http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christi ... onomy.html
Copernicus (1473-1543) enraged the Church by writing that the Earth might orbit the Sun. Christian theology holds that the great scheme of God revolves around Humankind; God's only son is a human, God created the Earth and all other animals for Mankind (Genesis 1:28 etc), and the destruction of creation centres around events occurring on planet Earth, to Humans. It was deeply challenging to Christians to face the facts that the Earth wasn't the centre of the universe. Also challenging were other basic facts of astrology; that the universe is massive, the Earth only one of many planets, and the likely fact that there is life elsewhere in the universe too. This page examines the history of the battle of astronomers to revive the ancient, sun-worshipping notion that the Sun was at the center, not the Earth.
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Conclusions
The Ionians discovered the truth about the Sun, the Earth and the stars. But their era ended when their last great scientist, Hypatia, was attacked by a mob of Christians and burnt in 415CE. The center of science, the Alexandrian Library, was also burnt and destroyed. Scientists had to suffer torture, silencing, imprisonment and death at the hands of Christians who didn't agree with newly discovered facts about the world. Christianity lost the first battle with astronomers who realized that, contrary to what Christians asserted, the Sun did not orbit the Earth, and that the Universe doesn't seem to be designed specifically for humankind. Copernicus (1473-1543), Kepler (1571-1630), Galileo (1564-1642), Newton (1643-1727) and Laplace (1749-1827) all fought battles against the Church when they published scientific papers challenging religious orthodoxy. Bible verses were all the theories Christians needed; and Joshua 10:12-13, 2 Kings 20:11, Isaiah 38:8 and Isaiah 30:26 all contradicted astronomers. But through intelligence and clever politics, truth gradually won out over dogma, and the Church retreated... only to go on to fight similar ignorant battles, and violently impose dogmatic errors, in the arenas of physics, biology and philosophy.
Without such interference from theists, science would have been more than a thousand years more advanced! Kepler in the 17th century only revived Greek astronomical knowledge that was condemned and hidden by Christians (Ptolemy et al) in the second century.
Nothing surprising there.. but what is interesting is the instances he gives of Christians who believe the earth is flat, and a group of Catholics who insist Gallileo was wrong!!
I didn't believe it either, but here's a link to a book by two PhDs:
Galileo Was Wrong: The Church Was Right
By Robert A. Sungenis, Ph.D & Robert J. Bennett, Ph.D.
Published by CAI Publishing, Inc.
Copyright, 2009
711 pages
Paperback
ISBN13: 978-0-9841859-2-4
ISBN10: 0-9841859-2-5
Retail Price: $29.95, plus S&H
Press release:
Did the Catholic Church make a grand and embarrassing mistake when it condemned the heliocentric system under Pope Urban VIII in 1633 as “formally heretical” and “opposed to Scripture”? Has modern science proven that heliocentrism is the correct system of cosmology? Did John Paul II officially concede that Galileo was right and the Church was wrong? To the surprise of many, the answer to all three is no. Now, abridged from the original two volume set of over 1200 pages, the essential facts and figures of one of the most controversial events in the history of man has been distilled down to 700 pages (350 pages of science and 350 pages of ecclesiastical history) and put in a comfortable 6 x 9 book frame in a less expensive paperback version.
http://www.catholicintl.com/cubecart/in ... ductId=141
So, we have a couple of experts who say the Church was right all along and the sun does indeed orbit the earth.
Priceless.
Cheers,
Shafique