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Post by rmc on Jun 22, 2020 14:16:19 GMT
Now, I hear this one a lot. It states that religion placed man at the center of the universe, and that religion viewed man as special, as though everything revolved around HIM in God's kingdom.
Yet, something sort of doesn't add up to me. The quotes from religious leaders of the time have man not so much in the center of a solar system, but at a low place, beneath the heavens.
In fact, many seem to espouse the notion that man was not worthy of ascending up toward the heavens and mainly stayed lowly, nearest to hell.
So, from the religious point of view, there really didn't seem to be a lot of energy trying to figure out if the earth were the center of anything. Furthermore, religious types of the day were likely anything but self centered. Self righteous, perhaps, but I wouldn't think self centered.
After all, there's this quote that plainly shows there was little interest placing man much of anywhere at all in the kingdom of God, other than down low on Earth, "ours is to discover how to go to heaven, not to discover how the heavens go"
So, to me, it must have been people trying to work out where man fit into to the scheme of things. Perhaps, instead of it being religious leaders who insisted the earth was at the center of the universe, it was lesser known early scientist types who were working out the heavens, using what was believed at the time, perhaps?
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Post by the light works on Jun 22, 2020 15:14:33 GMT
Now, I hear this one a lot. It states that religion placed man at the center of the universe, and that religion viewed man as special, as though everything revolved around HIM in God's kingdom. Yet, something sort of doesn't add up to me. The quotes from religious leaders of the time have man not so much in the center of a solar system, but at a low place, beneath the heavens. In fact, many seem to espouse the notion that man was not worthy of ascending up toward the heavens and mainly stayed lowly, nearest to hell. So, from the religious point of view, there really didn't seem to be a lot of energy trying to figure out if the earth were the center of anything. Furthermore, religious types of the day were likely anything but self centered. Self righteous, perhaps, but I wouldn't think self centered. After all, there's this quote that plainly shows there was little interest placing man much of anywhere at all in the kingdom of God, other than down low on Earth, "ours is to discover how to go to heaven, not to discover how the heavens go" So, to me, it must have been people trying to work out where man fit into to the scheme of things. Perhaps, instead of it being religious leaders who insisted the earth was at the center of the universe, it was lesser known early scientist types who were working out the heavens, using what was believed at the time, perhaps? there is a factor which you are leaving out, which is that for much of history, religious authorities have sought to place themselves as the necessary go-between in man's relationship with the universe. thus, there is a natural antagonism between a profession that bases its authority on "all wisdom comes from God, through me" and a profession that bases its authority on "all knowledge comes from observation and we can teach you how to observe for yourself." bear in mind that one of the biggest changes Martin Luther made in the 1500s was to translate the bible to the common language of his region, so that literate people could read it for themselves, rather than relying on the priests to read it and tell them what it meant. similarly, the fight with galileo was not so much about how the universe was configured - but that he was contradicting what the priests said. we can actually still see that same conflict still going on, today. it even goes as low as the old mythbusters boards with their "you did it wrong because you didn't get the results I wanted" posters. |
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Post by rmc on Jun 22, 2020 15:22:07 GMT
Now, I hear this one a lot. It states that religion placed man at the center of the universe, and that religion viewed man as special, as though everything revolved around HIM in God's kingdom. Yet, something sort of doesn't add up to me. The quotes from religious leaders of the time have man not so much in the center of a solar system, but at a low place, beneath the heavens. In fact, many seem to espouse the notion that man was not worthy of ascending up toward the heavens and mainly stayed lowly, nearest to hell. So, from the religious point of view, there really didn't seem to be a lot of energy trying to figure out if the earth were the center of anything. Furthermore, religious types of the day were likely anything but self centered. Self righteous, perhaps, but I wouldn't think self centered. After all, there's this quote that plainly shows there was little interest placing man much of anywhere at all in the kingdom of God, other than down low on Earth, "ours is to discover how to go to heaven, not to discover how the heavens go" So, to me, it must have been people trying to work out where man fit into to the scheme of things. Perhaps, instead of it being religious leaders who insisted the earth was at the center of the universe, it was lesser known early scientist types who were working out the heavens, using what was believed at the time, perhaps? there is a factor which you are leaving out, which is that for much of history, religious authorities have sought to place themselves as the necessary go-between in man's relationship with the universe. thus, there is a natural antagonism between a profession that bases its authority on "all wisdom comes from God, through me" and a profession that bases its authority on "all knowledge comes from observation and we can teach you how to observe for yourself." bear in mind that one of the biggest changes Martin Luther made in the 1500s was to translate the bible to the common language of his region, so that literate people could read it for themselves, rather than relying on the priests to read it and tell them what it meant. similarly, the fight with galileo was not so much about how the universe was configured - but that he was contradicting what the priests said. we can actually still see that same conflict still going on, today. it even goes as low as the old mythbusters boards with their "you did it wrong because you didn't get the results I wanted" posters. No question priests want to remain THE authority. But, I see little evidence they ever took their disciples on a handheld journey through the arrangement of the solar system. |
