[GoldCashew]

Hi,

Just some curious inquiries and questions about the theory of a Firmement. Hopefully this can also drive some spirated debate.

• Is the belief of a Firmement a mainstream belief within TFES, a kind of 50/50 split belief within TFES, or a fringe belief within TFES? I have come across comments from some FE believers that are skeptical on the notion of a  firmement so was just curious.

• For those TFES members that do subscribe to the belief in a Firmament, what are the specifics behind its composition, material properties, and thickness. I have seen one FE'er describe the material as a glass dome, but not sure if that's the generally accepted belief.

• How thick would such a Firmamemt need to be?

• Or, is the material of some type of exotic material that man has yet to discover? It would have to withstand the harsh elements of the atmosphere while staying crystal clear all the time. If it was glass, it would be very heavy.

• How is the firmament dome connected to the flat Earth plane? Also, does the Firmament continue to the back side of the Flat Earth?

• Have Firmaments been observed on other celestial bodies?

Thank you.

[Tron]

I personally the firmament is the same thing as what's talked about in the RE community.  It's a later of dense atmosphere above the earth.   

[GoldCashew]

I personally the firmament is the same thing as what's talked about in the RE community.  It's a later of dense atmosphere above the earth.

Hi,

I don't believe RE community talks about or believes in a layer of dense atmosphere above the Earth.

RE community believes that the higher one goes in altitude, the less dense the atmosphere becomes.

For the FE firmament theory, is FE belief then the opposite of this?
....i.e. the higher one goes in altitude, the MORE dense the atmosphere becomes until there is a really dense layer?

Thank you.

[RhesusVX]

It depends on whether you are talking about this in a biblical cosmology context or future interpretations of it, but either way, the issue is that most of your questions can't be answered rationally.

• How thick would it need to be?  Can't be answered because...
• What is it made from?  Nobody in the community can know this because either nobody can get there to test it, or, results of tests by governing bodies are being kept secret.
• How is it connected?  I suppose gravity would explain this one.  RET posits that the Earth and everything around it is constantly accelerating upwards at 9.81m/s, so this would keep it in place being so large.
• Does it reach to the back of the Earth?  Again, can't be answered because by definition you cannot physically go beyond it.  That being the case, we have never been shown a picture of the edge or underside of the Earth, so the answer "yes it does" is just as valid as "no it doesn't".  Would it make sense being a sphere?  Sure.  Would it make sense just being a hemisphere?  Sure.
• Have they been discovered on other celestial bodies?  No, because Earth isn't a planet under FET, it's its own thing, the centre of what we know, with stars, planets, comets, asteroids, galaxies etc. all rotating around Earth in the layer that was called the firmament.  The very definition of flat Earth rules out the existence of anything else like it.

These are great questions and I don't want to talk on behalf of anybody else, but instead my answers are based on what I've read and understood in my short time here.  I do find the whole subject fascinating, but if like me you are a man of science, fact and observation, the concepts of FET are hard to comprehend in the face of 2 millennia worth of scientific theory and evolution.  I suppose the opposite can be true, that the concepts of RET are hard to comprehend if you lean more towards religion and only believing what you see and hear with your own eyes and ears.

[Longtitube]

I don't believe RE community talks about or believes in a layer of dense atmosphere above the Earth.

RE community believes that the higher one goes in altitude, the less dense the atmosphere becomes.

For the FE firmament theory, is FE belief then the opposite of this?
....i.e. the higher one goes in altitude, the MORE dense the atmosphere becomes until there is a really dense layer?

Thank you.

It’s not a matter of “belief”, it’s been measured repeatedly. Travel from sea level to a decent height and then go for a brisk hike and you’ll discover altitude sickness, or hypoxia for yourself. It’s quite possible to do this, the high Sierra passes can be reached from the California coast by car in less than a day. Or fly from Miami to La Paz, Bolivia and try a quick mile’s jog. Trekking in the Himalayas, you absolutely must watch for altitude sickness if it’s not to spoil your holiday photos. Go even higher if mountaineering is your thing and above 8,000m or so you will die without extra oxygen because the air is so thin. That’s why these heights are known to climbers as the Death Zone and why airliners have pressurised cabins. Anyone wondered why the cabin crew demonstrate putting on the oxygen mask before every flight?

