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Copernicus Reburied As Hero
CasualFriday writes "Mikolaj Kopernik, a.k.a. Nicolaus Copernicus, the 16th-century astronomer whose findings were condemned by the Roman Catholic Church as heretical, was reburied by Polish priests as a hero on Saturday, nearly 500 years after he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave. On Saturday, his remains were blessed with holy water by some of Poland's highest-ranking clerics before an honor guard ceremoniously carried his coffin through the imposing red brick cathedral and lowered it back into the same spot where part of his skull and other bones were found in 2005."
Whatever makes them feel comfortable at night.
Say what you will about it being too little, too late, but I'm glad that they're going back and recognizing past mistakes and trying to do what little they can to right them. Especially so that others can see how they've changed in the meantime. Ideally it'll change the behavior of those still alive today...
I'm glad the church recognizes the value of bleeding-edge Renaissance science. Maybe next year they will find out the importance of electricity, birth control, or logic.
Sometimes, i just dont understand people's motivation for this sort of thing. Copernicus was a great man, why on earth do we need to dig up his corpse and rebury him to honor his achievements? The mere fact that we discuss him and his work 500 years later is the greatest honor. There are times were circus and spectacle are needed, this is not one of them.
Good-bye
Since heaven is a fantasy, then he obviously isn't going there. I vote for option #2.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
I'm sure he feels just about the same being buried in the new grave as he did about being buried in the old one. He doesn't care at all.
Qxe4
No. Wait. He's dead. He doesn't care at all what you do to his bones.
They're doing this as a PR stunt to distract people from the mistakes they're making today.
Copernicus is known in almost every science class today. Who cares what The Church does with whatever-is-left-of-his-body now? 500 years later?
But not vice versa.
You are welcome on my lawn.
More like embrace and extend. And then extinguish.
RTFA. It's extinguish, embrace, extend.
I believe relic worship isn't practiced in any protestant belief, that's a catholic thing. Protestants don't have saints and don't pray to relics, a big part of the reformation was ditching all the "extended universe" canon stuff and going back to what's in the original book.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
You're absolutely right. Not all beliefs are compatible with facts. Facts do not encompass all beliefs. Science is not a religion and religion is not a science. That's like saying a pen is bad because you can't build a house with it. That's not what it's for. It isn't what you think it is, nor is it what you think it isn't even if you are correct.
In soviet Russia, God creates you!
Trouble is, religions have this nasty habit of attempting to make claims that are, in fact, empirically verifiable (or, typically, falsifiable), and then throwing a fit when science calls them on it.
For sufficiently vacuous definitions of religion, and definitions of science that bend over backwards to be purely descriptive, the two are compatible. However, as an empirical matter, incompatibilities are frequently observed.
Great Scientist's Remains Further Desecrated in Black Magic Ritual Effort to Distract Citizenry.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
I'm glad the church recognizes the value of bleeding-edge Renaissance science. Maybe next year they will find out the importance of electricity, birth control, or logic.
How about the Theory of the Big Bang? It was a Belgian priest who first formalized that.
If you count an embryo as a human being, then you should treat every sperm as sacred too. The simple truth is that it's not that clear cut. An embryo starts out as a clump of cells. This clump does not even meet the criteria for life, it does not think, does not feel pain, can't live outside a very alien environment (to us human beings), will not react to stimuli, essentially isn't human at all. At some point it does become human, of course. I'm not sure if anyone at this point can say when exactly that happens. But before it does, there's nothing human about it. It's an incomplete, tiny biological machine, no more human than a hair or nail.
Actually, it's the "immaculate conscriptions, resurrections, and trans-substantiations that weaken was is basically a decent and pragmatic way to live.
"Be humble. Love one another. Help people who need help. Treat others like you would like to be treated."
That's all a really great approach to walking the Earth. It's actually pretty profound when you think about the effect that such an approach to life would have on society.
But when you add all the silly stuff with the rising up to heaven and bread-to-flesh and burning for eternity that all the importance of that excellent framework gets lost and the whole thing becomes the equivalent of a bad fantasy novel.
It's a shame to think that we need miracles and fear and mumbo-jumbo just to act right.
But it's the claims of victimization that make me most sick. It's not enough to believe what you want to believe. You've got to act like you're being persecuted. Like there's a "War on Religion" and the poor evangelicals have to hide in caves so they aren't victimized. Except those caves are multi-million dollar megachurches with state of the art video and sound systems. Except that they own television and radio stations in every market. Except that the government has to subsidize every dollar that they collect by giving tax benefits to the donors. But they're victims of those horrible secularists who from what I can tell, don't care if people want to handle snakes and pass the collection plate, but for the most part just want to be left alone.
Victims my ass. Religionists started persecuting people as soon as they landed at Plymouth Rock. They couldn't wait to start burning women who looked funny at their husbands because they must be witches if they're not kissing their pious asses. You think for a minute that if they thought they could get away with it they wouldn't start putting homosexuals on a rotisserie? It's only because the secular members of society have drawn a few lines in the sand that they're not stoning women for adultery or having abortions and chopping off heads right here in the good old Christian USA.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Great post, but I think organized religion is more a symptom than a cause.
Humans have a set of fundamental tribal instincts that exist regardless of high-level social structures. It's easy to see where they came from. If you wanted to be chieftain, you had to be dominant; you had to convey unquestionable authority. Intimidation and xenophobia were effective means of keeping everyone united and under your control—even begging you for protection. Strange events and coincidences could be spun as signs of your greatness and wisdom. If your people had some specific histories or beliefs, they could also be twisted into supporting your rule. And if others couldn't understand your reasoning, you could just call it mystic knowledge that only you and chosen believers can comprehend.
Civilization has come a long way, but if you peel back the veneer of religion and politics you'll find we're still a bunch of savages looking for tribal identity. Whether you call yourself an evangelical Christian pastor, a fundamentalist Imam, or a member of the Communist Party of China, you still use the same tactics of intimidation against free thought and fear of foreigners, infidels, or minorities. You still use propaganda to twist events to your interpretations. You still hardly care about your group's beliefs except to turn them into justifications. And you still create a ruling caste that claims greater enlightenment than the masses.
Religion's flaw is that it, like race or color or political party or organization, divides people. It delineates "is" and "is not". Whenever you define a group, you invite that chieftain element who prey on tribal instincts. As people look to the chieftain for direction, they care less and less about what their beliefs and values originally meant and begin to only see them as a justification for the same attitude of fear and hatred every chieftain preaches. And the tribe more and more resembles every other, especially the ones its people are told to hate and fear.
The people sometimes deemed "liberal" or "freethinking" or "secular" are those who suppress that protective tribal instinct, and are less moved by the promises and threats of their chieftain. But freethinkers are a group like any other, and blaming religions or political parties or any other group just feeds the tribal instinct. Many have broken away, only to form their own tribes—and now embody everything they once fought against. Only when the majority of us can leave our tribal thinking behind and stop thinking of every grouping and delineation as a tribal boundary will the chieftains among us lose their voice. Only when we can stop fearing and hating that which makes others different will we be able to understand who anyone really is.
Ourselves most of all.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?