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Post by the light works on Jun 22, 2020 23:59:01 GMT
there is a factor which you are leaving out, which is that for much of history, religious authorities have sought to place themselves as the necessary go-between in man's relationship with the universe. thus, there is a natural antagonism between a profession that bases its authority on "all wisdom comes from God, through me" and a profession that bases its authority on "all knowledge comes from observation and we can teach you how to observe for yourself." bear in mind that one of the biggest changes Martin Luther made in the 1500s was to translate the bible to the common language of his region, so that literate people could read it for themselves, rather than relying on the priests to read it and tell them what it meant. similarly, the fight with galileo was not so much about how the universe was configured - but that he was contradicting what the priests said. we can actually still see that same conflict still going on, today. it even goes as low as the old mythbusters boards with their "you did it wrong because you didn't get the results I wanted" posters. No question priests want to remain THE authority. But, I see little evidence they ever took their disciples on a handheld journey through the arrangement of the solar system. it was more just the official party line coming down from before optics when it appeared as though everything orbited the earth. |
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Post by rmc on Jun 23, 2020 10:57:24 GMT
No question priests want to remain THE authority. But, I see little evidence they ever took their disciples on a handheld journey through the arrangement of the solar system. it was more just the official party line coming down from before optics when it appeared as though everything orbited the earth. Or it appeared you'd fall off the edge of the world. Looks like, from what I read so far, popes and what not were concerned with sunrise, sunset, this sort of thing, if they even brought up the topic at all. There was a huge leap in concepts back then when people realized it's the same stuff that causes apples to fall as it is that makes the "orbs" move through the sky. I'd think it may have been equally large a leap to conclude the world is the center of a solar system. It looks like these topics were left to astronomers. Priest, as I said, were busy conducting the business of YOUR soul. |
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Post by the light works on Jun 23, 2020 13:52:31 GMT
it was more just the official party line coming down from before optics when it appeared as though everything orbited the earth. Or it appeared you'd fall off the edge of the world. Looks like, from what I read so far, popes and what not were concerned with sunrise, sunset, this sort of thing, if they even brought up the topic at all. There was a huge leap in concepts back then when people realized it's the same stuff that causes apples to fall as it is that makes the "orbs" move through the sky. I'd think it may have been equally large a leap to conclude the world is the center of a solar system. It looks like these topics were left to astronomers. Priest, as I said, were busy conducting the business of YOUR soul. astronomers like, say, Galileo? but to be fair to our ancetors, they figured out the world was round, and even had a fairly good approximation of its size long before Columbus, and in fact, the reason everybody thought he was a madman is because he claimed it was about half the circumference everybody else calculated it as being. - basically as if Asia was as far from Europe as the Americas are. and the reason nobody else (european) sailed west to the Americas was because they'd sailed as far west as their supplies would guarantee a round trip without sighting land and didn't feel like risking not finding any land and not having enough food to make it back home. (I studied this back in college) |
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Post by rmc on Jun 23, 2020 14:20:58 GMT
Or it appeared you'd fall off the edge of the world. Looks like, from what I read so far, popes and what not were concerned with sunrise, sunset, this sort of thing, if they even brought up the topic at all. There was a huge leap in concepts back then when people realized it's the same stuff that causes apples to fall as it is that makes the "orbs" move through the sky. I'd think it may have been equally large a leap to conclude the world is the center of a solar system. It looks like these topics were left to astronomers. Priest, as I said, were busy conducting the business of YOUR soul. astronomers like, say, Galileo? but to be fair to our ancetors, they figured out the world was round, and even had a fairly good approximation of its size long before Columbus, and in fact, the reason everybody thought he was a madman is because he claimed it was about half the circumference everybody else calculated it as being. - basically as if Asia was as far from Europe as the Americas are. and the reason nobody else (european) sailed west to the Americas was because they'd sailed as far west as their supplies would guarantee a round trip without sighting land and didn't feel like risking not finding any land and not having enough food to make it back home. (I studied this back in college) There were more astronomers than just Galileo, of course. Not every astronomer saw eye to eye with the next. There were plenty of differing views with regard to the sky and what astronomers felt they were observing. Some had worked out that the distant stars were actually distant suns with planets of their own. While others continued with other "points" of view. Astronomers were also concerned with if the earth were an object like the moon or not. Non astronomers frequently were less up on what the sky or our planet actually was. Most didn't care or were simply too superstitious to get past folk lore, or other "spooky" myths. |