Go even further up and water boils without heating in the very low pressure air at 70,000ft, so record-breaking skydivers wear a space suit just to live at these heights without their eyes being permanently damaged or destroyed as the water in them would boil too. Above 100,000ft the air pressure is less than 1% of what you and I breathe. It’s not a friendly place to visit.

How do we know this? Weather balloons have gone this high carrying pressure sensors and the results were logged and published. One example is another camera-on-a-weather-balloon experiment done recently in the UK and pressure monitoring was one of the other experiments done on the same trip.

[Tron]

I personally the firmament is the same thing as what's talked about in the RE community.  It's a later of dense atmosphere above the earth.

Hi,

I don't believe RE community talks about or believes in a layer of dense atmosphere above the Earth.

RE community believes that the higher one goes in altitude, the less dense the atmosphere becomes.

For the FE firmament theory, is FE belief then the opposite of this?
....i.e. the higher one goes in altitude, the MORE dense the atmosphere becomes until there is a really dense layer?

Thank you.

I believe it's the Ozone layer im talking about.   Its the layer in the atmosphere with the most Ozone as you go up. 

[GoldCashew]

I personally the firmament is the same thing as what's talked about in the RE community.  It's a later of dense atmosphere above the earth.

Hi,

I don't believe RE community talks about or believes in a layer of dense atmosphere above the Earth.

RE community believes that the higher one goes in altitude, the less dense the atmosphere becomes.

For the FE firmament theory, is FE belief then the opposite of this?
....i.e. the higher one goes in altitude, the MORE dense the atmosphere becomes until there is a really dense layer?

Thank you.

I believe it's the Ozone layer im talking about.   Its the layer in the atmosphere with the most Ozone as you go up.

But, the ozone layer is not "dense."

So, how would something not dense create a firmament structure?

Also, above the ozone layer is still more atmosphere. So, an ozone layer as a firmament would not really be a "true" firmament with a boundary layer.

Is an ozone firmament the mainstream FE belief in terms of what the firmament is made of, or, is it just one potential theory out of many? As mentioned earlier, there are some TFES members that have stated the firmament as a glass dome.

[Tron]

No I haven't heard this idea among other flat Earthers.  It's my interpretation of the data..

[RhesusVX]

No I haven't heard this idea among other flat Earthers.  It's my interpretation of the data..

But FET also states that atmospheric pressure, and hence density, is greatest closest to the Earth’s surface.  The higher up you go, the less dense it gets. 

Yes, ozone does have a molecular weight that’s heavier than air.  It is formed in the upper atmosphere due to UV rays breaking apart oxygen molecules into free oxygen atoms.  These free oxygen atoms combine with other oxygen molecules to form ozone.  The reason ozone stays in the stratosphere despite being heavy is because it is very unstable, breaking back down into an oxygen molecule and oxygen atom in a matter of minutes.  These can then recombine to form more oxygen and/or more ozone, and the cycle repeats continuously, protecting us from those harmful UV rays.

The ozone layer has been measured at being 9 - 18 miles above Earth.  As already pointed out, there is less dense atmosphere above the ozone layer, and this is in agreement with both RET and FET as far as I can gather.  Therefore, the firmament that you are referring to cannot be the ozone layer because the firmament has to be above the Sun and Moon, which are said to be 3,000 miles above Earth according to FET.

[Tron]

That was a great response, I appreciate the info.  The only point I'd make is that some flat earthers like me believe the firmament is below the sun and moon and thus helps explain A lot of phenomena in certain FE models like 24/7 light in certain places as the sun's rays literally wrap around the dome...  or just the general appearance of the sun, moon, and stars as there image is distorted 😼

[GoldCashew]

That was a great response, I appreciate the info.  The only point I'd make is that some flat earthers like me believe the firmament is below the sun and moon and thus helps explain A lot of phenomena in certain FE models like 24/7 light in certain places as the sun's rays literally wrap around the dome...  or just the general appearance of the sun, moon, and stars as there image is distorted 😼

Hi,

Regarding your belief in the ozone layer of the atmosphere being the firmament, do you believe that man has flown, or rocketed, or ballooned past this ozone firmament? (the ozone layer is 9 to 18 miles above the Earth's surface)

Or, do you believe that man cannot pass the ozone firmament?

Thank you.

