Believe it or not, there are still people around who
continue to believe the Earth is flat. Talk about stubborn! To learn
more about them, visit
The Flat
Earth Society Online.
The
man to your left is Nicolaus Copernicus. He theorized to everyone
that the Earth and other planets revolve around our Sun.
Here’s his very
complex diagram. This was a
very groundbreaking accomplishment. (And a tremendous blow to many a human
ego). You may have noticed his error in that the planets travel in
circular orbits rather than their actual elliptical orbits.
Nick also wrote a book with a really cool and cosmic
title called On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs which
explained his whole theory – The Copernican Theory. Trust me, if
you say “The Copernican Theory” in public, people will think
you are smarter than you really are. Anyway, poor Copernicus never
saw his book published until it was delivered to him on his deathbed,
and even then, some comedian from the Catholic Church made sure the
title of the book was changed to On the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Bodies.
Now
we get to the most important person on this website. The man to your
right who looks like he’s giving you the “thumbs up” is
Galileo
Galilei. You may remember him from his experiments dropping objects off
the
Leaning
Tower of Pisa? He was very much influenced by Copernicus’ work.
You could almost say he was like the “PR Man” for the
Copernican Theory. Galileo believed the theory not to be a theory at
all, but to be actual fact, and he was very
adamant
about it. Well, the
Catholic
Church, being the know-it-all’s of that time, told Galileo he was
wrong. They said he could print his ideas as theory, but he must include
the Church’s position on the universe as fact. The Catholic Church is big
business, people.
Mistake #1: Sneaky Galileo did just about
the opposite. He published his point of view as fact, merely
outlined the Church’s view, and then proceeded to scientifically and
mathematically prove the Church to be wrong. *gasp!* The Church was very
powerful back then, and they didn’t take kindly to smart people messing
with their authority (authority means money). Poor Galileo was then arrested and charged with
heresy.
Now at that time, heresy was not an actual crime. You could get out
of it if you relinquished all your horribly heretic ideas. Actually,
you didn’t really have much of a choice. So the Church forced
Galileo to make a public statement saying that the Church was right and he
was wrong all along.
Mistake
#2: Rather than complying and then getting the hell out of there like he should have done, he was heard muttering, “Nevertheless it
moves,” at the end of his statement. Galileo was immediately
imprisoned for life. However, he was allowed to serve his sentence
under house arrest, but he was
never allowed to publish again.
One of the coolest things about Galileo is
that before he was buried, some guy named Anton Gori cut off Galileo’s
middle finger from his dead body. That finger is now cast in gold
and is sitting in a museum in Florence, Italy. You wanna see
it? Creepy looking, huh? I’m pretty sure that’s
his entire finger all the way down to the wrist. At least I hope it is.
And while we’re on a role, did you know
that when
Sir Isaac
Newton (A follower of Galileo’s work) died, they cast his face in
plaster and made a mask out of it? You wanna see
it? It’s very goth.
Believe it or not, the Catholic
Church eventually got around to admitting that they were wrong, and
Galileo was right. This admission was finally made in 1992 by Pope
John II! 1992! Talk about hard-headed!
I know this isn’t sounding very objective,
but this whole story goes to show you that no matter what you may think,
the church is not always right.
Galileo’s Tomb
- Did Galileo do the right thing by sticking to
his beliefs? - Did the Catholic Church do the right thing by
sticking to their beliefs? - Who was right in this case?
- To whom do you think Galileo is giving the
finger?
| Christopher Columbus Politically Incorrect |
Let’s start with this guy – Christopher Columbus. He gets the credit for convincing everyone that the world is actually spherical and not flat. This must have been quite a chore back then seeing as the Earth does appear to be flat to us Earthbound people. Eventually the general population caught a clue and understood a new concept and idea. You may be thinking, “How could they have been so stupid back then?” Well what do you think they’ll be saying about us in 500 or so years? By the way, Columbus was actually kind of a wacko. He really thought that the Earth was shaped like a breast, and while others were exploring the large part of the breast, he personally was exploring the nipple. |
| Copernicus The Man who Moved the Earth and Stopped the Sun |
| Okay, so everyone was finally able to digest the idea of a round Earth. Now their problem was that they thought the Earth was the center of the entire universe with all the other planets and stars and galaxies revolving around it. While it certainly appeared that way, it is still natural for humans to assume that we are the supreme beings of all existence even though we’ve never been anywhere outside our solar system. The same can be said about most Americans for that matter. Yes, I’m American, but I know how we are. Just ask any Canadian. |
| Galileo Too smart and too proud |
| I pose a few more questions for you to ponder: |
Darwin
“He who troubleth his own
house shall inherit the wind.” – Proverbs 11:29
I
really have no idea what that quote is supposed to mean. After
asking around, the best interpretation I got was “If you bother your
family, you’ll get either the boot or really bad gas.” The bearded
guy here is Charles
Darwin. He published
The
Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859. This is
the book that says humans evolved from
monkeys
(Evolutionism), and it really caused a big
stink with the religious set. See, before Darwin, everyone
naturally assumed that we were all descendants of
Adam
and Eve (Creationism). Believe it or not, this is a huge debate which still goes
on today – Creationism vs. Evolutionism. My advice to you
is to immediately rent the movie Inherit the
Wind. Four stars.
Excellent movie. True story. It deals with the
Scopes
Monkey Trial in Dayton, Tennessee. Mr. Scopes (played by Dick
York of
Bewitched
fame) is a teacher who decided he wanted to teach Evolutionism to his
students. As usual, this doesn’t float well with the community, and the poor teacher
is busted. A huge trial ensues pitting an Atheist lawyer against a
Fundamentalist lawyer. Entertainment at its best!