Stopping the Sun, Moving the Earth
Highlights and Show Notes
Copernicus, the man who stopped the sun and moved the world
Calendar systems (scroll down to the subsection titled “Calendar Systems”)
Cathedrals as observatories, meridians
Nobody ever put to death over scientific views, Giordano Bruno and Michael Servetus included
Christopher Columbus was actually wrong, the urban myth of the “Dark Ages” and flat earth
Protestantism and the pursuit of Science
Minor people we mention: Gregor Mendel, Tycho Brahe, Galen, Bede, Nicholas of Cusa, Eratosthenes, Boëthius
Here’s an interesting quote from Russel Grigg’s Exploring the God Question 1. The Cosmos, Part 2 (Multiverses):
“Furthermore, it’s tiresome to see atheists point to the immensity of the universe as if it were news. However, this truth has been well known for almost all the history of the Church. E.g. the Roman Christian philosopher Boëthius (AD c. 480–524/525), in prison awaiting trial and execution for an unjust charge of treason, wrote The Consolation of Philosophy, an imaginary dialogue between himself and ‘Lady Philosophy’. She points out that just as the earth is just a point in space, how much more insignificant is any glory of any of its inhabitants:
As you have heard from the demonstrations of the astronomers, in comparison to the vastness of the heavens, it is agreed that the whole extent of the earth has the value of a mere point; that is to say, were the earth to be compared to the vastness of the heavenly sphere, it would be judged to have no volume at all.
This was one of the most widely read and influential books in the West during most of the Middle Ages. So churchmen were well aware of how tiny the earth is, without considering it the slightest threat to faith. Furthermore, it was exactly this consideration that led some medieval scientists to propose that it was the tiny earth that rotated rather than the immense cosmos revolving around it.”
James Cook, the Transit of Venus, Frederick Bessel, and the first measurement of parallax
Big bang, Alan Guth, etc., see Evolution’s Achilles’ Heels