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Post by the light works on Jun 23, 2020 14:39:46 GMT
astronomers like, say, Galileo? but to be fair to our ancetors, they figured out the world was round, and even had a fairly good approximation of its size long before Columbus, and in fact, the reason everybody thought he was a madman is because he claimed it was about half the circumference everybody else calculated it as being. - basically as if Asia was as far from Europe as the Americas are. and the reason nobody else (european) sailed west to the Americas was because they'd sailed as far west as their supplies would guarantee a round trip without sighting land and didn't feel like risking not finding any land and not having enough food to make it back home. (I studied this back in college) There were more astronomers than just Galileo, of course. Not every astronomer saw eye to eye with the next. There were plenty of differing views with regard to the sky and what astronomers felt they were observing. Some had worked out that the distant stars were actually distant suns with planets of their own. While others continued with other "points" of view. Astronomers were also concerned with if the earth were an object like the moon or not. Non astronomers frequently were less up on what the sky or our planet actually was. Most didn't care or were simply too superstitious to get past folk lore, or other "spooky" myths. but remember we're on the topic of dark ages religious leadership, and the degree to which they maintained their power base by reinforcing the spooky myths and aggressively dealing with anyone who might undermine their claims to divine authority. |
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Post by rmc on Jun 23, 2020 15:25:04 GMT
There were more astronomers than just Galileo, of course. Not every astronomer saw eye to eye with the next. There were plenty of differing views with regard to the sky and what astronomers felt they were observing. Some had worked out that the distant stars were actually distant suns with planets of their own. While others continued with other "points" of view. Astronomers were also concerned with if the earth were an object like the moon or not. Non astronomers frequently were less up on what the sky or our planet actually was. Most didn't care or were simply too superstitious to get past folk lore, or other "spooky" myths. but remember we're on the topic of dark ages religious leadership, and the degree to which they maintained their power base by reinforcing the spooky myths and aggressively dealing with anyone who might undermine their claims to divine authority. Sort of. Since I started the topic, I think I can speak to its basic point. Point is today there is grand discussion about how religion chose earth as the solar system's center. Or, the universe's center since then they seemed no different. And, that, as such, placed the importance of man at the center too. And, that this was no coincidence. The religious belief, or so we are told was that man saw himself as important and worthy of being a central focus for our God. My findings thus far are that astronomers chose first the earth as a center to the system since they were the ones working that angle. (The angle of what does what in the sky) Problem is, as one works further and further into the past and "astronomers" often included priests and monks of sorts too. But, chiefly, the statements about religion forcing earth at the solar system's center seem directed at the renaissance period and the Catholic church at the time. Again, this assumption is wrong on the merits that Ptolemy a thousand years earlier, before there was any Christ, or any Catholic church was working with what he had - and what he had, as an astronomer, was that the planets and stars moved around our point, whatever our point was. Greeks, some of them anyway, determined that the earth were a round thing similar to the orbs, except the earth was imperfect along its surface. But, like you say, they worked out its circumstances to with ten percent error. Now, if the Catholic church held that the earth were the center of the solar system at all (and I question that) then they were merely following Ptolemy's line of reasoning, and Ptolemy was an astronomer. My finds still support that religious leaders during the 1500s were wrong for persecuting Galileo, or Copernicus. But, they saw the earth as a low point, not a central point. They did not persecute these men because they threatened to replace earth as the center of something. Catholics, I'm afraid did not place earth, or man, at the center of anything. Ptolemy's findings were Greek/Egyptian study of the stars from a time past that of the bible. Catholics would have been hard pressed to debate something outside their source material - the wholly bible of times before Ptolemy. If we are to have a thing called science, it must stick with facts and not chose to vilify some entity based upon falsehoods, even when said religious entity vilifies science. |
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Post by the light works on Jun 23, 2020 16:13:01 GMT
