Your level of output has been stellar, Larry; don’t worry about us if you have to slow down for a bit. We all understand you have other responsibilities. If you have any specific needs you’d like us to pray for (that aren’t too personal, of course), feel free to share those in an email.
I’ve been taking advantage of the opportunity to follow some of the rabbit trails that have come to mind while I’m reading. I had something of an epiphany regarding the mindset of geocentrists. I have long considered the characterization of the debate between the Ptolemaic and Copernican models as a conflict between religion and science as facile. Religion obviously played a role, but it was largely a debate between an accepted scientific theory and a strange sounding new one. It wasn’t until this past week, though, that I realized I had never stopped to question the assumption that positioning the earth at the center of the universe implied its primacy. I see now that idea is as wrong as can be. Every culture that believed the earth was at the center also believed that the things above the earth were greater and more important than they were. They literally believed Earth was at the bottom of the cosmos. Heliocentrism may have turned out to be a step closer to the truth, but those who opposed it were certainly not doing so because they were worried about humanity losing its pride of place.
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