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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."
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
No. Wait. He's dead. He doesn't care at all what you do to his bones.
And stupid people keep thinking burials are for the dead, not the living.
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But not vice versa.
You are welcome on my lawn.
This is the catholic church we're talking about, they've much more progressive than the American sects that oppose science (hence the acceptance of evolution in Europe, there are no debates about what should be taught in schools here).
I'm aware that the catholic church is extremely conservative but compared to the madness of the American fundamentalists that make the news they're moderates.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
They're doing this as a PR stunt to distract people from the mistakes they're making today.
If I designed a device to automatically lower fresh tinfoil hats from the ceiling whenever the one you're wearing now got worn out, I would make a mint.
Who cares what The Church does with whatever-is-left-of-his-body now? 500 years later?
Catholics care. They care because they believe in the sacrament of forgiveness. They care because they believe that people have immortal souls that can last more than 500 years after someone's death.
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!
The Catholic church recognizes it has a bad history with reacting to science, so they are trying to make up for that, yet it seems any effort to do so just that brings more complaints. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
By this point, the Catholic church has mostly improved from malicious to benign on the science front (they may contest doing research in certain areas of science on moral grounds, but they don't really try to contradict science anymore). Most of the anti-science creationism and whatnot isn't from the Catholic church.
Disclaimer: I was raised Catholic and appreciate most of the philosophy but don't care for the religion.
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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.
Strange that a religion that claims to be so forgiving is also always threatening eternal torment to anyone who disobeys them ... an organization that claims to be the standard bearer of all things good uses the exact same psychological framework as an abusive relationship?
So, you're saying that they are now forgiving Copernicus for being right all along?
Even as religious statements go that's pretty lame.
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Why not? He was one of them. He was employed by them. They were his friends and family. They didn't kill him. He died of natural causes (a stroke in his 70's). They just said that his idea of a heliocentric earth (one of many achievements) was heretical, but well after the fact. And then they admitted that they were wrong. What's not to forgive?
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.