The continuing saga of Copernicus and displacing the earth from the center of the universe. Of, course man was displaced as well, now an orbiting refugee and the light moral relativism found its way through the cracks in the foundation…
..Much of the immediate importance of Copernicus’s work lies in his later books, for the methods of calculation and the tables themselves were, although imperfect, a great improvement upon earlier ones. It is clear why Erasmus Reinhold, like Rheticus, a Protestant professor of mathematics at Wittenberg, called Copernicus a “second Ptolemy.” In fact, Reinhold was not a believer in the Copernican system, but he recognized the merits of the calculations and tables, and in 1551 he published the Prutenic ( Prussian) Tables, based on those of Copernicus. Reinhold’s printing costs were paid by Duke Albert of Prussia, whom Andreas Osiander had long ago converted to Protestantism. So, curiously, the work of the Catholic Copernicus continued to be linked with Protestantism.
William Blake. Read More:http://allchannels.blogspot.ca/2005/12/human-between-heaven-and-earth.html
It is difficult to tell what the immediate effect of De revolutionibus was on the world. For on the one hand, the chief novelties- the motions of the earth and their effects- had been known by those who had read either the Commentariolus or the Narratio Prima of Rheticus, or had even heard of these spoken of. And on the other hand, the De revolutionibus was an extremely difficult work to master.
Nevertheless, it was reprinted with the Narratio Prima in 1566 at Basle, and it is clear that many astronomers who shrank from the implications of the Copernican system still found it useful for reference. Rather oddly to the modern mind, it was the fresh observations that struck astronomers most forcibly; these are not very numerous- Copernicus mentions only twenty-seven- nor very accurate, but they very much impressed astronomers in the decades before Tycho Brahe revolutionized observational astronomy. ( to be continued) …
Samuel Bak. Read More:http://chgs.umn.edu/museum/responses/bak/gallery2.html
ADDENDUM:
(see link at end)…It is usual for thrones and footstools to be at rest relative to each another. As Professor James Hanson has put it: “Footstools
are not footstools if they are moving.” It is also usual for there to be some space between them. The Bible refers to the “room” in which these two items are found as a “habitation” and it does so on two occasions. The first of these is Psalm 89:14 where it is mentioned that:
Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face. The second occasion is Psalm 97:2 which adds:
Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne. There are thus three things which the Bible singles out as constituting the habitation of the throne of God and those three are justice, judgment, and righteousness. The throne is not moving relative to these so these three elements of the throne’s habitation are constant; they are absolute; they never change. Likewise, by
the analogy of the footstool, these three elements are also not moving with respect to the earth if the earth is at rest relative to the
outer heaven (God’s throne). This means that the space between footstool and throne, the middle heaven, (outer space), must do the moving.
Notice what happens if we regard the earth as moving. Through the word of God, the earth sees the same three elements of the habitation of the throne; but since the earth is viewed as moving, the concepts of justice, judgment, and righteousness can be viewed as moving with it. Now this affords two conclusions. Either there are absolute moral standards which are universally true and which are not affected by the earth’s motion so that they would only “appear” to accompany the earth in its dizzying path, or the standards can be viewed as part of the earth since they share its motions. This latter concept of morality makes moral precepts to be just another earthly fixture, like a mountain or a building. This is
the twentieth century moral view. It allows one to conclude that the biblical moral norms are not absolutes but are culturally defined
standards. From there it is only a small step to the conclusion that all morality is relative and that there are no moral absolutes. In
other words, the modern existential concept of moral relativism is an inference drawn from belief in the earth’s motion.Read More:http://www.geocentricity.com/geocentricity/primer.pdf
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