but remember we're on the topic of dark ages religious leadership, and the degree to which they maintained their power base by reinforcing the spooky myths and aggressively dealing with anyone who might undermine their claims to divine authority. Sort of. Since I started the topic, I think I can speak to its basic point. Point is today there is grand discussion about how religion chose earth as the solar system's center. Or, the universe's center since then they seemed no different. And, that, as such, placed the importance of man at the center too. And, that this was no coincidence. The religious belief, or so we are told was that man saw himself as important and worthy of being a central focus for our God. My findings thus far are that astronomers chose first the earth as a center to the system since they were the ones working that angle. (The angle of what does what in the sky) Problem is, as one works further and further into the past and "astronomers" often included priests and monks of sorts too. But, chiefly, the statements about religion forcing earth at the solar system's center seem directed at the renaissance period and the Catholic church at the time. Again, this assumption is wrong on the merits that Ptolemy a thousand years earlier, before there was any Christ, or any Catholic church was working with what he had - and what he had, as an astronomer, was that the planets and stars moved around our point, whatever our point was. Greeks, some of them anyway, determined that the earth were a round thing similar to the orbs, except the earth was imperfect along its surface. But, like you say, they worked out its circumstances to with ten percent error. Now, if the Catholic church held that the earth were the center of the solar system at all (and I question that) then they were merely following Ptolemy's line of reasoning, and Ptolemy was an astronomer. My finds still support that religious leaders during the 1500s were wrong for persecuting Galileo, or Copernicus. But, they saw the earth as a low point, not a central point. They did not persecute these men because they threatened to replace earth as the center of something. Catholics, I'm afraid did not place earth, or man, at the center of anything. Ptolemy's findings were Greek/Egyptian study of the stars from a time past that of the bible. Catholics would have been hard pressed to debate something outside their source material - the wholly bible of times before Ptolemy. If we are to have a thing called science, it must stick with facts and not chose to vilify some entity based upon falsehoods, even when said religious entity vilifies science. keep in mind there is a reason they were called the dark ages. as I first said, it was not so much that they were rejecting the geography of the universe. what they were rejecting was the idea that the Holy Mother Church was not the only source of knowledge. it is really no different from the modern church backing the scopes monkey trial, Jehovas Witnesses being taught not to read any material from other churches or enter other church buildings, Jackie Chan not accepting a movie role that includes him losing a fight, or Nope nope declaring anything negative about him to be fake news. it is about branding and positioning. this is also related to the political process in which the pope was declared infallible. you do make a fair point, however, that there was always a debate over man's position in God's realm. whether man is the favorite pet, or man is the red headed stepchild who can't do anything right. editorial note: of course, in both cases, man is still the center of attention. just for different reasons. and indeed, in modern science, it could still be argued that humanity is the center of attention, just because the majority of our study is about us observing or affecting our environment. in that context, it's not that we're special. just that we're the ones doing the studying. to paraphrase C.S. Lewis, this is our story, because it is relevant to us. there are other stories that aren't relevant to us, and they aren't our stories. |
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Post by rmc on Jun 23, 2020 16:45:47 GMT
www.quora.com/What-was-the-Catholic-Church-position-on-the-heliocentric-theoryIt's currently debated elsewhere too. Basically, the Catholic Church took its queues from the bible, but was not totally against the reasoning of people like Ptolemy. So, the church was open to theory, and by that I mean hypothesis. It understood the Ptolemaic model and could literally feel that the earth seemed central. But, the church DID NOT INSIST that the earth was the center of the universe. Instead it allowed theories as long as they were taught as fledgling hypothesizes. Copernicus was forced to do so, and so was Galileo. But, in Galileo's mind he and Copernicus were right (and they were). So Galileo WENT AGAINST THE CHURCH'S ORDER TO TEACH IT AS HYPOTHESIS. That was more the trouble than either Copernicus or Galileo saying the earth moved around (although the church didn't quite "feel" that one was really correct)
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Post by rmc on May 10, 2022 20:38:43 GMT
Here's another draft of this I wrote recently:
There exists some interesting debate around academia on the subject of ancient cultures with regard to their beliefs about being the center of the universe.
Basically it's agreed that the earliest of peoples saw that the sun and stars moved through the sky, no mention of their opinion on it meaning the earth was involved, or at the center.
Later, people finally noticed the odd backward movement of planets at times, (opposite to this main movement across the sky, east to west). This seemed to give life to the planets. So, planets became gods in certain cultures.
Later still, in Egypt, Ptolemy constructed math tables on the movements of these planets, taking into account retrograde movements of planets, but he offered no explanation for the backward movements. He said it wasn't his job. To arrange his tables he laid out the solar system with the Earth at the solar system's center. An argument could be made that if anyone thought that the universe revolved around man it was Ptolemy and not religion or religious leaders. In all likelihood, though, he, and others like him, were merely arranging items to fit the timetables witnessed.
His tables worked well, but were filled with complex epicycles. These tables were in use for 1,000 years with no further explanation or concern on who what or where planets were or how they related to earth, other than for planting, harvest, sailing, (navigation), etc. And, of course, the timing of various religious ceremonies.