[RhesusVX]

That was a great response, I appreciate the info.  The only point I'd make is that some flat earthers like me believe the firmament is below the sun and moon and thus helps explain A lot of phenomena in certain FE models like 24/7 light in certain places as the sun's rays literally wrap around the dome...  or just the general appearance of the sun, moon, and stars as there image is distorted 😼

Thanks, and I totally respect your views and position. I can't postulate any further because the word "firmament" goes back to biblical cosmology and in biblical context is open to wide interpretation.  You might find the following useful/interesting?

https://www.kjvbible.org/firmament.html
https://biologos.org/articles/the-firmament-of-genesis-1-is-solid-but-thats-not-the-point

I cannot find anything in the Wiki here explaining what the firmament is believed to be, and a search of the forums didn't yield too much either to confirm something one way or the other.  Does it represent the atmosphere above the Earth, or does it represent a discreet, physical barrier that stops the atmosphere from escaping out into space?  I don't know, and being open to vast interpretation, am not going to say.  Modern flat Earth models seem to agree that the Sun and Moon are within a hemispherical region of space, directly above the Earth, and that the stars and other interstellar objects are in a layer above the Sun and Moon, either in, or projected onto this "dome" that we talk about.

Is this hemispherical region an actual barrier or a theoretical one?  The flat Earth Wiki suggests that while the diameter of the Earth is 25,000 miles (the bit that the Sun can illuminate), the actual diameter of the Earth is much wider than this.  But, here's the crux of the problem.  Based on what I've read and understood, we can't get to the dome for some reason, the dome contains everything we could ever observe, and so by definition we cannot get outside of that dome to observe it and prove its existence.  Convenient?  To me that just says "we can't explain it", because logic dictates that if it was a physical barrier, we would have crashed into/bumped into it by now, and if it wasn't a physical barrier, we would have travelled beyond it by now.  You see the issue I have with comprehending it?  I know there are videos of rockets/spacecraft exploding, and claims that they do so because they hit the barrier, but those have to be consigned to NASA conspiracy for now, which is going off-topic.

[Tron]

That was a great response, I appreciate the info.  The only point I'd make is that some flat earthers like me believe the firmament is below the sun and moon and thus helps explain A lot of phenomena in certain FE models like 24/7 light in certain places as the sun's rays literally wrap around the dome...  or just the general appearance of the sun, moon, and stars as there image is distorted 😼

Hi,

Regarding your belief in the ozone layer of the atmosphere being the firmament, do you believe that man has flown, or rocketed, or ballooned past this ozone firmament? (the ozone layer is 9 to 18 miles above the Earth's surface)

Or, do you believe that man cannot pass the ozone firmament?

Thank you.

Yes, totally, I believe space craft have travelled beyond this layer of the atmosphere. 

[Tron]

That was a great response, I appreciate the info.  The only point I'd make is that some flat earthers like me believe the firmament is below the sun and moon and thus helps explain A lot of phenomena in certain FE models like 24/7 light in certain places as the sun's rays literally wrap around the dome...  or just the general appearance of the sun, moon, and stars as there image is distorted 😼

Thanks, and I totally respect your views and position. I can't postulate any further because the word "firmament" goes back to biblical cosmology and in biblical context is open to wide interpretation.  You might find the following useful/interesting?

https://www.kjvbible.org/firmament.html
https://biologos.org/articles/the-firmament-of-genesis-1-is-solid-but-thats-not-the-point

I cannot find anything in the Wiki here explaining what the firmament is believed to be, and a search of the forums didn't yield too much either to confirm something one way or the other.  Does it represent the atmosphere above the Earth, or does it represent a discreet, physical barrier that stops the atmosphere from escaping out into space?  I don't know, and being open to vast interpretation, am not going to say.  Modern flat Earth models seem to agree that the Sun and Moon are within a hemispherical region of space, directly above the Earth, and that the stars and other interstellar objects are in a layer above the Sun and Moon, either in, or projected onto this "dome" that we talk about.

