NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/skeptic/21885

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-31 | 1.9 KB

Xref: sparky sci.skeptic:21885 alt.messianic:3791
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Newsgroups: sci.skeptic,alt.messianic
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up? Was: What did Judas be
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
From: [e-mail] (James J. Lippard)
Date: 31 Dec 1992 16:52 MST
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
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In article <[e-mail]>, <[e-mail]> writes...
>(I also vaguely recall that the Catholic church attempted to put the kibosh on
>Copernicus' theories but couldn't due to his remoteness from the Papal States
>and because the Polish crown decided not to fork him over to the Roman branch
>of the Inquisition. Anybody who knows more about this is free to contradict me
>if he/she has better documentation than I do.)

Copernicus' _De Revolutionibus_ was dedicated to Pope Paul III, who praised
the book.  The book was printed with a preface by Andreas Osiander, a
Lutheran theologian, who inserted it without obtaining Copernicus'
position and without appending his name to it.  In this preface,
Osiander wrote that the Copernican system was a useful mathematical
device, but of course we all know that the earth does not really move.
Copernicus was never in any real trouble because only astronomers
proficient in mathematics could understand anything but the first book
of _De Revolutionibus_, and because he died shortly after its publication.
(See Thomas Kuhn, _The Copernican Revolution_, 1957, Harvard University
Press.)

Jim Lippard              [e-mail]
Dept. of Philosophy      [e-mail]
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721