This, so far, is all basically agreed upon within academia. The big development in debate, however, is whether from about 700 c.e. to 1600 c.e. religious leaders thought that the universe revolved around the earth, AND that we were the center of everything and preached that we were "special" (quite surprising, really, given how long that line has been taught that it would go up in debate recently).
Documents found all throughout this period detail, quite plainly, that religious leaders were constantly harping the line that peoples of earth were "low", and lowly, not worthy of anything more than being humble servants of God. And, to basically keep their mouths shut and listen to the leaders.
In keeping with this "man is low" theme, they pointed to the fact that heaven was "on high" (or up above us), and "we" were down next to hell; which is basically the only thing lower than us. Sort of an Up/Down relationship with the universe... and that was all. So, we went from an east to west relationship to an up/down relationship as far as religion was concerned.
Again, no mention of us being at the center, or us being special. In fact, quite the opposite. In order to keep people in line, the church was basically teaching keep your mouth shut, do what we say, and it is most holy to remain "humble" this way.
This utterly flies in the face that religion was teaching that man was important and the universe revolves around him.
By the time of people like Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, and Descartes, early philosophers were beginning to work out the positions of objects in the "heavens" and it was they who noted Ptolemy had the earth in a central position. And, that maybe it would be better to move earth out into a position amoung the other planets and place the sun in the center.
The church was initially fine with this, actually. But, when Galileo began interpreting religious scriptures, that's when the Pope took note:
Galileo's reference to the remarks of Cardinal Baronius, that, "the Bible teaches one how to go to heaven and not how the heavens go", has been seen as emblematic of his commitment to the distinction between the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture.
In other words, Galileo was first to suggest to the church that since the bible does NOT teach "how" the heavens go, there needs to be some separate source material on how the universe works, since the bible doesn't cover that.
To suggest that the bible was incomplete and devoid of facts about the nature of the universe was tantamount to saying the bible was not only incomplete, but, in essence, wrong in the Pope's view. "Everything you NEED is IN the bible." No one should write a competing book.
And, Galileo was nearly killed for this opinion that the Pope had. Galileo was given the chance to swear his belief in scripture. And he did. He was then put under house arrest for the rest of his life for "being dangerous ".
So, here again, nobody in the church thought or went around preaching that the universe revolved around people.
It may have been surmised that the church somehow supported this view after they basically shot down Galileo. But they went after him not to argue about Earth's position as much as Galileo's.
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Post by the light works on May 11, 2022 5:22:28 GMT
it's a concise and clear way of saying it.
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Post by rmc on May 11, 2022 9:54:48 GMT
it's a concise and clear way of saying it. Thank you, but I still haven't got it quite right. During the time of Ptolemy and well before, there were cultures and peoples who stated that the stars seemed to fall over the edge of the earth and then reappeared the next day as though they were traveling around us. Others, tribes for instance, claimed that stars died and were then reborn the next day. That particular line could have come from certain Shaman. So, explanations of the cosmos did, on occasion, stem from certain cult leaders. But, lifting up man as the center of everything and "special" doesn't seem the point of it. I'm fairly and confident, however, that these were, for the most part, merely common observations and beliefs rather than any forced-down-your-throat religious dogma. |
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Post by the light works on May 11, 2022 14:28:47 GMT
it's a concise and clear way of saying it. Thank you, but I still haven't got it quite right. During the time of Ptolemy and well before, there were cultures and peoples who stated that the stars seemed to fall over the edge of the earth and then reappeared the next day as though they were traveling around us. Others, tribes for instance, claimed that stars died and were then reborn the next day. That particular line could have come from certain Shaman. So, explanations of the cosmos did, on occasion, stem from certain cult leaders. But, lifting up man as the center of everything and "special" doesn't seem the point of it. I'm fairly and confident, however, that these were, for the most part, merely common observations and beliefs rather than any forced-down-your-throat religious dogma. well, everybody is at the center of their observations and the universe moves around them, so until a person starts tracking things and modeling their motion, their perception fits with a geocentric model. therefore it is logical that the first explanations of the cosmos had the earth in the center with everything moving around it. - and coincidentally to that, most deistic religions paint mankind as a special project of the deity. they kind of have to, or why would the deity care what mankind does? and if the deity doesn't care what mankind does, why does mankind need the priest to be the intermediary between mankind and the deity? therefore, it makes sense that in the days before stellar cartography, priests followed the common assumption that we were standing on a more or less stationary base, and the population of the sky was moving around us. now the challenge comes when the priest bases his dogma on the idea that he has special privileged information, and someone else produces information that the priest didn't have. at that point, he either has to admit God didn't tell him everything, and risk having people question what else he didn't have right; or he has to defend his dogma against the new information. |
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