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?
I gotta question your methodology here a bit, because just googling “firmament” will get you quite a lot of results and you don’t have to read very far into the actual Bible to come across the term (depending on the version of the Bible you read, different translations use different terms, sometimes I’ve seen “vault” used instead) its probably going to be right there on the first page of Genesis.
Now the Bible doesn’t exactly do a great job of describing the firmament. Coming up with an actual model for for the heavens and the earth kind of fell to various scholars over the years trying to make sense of it.
In general, if you take it literally, the firmament is normally interpreted as a sort of solid structure somewhere up above the sky that separates heaven and a whole bunch of water from the rest of creation and probably more or less resembles a dome above a flat earth. The exact structure of all of that will vary quite a bit depending on which denomination and scholars you listen to.
Even the word firmament should kind of clue you in that it’s supposed to be kind of solid, you can really go down a linguistic rabbit hole through all manner of English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, etc. words with this but for the most part you’ll get the impression that you’re supposed to believe there is some sort of physical barrier there
Most of the mainstream sects have adopted somewhat less-literal interpretations over the years because obviously the science doesn’t support that interpretation at all.
But of course there are a whole lot of absolutely wacky Christian denominations (all of them are at least a bit wacky, but some really go the extra mile into the heart of crazytown) and even in the less-insane denominations some individuals pick and choose and come up with their own batshit interpretations of things.
Off the top of my head, I don’t know which sects stick to a literal interpretation of it being a solid dome, but I’m absolutely sure they’re out there, but most of them are probably not very mainstream, most of them are probably independent churches not affiliated or only loosely affiliated with any larger organization. And a lot of people who believe it are probably picking it up outside of any organized church and either coming up with their own interpretations or getting it from some wackadoo on the internet.
Trying to talk sense into her is probably an exercise in futility and I would not have even the faintest idea of how to go about doing that. If you do want to learn more about her specific beliefs though, a good place to start is probably going right to the source and figuring out which church she goes to and where she’s getting her info- what websites, books, YouTube channels, etc. and the best way to do that is probably just to ask her. Don’t try to argue with her and convince her she’s wrong, you’re not going to get anywhere, just get some links and recommendations, she’s probably going to view it as a chance to convert you and born again types are all about that, she’ll probably dump a whole bunch on you.
It simply doesn’t describe it at all.
Also, the Bible does not even try to be a lecture on physics, or astronomy, or an engineer’s manual…
And yet we have all met Christians like OP has who try to use it to guide their understanding of the physical world.
Christians who believe the earth is six thousand years old. Who think the whole earth flooded. Who believe that women were made from men…
There are Christians who will excommunicate you if you suggest the Bible isn’t entirely and literally true.
To be clear I couldn’t get a hit on a religion believing it is a solid impassable dome in the sky. I got hits on flat earther crap that sadly I knew about because another family member was a full fledged flat earther… (These are all in-laws BTW). I also found the bible definition which only states that the firmament is a barrier between heaven and earth. I am mostly just trying to figure out where she got this nonsense from and I suspect it was going down a rabbit hole on YouTube that led to a flat earth video using the bible as evidence of the flat earth. She has a short attention span so she probably stopped paying attention after the part where they said the sky is a dome because she said the earth is round.
Is she on TikTok? There’s a lot of conspiracy theorists growing followings on there under the guise of religion, health, nutrition, etc.
The important part about Flat Earther beliefs that always seems to get left out is that they’re a fundamentalist christian sect.
They don’t believe the Earth is flat because of “the evidence”, or even necessarily that the Earth is flat that’s just the corner of their belief structure that got famous. They believe that the biblical Truth from God is the enemy of Science and that “they” are trying to keep that from people, in order to lead people away from God. Then comes the “evidence” and “debates” which are them trying to meet non-believers halfway, but fundamentally not understanding how/why science is a way of processing information.
Fortunately/unfortunately most Flat Earther’s got made fun enough publicly enough that they’re not really preaching it anymore. They’ve since moved on to other apocalyptic religious movements like Qanon/MAGA.
How do birds fly inside a solid barrier?
Genesis 1:20, KJV:
“And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.”
A fish bowl is a solid barrier, how do fish swim in it?