Is this hemispherical region an actual barrier or a theoretical one?  The flat Earth Wiki suggests that while the diameter of the Earth is 25,000 miles (the bit that the Sun can illuminate), the actual diameter of the Earth is much wider than this.  But, here's the crux of the problem.  Based on what I've read and understood, we can't get to the dome for some reason, the dome contains everything we could ever observe, and so by definition we cannot get outside of that dome to observe it and prove its existence.  Convenient?  To me that just says "we can't explain it", because logic dictates that if it was a physical barrier, we would have crashed into/bumped into it by now, and if it wasn't a physical barrier, we would have travelled beyond it by now.  You see the issue I have with comprehending it?  I know there are videos of rockets/spacecraft exploding, and claims that they do so because they hit the barrier, but those have to be consigned to NASA conspiracy for now, which is going off-topic.

I see that you are gravitating to certain notions of the "Dome".  I'd keep an open mind.   I'd go as far to say there are a few "layers" of thick atmosphere that people could consider domes.   Even close to earth are stratification of the atmosphere going from solid water, to the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, temperatsphere, exosphere etc...

[RhesusVX]

I see that you are gravitating to certain notions of the "Dome".  I'd keep an open mind.   I'd go as far to say there are a few "layers" of thick atmosphere that people could consider domes.   Even close to earth are stratification of the atmosphere going from solid water, to the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, temperatsphere, exosphere etc...

If you are describing the layers as the following:

https://earthhow.com/exosphere/

Whether those are spheres around a globe, or domes over a flat Earth is just semantics at this point.  It still doesn't explain what the firmament is or what stops us going into space.

[jack44556677]

@GoldCashew

Is the belief of a Firmement a mainstream belief within TFES, a kind of 50/50 split belief within TFES, or a fringe belief within TFES?

Personally, I eschew belief from knowledge/fact, especially scientific.

I don't know the tfes "stats", but it has been my experience that many, possibly even most, believe, speculate, and/or deduce the existence of a dome.  There is also historical, cartographical, and mythological support for its reality.

what are the specifics behind its composition, material properties, and thickness. I have seen one FE'er describe the material as a glass dome, but not sure if that's the generally accepted belief.

No one knows.  A major source for the descriptions you seek is the bible, which describes it as a "dark crystal" of some sort of terrible hue.  It is also described as "tent like".

Some say that disney (their logo/intro silhouette - supposedly depicting the tower of babel peeking through the firmament) and the modern/recent atlantis conceptions are more appropriate/conceivable. 

Others talk about skystone - a mysterious and entrancing blue oxygen laden mineral that is very odd indeed. The locals attributed to the first find of it supposedly claimed the stones were part of a fallen city that floated above which fell due to hubris. All speculation of course.

How thick would such a Firmamemt need to be?

How much wood could a wood chuck chuck? There are too many unknowns and unknowables to justify bothering to calculate it at all.

How is the firmament dome connected to the flat Earth plane?

The bible says it is on pillars, possibly 4 of them - corresponding to the 4 corners.  No one knows for sure - we need more data!

Have Firmaments been observed on other celestial bodies?

Not to my knowledge.  There is a logical error in thinking the lights in the sky have any relevance to the shape or composition of the earth.  If you want to know something about the earth, you have to study IT! Looking the literal opposite direction is unscientific and foolish.

@Longitube & others

The density gradient of air we observe is chiefly due to the weight, an intrinsic and inexorable property of all matter, of the gas.  Yes, it occurs in sealed containers AND gas pressure is, fundamentally, always derived from the container walls.  We can easily deduce that, IF there is an infinite sky vacuum above our heads (and even if there is not, just having constant air pressure at all necessarily involves containment), then there must be a barrier for us to have relatively static air pressure for aeons.

Deductions are often wrong, and I personally would like to see expeditions settle the matter.

@Tron1002

Have you heard of/seen skystone? It is bright blue due to its high oxygen content, and wouldn't you know it - ozone (and oxygen) is blue too for the same reason!  They may possibly be related.  Do you know the legends about operation fishbowl, and the first pixar short?

[Tron]

No , but I'm interested in finding out!

[GoldCashew]

@GoldCashew

Is the belief of a Firmement a mainstream belief within TFES, a kind of 50/50 split belief within TFES, or a fringe belief within TFES?

Personally, I eschew belief from knowledge/fact, especially scientific.

I don't know the tfes "stats", but it has been my experience that many, possibly even most, believe, speculate, and/or deduce the existence of a dome.  There is also historical, cartographical, and mythological support for its reality.

what are the specifics behind its composition, material properties, and thickness. I have seen one FE'er describe the material as a glass dome, but not sure if that's the generally accepted belief.

