion of the population.

While Hildebrand agreed to speak with StarMetro for this article, he was hesitant to facilitate a bigger platform for flat-Earthers.

“The scientific consensus, since basically the dawn of people looking for knowledge, has been that the Earth is round. You have to strain credulity, reason, logic, sense to believe the opposite. So it’s not something that I think should even be given the time of day,” he said.

“It’s like climate change at this point. There’s no tenable position otherwise, and even giving credence to the other side is to legitimize it in a way that it does not deserve.”

The Flat Earth International Conference was founded by Edmontonian Robbie Davidson, who is a Christian and a creationist.

He launched the first conference last year in Raleigh, N.C., and brought it to Edmonton for the first time this year. Another conference is slated for Denver, Colo., in November.

The event runs through Friday at the Fantasyland Hotel.

Those who claim that the Bible supports the flat-Earth view don't speak for this blogger--although, of course, if they got their information from the Internet, it must be true. ; The Bible passage that comes to mind to refute the flat-Earth view is Isaiah 40:22:

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: