A little errant goes a long orbit. Displacing man from the center of the universe. What began as some computational sleights of hand to help the Church with calendar problems soon assumed a life of its own. The earth was no longer fixed and man went mobile. The old certainties, Biblically based, were cast in doubt and moral ambiguity gained traction. …
Galileo’s firm belief in Copernicanism and his efforts to convert the Catholic Church was met by a wall of resistance to what was considered to be intellectual novelties; the result was a clash with the Inquisition, and Galileo was forced to abjure his astronomical beliefs. Although this made Catholic scientists cautious, it attracted much sympathy for Galileo, and many readers. These were converted by Galileo’s clever arguments, and above all, by the fact that his new physics fitted in with the Copernican system as well as the old Aristotelian physics had with the Ptolemaic.
— Wellcome Library, London
Milton visiting Galileo when a prisoner of the Inquisition.
1847 By: Solomon Alexander Hart
Published: 1847.
Size: canvas 118 x 146 cm.
Collection: Iconographic Collections—click image for source…
A hundred years after the publication of De revolutionibus by Copernicus, Galileo had died, Newton was born, and the best scientists everywhere were inclining toward Copernicanism. Even Catholics were Copernicans- for example Pierre Gassendi, like Copernicus a cathedral canon. Only priests in orthodox orders, like the Jesuits, held out, to be won over quietly in the eighteenth century.
By the time that observational proof of the Copernican system was forthcoming- in the late 1830’s- even the Catholic Church had basically capitulated. But the effects on science and thought had been incalculable ever since Copernicus had first let those outside his immediate circle know of his truly revolutionary theory of the celestial orbs.
Jan Brueghel the Elder painting 1617—-In his famous book, which was printed approx. 450 years ago, Copernicus suggested that the assumption in astronomical equations should be that the sun, and not the earth, is at the center of the universe, and all the planets, etc., including the earth, revolve around it. He stresses, however, that he himself did not believe that this was necessarily the case. Rather, he merely felt that the calculations would be much simpler if predicated on this assumption. The proponents of his theory later took the additional step of teaching that Copernicus’ approach is indeed fact.—Image:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/14/jan-brueghel-the-elder-pa_n_321000.html
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…In the heliocentric system the night, along with the earth, orbits the sun. This violates the Bible’s principle of the separation of the powers of darkness and light. On the other hand, in the geocentric system the night orbits the earth with a period of one day and the
separation of powers is maintained….
…So it is that we find that time after time, in respected physics journals, papers have been published which show that the geocentric and heliocentric models are equally valid. Theoretical physicists know that this has to be the case because otherwise, the laws of physics would depend on one’s location in the universe. If heliocentrism can be proven, then the laws of physics should be different on the moon than in an airliner, and different again on the surface of the earth. We are reminded that the only way one could ever prove heliocentrism or geocentricity is to go outside the universe and to take a look around out there….
We know that the difference between a
heliocentric theory and a geocentric theory is
one of relative motion only, and that such a difference
has no physical significance.
— Sir Fred Hoyle
http://www.geocentricity.com/geocentricity/primer.pdf
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(see link at end)…We have examined criticisms of the Bible which have been mindlessly applied since the Reformation and found them
wanting. The Bible does not use phenomenological or vulgar speech in describing the motions of the sun, moon, and stars. We noted that to question the truth of the application of the word “rise” to the sun in scripture is to cast the same shadow of doubt on the word “rise” when it is applied to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Because of the Copernican Revolution, there has been a steady devaluation of mankind and man’s place in the universe and of Scripture in the minds of men.
The Birth of Higher Criticism… The unabridged edition of Geocentricity traces the pagan foundations of modern philosophy, and heliocentrism in particular, from its early Pythagorean inceptions through the pagan-classical reasoning of Copernicus and his early followers. In the early seventeenth century, the concept of revolution obtained a different shade of meaning than it had thitherto. The concept of revolution, as then
applied to celestial bodies, ended up with a much broader, social meaning, changing not only in meaning, but value and significance as well. It was subsequently applied to the areas of politics and theology. This came about not so much because of the upset of the Ptolemaic world view but because Copernicus had succeeded in making a clearly heretical teaching palatable to not only the Roman Catholic Church, but to Protestantism as well. Copernicus and Galileo had succeeded in discrediting the Bible as an authority in the realm of science. This called into question the authority of the Bible in all other areas, too.
Kepler picked up the Copernican idea and worked on it to the point that philosophers and historians both acknowledge him the father of the modern mechanistic, Godless worldview. It was Kepler who envisioned the creation, man included, as pure machine. As such, life loses all meaning and value. Galileo, though forbidden to promote the ideas of Copernicus, succeeded in flaunting the obvious heresy in the face of the Roman Inquisition.
After the Galileo affair, the Bible was no longer considered authoritative in the realms of science, philosophy, and day-to-day reality. Less than 200 years after surrendering the Bible’s authority in the realm of physical science, man surrendered its spiritual authority at the hands of the German school of higher criticism, a way of criticizing the Bible which supposedly is based on natural revelation, that is, upon “scientific” principles. Consequently, the Bible became viewed as merely “containing the word of God,” that is, a mixture of God’s words and man’s words.
Once it had been received as the very words of God. Now men claim without fear or thought that the Bible is only inerrant in what it claims about “salvation,” but that its scientific and dietary claims are quite errant. Others maintain that the Bible “is inerrant only in its original autographs” which “original autographs” no longer exist anywhere on earth.Read More:http://www.geocentricity.com/geocentricity/primer.pdf
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