No one knows.  A major source for the descriptions you seek is the bible, which describes it as a "dark crystal" of some sort of terrible hue.  It is also described as "tent like".

Some say that disney (their logo/intro silhouette - supposedly depicting the tower of babel peeking through the firmament) and the modern/recent atlantis conceptions are more appropriate/conceivable. 

Others talk about skystone - a mysterious and entrancing blue oxygen laden mineral that is very odd indeed. The locals attributed to the first find of it supposedly claimed the stones were part of a fallen city that floated above which fell due to hubris. All speculation of course.

How thick would such a Firmamemt need to be?

How much wood could a wood chuck chuck? There are too many unknowns and unknowables to justify bothering to calculate it at all.

How is the firmament dome connected to the flat Earth plane?

The bible says it is on pillars, possibly 4 of them - corresponding to the 4 corners.  No one knows for sure - we need more data!

Have Firmaments been observed on other celestial bodies?

Not to my knowledge.  There is a logical error in thinking the lights in the sky have any relevance to the shape or composition of the earth.  If you want to know something about the earth, you have to study IT! Looking the literal opposite direction is unscientific and foolish.

@Longitube & others

The density gradient of air we observe is chiefly due to the weight, an intrinsic and inexorable property of all matter, of the gas.  Yes, it occurs in sealed containers AND gas pressure is, fundamentally, always derived from the container walls.  We can easily deduce that, IF there is an infinite sky vacuum above our heads (and even if there is not, just having constant air pressure at all necessarily involves containment), then there must be a barrier for us to have relatively static air pressure for aeons.

Deductions are often wrong, and I personally would like to see expeditions settle the matter.

@Tron1002

Have you heard of/seen skystone? It is bright blue due to its high oxygen content, and wouldn't you know it - ozone (and oxygen) is blue too for the same reason!  They may possibly be related.  Do you know the legends about operation fishbowl, and the first pixar short?

Hi,

Your post says that you eschew belief from knowledge/fact, especially scientific.

But then for many of the inquiries about the firmaments composition, material properties and thickness your feedback is that "No one knows" and that there are "too many unkowns".

I would say that the "No one knows" part is not accurate since we know the layers that make up the atmosphere and we know that there isn't a physical barrier from Earth's atmosphere to space.

Many folks on this thread are talking about an ozone layer, but that's just one of the layers of the atmosphere that we can all agree exists, but not a physical barrier firmament per se.

I think that what I am learning from my original inquiry is that within the FE community, there isn't really a common view of what the firmament is or if it even exists. There appears to be variation of what the firmament is. Also, the firmament may not necessarily be a "physical" barrier, like what some FE members have described as being a glass dome.

[RhesusVX]

The notions that “we know” or “we don’t know” get banded around a lot when engaging in debate in relation to FET and RET.  Saying that we know that there is no physical barrier between Earth”s atmosphere and space stacks up with me, but then I understand the concept of gravity and understand that the vacuum of space does not mean a large vacuum cleaner sucking the atmosphere away from our surface (a common mistake a lot of people make).

If we assume RET, it states the Earth is accelerating upwards constantly at 9.81m/s^2 (Universal Acceleration) because this is what explains the effect we call gravity.  If this is the case, and if there is no physical barrier over the Earth, any atmosphere would just get dispersed laterally and ultimately fly off the sides of the disc.  This in turn means that in order for us to survive, the infinitely large medium we are accelerating through would also have to be filled with air.   But, if we were all flying through a huge void of air at that rate with no protection, the wind speeds after just 1 minute of existence would be in excess of 1,320 mph on the surface and life as we know it couldn’t exist anyway.

Positing that there is a physical barrier solves all of those problems as it neatly contains the atmosphere and protects us from the effects of constant acceleration.  Based on what I’ve read so far and understand about FET, especially one with UA, a dome over the Earth must exist if UA is also real.  But then you read in the Wiki about the Earth possibly being an infinite disk with a finite gravity.  In this model it may not need a dome to contain the atmosphere, but then that leaves it open for the question - what barrier would stop us from venturing beyond?

[Longtitube]

The density gradient of air we observe is chiefly due to the weight, an intrinsic and inexorable property of all matter, of the gas.

Yes, and it’s that weight which gives us a breathable air pressure and keeps the air from dissipating into space. We’re on the same page, you see.