I remmeber a sect in my youth called 'the children of god' who were absolutely relentlessly happy, they were awful - you couldnt get a sensible sentance out of them

Send him this. heh.

the only time it becomes a problem for me is when they get pushy. i don't go around trying 2 convince people my beliefs are the only correct beliefs, all i ask is that they do the same. i have many friends of all kinds of religious or non religious backgrounds, we generally either leave each other alone about those subjects that we don't agree on, or have a calm discussion, without judgement or name calling or right or wrong, we just talk about the different aspects of different beliefs.

I've known truthers, birthers, avian flu conspiracists, and an AWFUL lot of young earth creationists. Some of these showed signs of sociopathy or psychopathy. The only one we "lost" was the bird guy, but not because of the birds.

Are you communicating at all with your (ex) friend? Can you find out if he is a domer as well?

Not that this will do any good, but...

1. At no point does scripture specifically state that the earth is flat. For people who argue from the Book of Job, you can say that if one is building an arched structure, one would likley "rule it our with a plumb" and that such a structure is round, not flat.
2. The use of the word kochav (ball) for assorted celestial objects is interesting. It would simply not be possible to tell, by the naked eye, that stars and planets are spherical. Someone writing the text knew that.
3. Oddly enough, we do live under a raqiyah, a covering, frequently translated as firmament, a beaten copper dome. Our solar system has a heliopause/magnetosphere/bow shock. This covering does, in fact, separate a fluid above (high density plasma) from the same fluid below (low density plasma).

So, your friend can decline to feel obligated to believe on religious grounds that the earth is flat, and can take cheer that scripture accurately predicts that we are under a covering. BTW we only found that out a few years ago when Voyager went through the bow shock and started sending back data. He can be comforted that scripture accurately records the Thera eruption (Joseph's famine), human-neanderthal limited cross-breeding, possibly the Toba eruption, and also possibly the Missoula Floods. The first two were only properly esablished recently.

So tell you bud to lead with his strengths.

I'm sorry that happened. I've lost a lot of FB friends, and I'm regularly disowned by my mother.

A friend of mine is a "9-11 truther" and I see him spiralling down into more conspiracy theories. He's not the first I've lost to it but definitely the closest.

It's always the same line, too: "I've done my own research...."

Awesome, but I'll trust the people that spent years upon decades over your 10 minutes of scrolling through forums.

Recently, I lost my best friend of 40 years over the current political climate although it was a slow speed loss that took several months. I didn't know he had unfriended me until I happen to got to his page one day and saw that were no longer friends and I shook it off because he was never really on FB anyway. He is very Republican and very Catholic and I am very NOT but we always managed to remain friends and have civil discussions, usually over a few beers. He inspired me and I feel that in some ways I am a better person to have known him even though I often suspected that our friendship meant more to me than it did to him. For four decades he told me what his religion meant to him; humility, generosity, kindness, compassion and love of fellow man. In some ways, I always thought him to be a slightly better man than I was and I would still die for him or any member of his family. Then he told me who he voted for; a man who was a direct contradiction to everything he had ever said to me. This friend has opted to ignore the oath he took when he enlisted in the USAF and now wants his party to violate the Constitution and make his religious belief a civil law and that I cannot abide.

Over the last ten years I have suffered the loss of two half sisters, older and younger, from cancer, my father and my dad ... but this loss is almost too much to bear. I am heartbroken.

Very sorry for the loss of your friend.
Regarding trying to help believers come to rational and logical thought, it's really a fruitless
endeavor. They have to come to reality on their own.
I don't even try anymore, at least not with the adults.
There are other ways to get through to the little ones.

Almost lost some friend over Trump, the religious people are so quick to judge people of no faith. Its quite the hypocrisy. To answer your question no not yet.

One of my best friends who was wild when young-know her 35 years -decided to put all of her energy and love into her Catholic Church. Actively participates in church ceremonies -has invited me to go-declined-stopped asking. Came to see me in nursing home when I was really sick. Hadn't seen her in years. That was a few years ago. Lost one of my best friends.

Ignorance is a human sickness
over time hopefully ignorance will decline until then if the human mind want to learn it will learn if not it is not ready for its next level of understanding yet.