Flat Earth Follies: science says Moon Phases are caused by Earth's Shadow

I've yet to meet a Flat Earther who can correctly explain the actual model for how Moon Phases work.

Many of them will tell you some variation of "science says Moon Phases are caused by Earth's Shadow so how do we see the Moon and Sun in the Sky at the same time, LOL".

Yikes.

If Moon phases are caused by the Earth's shadow, how do you explain the light-dark pattern of the gibbous phases? #cwuphysics

— Bruce Palmquist (@brucepalmquist) October 8, 2017

Why are the moon phases supposed to affect us if it is just the earth’s shadow on a reflection and the sun shines on us all day just thinkin

— Demogorgonzola (@AgainstCody) October 7, 2017

Here are a couple of videos that I think help to correctly explain the model that Moon Phases are caused, not by Earth's shadow on the Moon, but by the simple position of the Moon relative to the Earth and Sun.

Please note -- these demonstrations are not to scale -- they are only meant to show how the model works for the specific topic being discussed, not be perfect replications of every aspect of orbital mechanics.  If you want a better model then download Celestia and you can observe a model over thousands of years from every angle.

Before we get started with Moon Phases let's start with a very simple demonstration that you can go outside and replicate on any day where you see the Moon in the sky with the Sun:

This should explain anything you need to know about how Moon Phases work and this demonstration would be impossible on a Flat Earth with a nearby Sun because the angle of the light would be vastly different.

This only works with a very, VERY distant Sun.

But here is a more complete demonstration -- my main complaint with this demonstration is that they are far too close to the lamp and the lamp should be much larger, but the point is that you can very clearly see very similar patterns of light on the ball as we observe on the Moon.


Moon Phases Demonstrated

And this video tries to explain to you why we don't see an Eclipse every month (spoiler: it's because the orbit of the Mboon around the Earth isn't in the same plane as the orbit of the Earth around the Sun).

Why Don't We Have Eclipses Every Month?

Hopefully those will help Flat Earthers and non-Flat Earthers alike.