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?
Interesting, because it seems that lack of identity and hobbies is causing this. It is like when people become fan of product such as sport teams, a car manufacturer, an operating system so they can feel included.
The difference is, the low fee entry to believe systems, you don’t need to think or spend money, just listen or watch YouTube videos.
Maybe OP need to take these family members to join club or something else where they replace this passive lifestyle with a little bit active one.
That’s true. The feeling of community plays an important part in many conspiracy theories. Humans are social animals, so social interaction is essential for wellbeing. If you’re lonely, you’ll naturally crave for a sense of community, and that’s exactly what many conspiracy theories will provide. Alternatively, you could build a kite and go to the nearest park and talk to all the other people flying their kites, but it’s a lot easier to watch conspiracy videos and join those forums.
On top of that, there’s a strong sense of in-group vs. out-group. That’s basically just a modern version of tribalism. It’s the usual “us against them” setup all over again.