Re: I could not disagree more with holocaust deniers.
These people are apparently in possession of facts that are not generally known. As I begin to see them, they are not kooks but they have come upon something which they were not supposed to know and which, in fact, is taboo to speak about. It is the latter aspect which is giving rise to the widespread interest in them and not their so-called denial.
Somehow, the Holocaust is to Judeofascism what geocentrism was to the Catholic Church --clue:
The Trial of Galileo
by Doug Linder (2002)
In the 1633 trial of Galileo Galilei, two worlds come into cosmic conflict. Galileo's world of science and humanism collides with the world of Scholasticism and absolutism that held power in the Catholic Church. The result is a tragedy that marks both the end of Galileo's liberty and the end of the Italian Renaissance.
Galileo Galilei was born in 1564--the same year that Shakespeare was born and Michelangelo died. From an early age, Galileo showed his scientific skills. At age nineteen, he discovered the isochronism of the pendulum. By age twenty-two, he had invented the hydrostatic balance. By age twenty-five, Galileo assumed his first lectureship, at the University of Pisa. Within a few more years, Galileo earned a reputation throughout Europe as a scientist and superb lecturer. Eventually, he would be recognized as the father of experimental physics. Galileo's motto might have been "follow knowledge wherever it leads us."
At the University of Padua, where Galileo accepted a position after three years in Pisa, he began to develop a strong interest in Copernican theory. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus published Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs, a treatise that put forth his revolutionary idea that the Sun was at the center of the universe and that the Earth--rotating on an axis--orbited around the sun once a year. Copernicus' theory was a challenge to the accepted notion contained in the natural philosophy of Aristotle, the astronomy of Ptolemy and the teachings of the Church that the sun and all the stars revolved around a stationary Earth. In the half-century since its publication, however, Copernicus' theory met mostly with skepticism. Skeptics countered with the "common sense" notion that the earth they stood on appeared not to move at all--much less at the speed required to fully rotate every twenty-four hours while spinning around the sun.
Sometime in the mid-1590s, Galileo concluded that Copernicus got it right. He admitted as much in a 1597 letter to Johannes Kepler, a German mathematician who had written about planetary systems: "Like you, I accepted the Copernican position several years ago and discovered from thence the cause of many natural effects which are doubtless inexplicable by the current theories." Galileo, however, continued to keep his thoughts to a few trusted friends, as he explained to Kepler: "I have not dared until now to bring my reasons and refutations into the open, being warned by the fortunes of Copernicus himself, our master, who procured for himself immortal fame among a few but stepped down among the great crowd."
[...]
Soon, however, Galileo--flamboyant by nature--decided that Copernicus was worth a fight. He decided to address his arguments to the enlightened public at large, rather than the hidebound academics. He saw more hope for gaining support among businessmen, gentlemen, princes, and Jesuit astronomers than among the vested apologists of universities. He seemed compelled to act as a consultant in natural philosophy to all who would listen. He wrote in tracts, pamphlets, letters, and dialogues--not in the turgid, polysyllabic manner of a university pedant, but simply and directly.
The Admonition and False Injunction of 1616
In 1613, just as Galileo published his Letters on the Solar Spots, an openly Copernican writing, the first attack came from a Dominican friar and professor of ecclesiastical history in Florence, Father Lorini. Preaching on All Soul's Day, Lorini said that Copernican doctrine violated Scripture, which clearly places Earth, and not the Sun at the center of the universe. What, if Copernicus were right, would be the sense of Joshua 10:13 which says "So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven" or Isaiah 40:22 that speaks of "the heavens stretched out as a curtain" above "the circle of the earth"? Pressured later to apologize for his attack, Lorini later said that he "said a couple of words to the effect that the doctrine of Ipernicus [sic], or whatever his name is, was against Holy Scripture."
Galileo responded to criticism of his Copernican views in a December 1613 Letter to Castelli. In his letter, Galileo argued that the Scripture--although truth itself--must be understood sometimes in a figurative sense. A reference, for example, to "the hand of God" is not meant to be interpreted as referring to a five-fingered appendage, but rather to His presence in human lives. Given that the Bible should not be interpreted literally in every case, Galileo contended, it is senseless to see it as supporting one view of the physical universe over another. "Who," Galileo asked, "would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?"
Galileo hoped that his Letter to Castelli might foster a reconciliation of faith and science, but it only served to increase the heat. His enemies accused him of attacking Scripture and meddling in theological affairs. One among them, Father Lorini, raised the stakes for the battle when, on February 7, 1615, he sent to the Roman Inquisition a modified copy of Galileo's Letter to Castelli. He attached his own comments to his submission:
All our Fathers of this devout convent of St. Mark are of opinion that the letter contains many propositions which appear to be suspicious or presumptuous, as when it asserts that the language of Holy Scripture does not mean what it seems to mean; that in discussions about natural phenomena the last and lowest place ought to be given the authority of the sacred text; that its commentators have very often erred in their interpretation; that the Holy Scriptures should not be mixed up with anything except matters of religion....When, I say, I became aware of all of this, I made up my mind to acquaint your Lordship with the state of affairs, that you in your holy zeal for the Faith may, in conjunction with your illustrious colleagues, provide such remedies as may appear advisable....I, who hold that those who call themselves Galileists are orderly men and good Christians all, but a little overwise and conceited in their opinions, declare that I am actuated by nothing in this business but zeal for the sacred cause.
In fact, Lorini's letter appears more charitable than he in fact was. He would stop at almost nothing to destroy the "Galileists," as is shown from his alteration--in certain key places--of the text of Galileo's Letter to Castelli. For example, where Galileo had written: "There are in Scripture words which, taken in the strict literal meaning, look as if they differed from the truth," Lorini substituted: "which are false in their literal meaning." However unscrupulous his methods, Lorini's denunciation succeeded in setting the machinery of the Catholic Church in motion.
[snip]
law.umkc.edu |
