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Re: Copernican Revolution etc**

By: Cactus Flower in ALEA | Recommend this post (0)
Sat, 01 Aug 15 8:01 AM | 127 view(s)
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Msg. 17232 of 54959
(This msg. is a reply to 17231 by Cactus Flower)

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I am not saying pagans good, christians bad. I am saying that emperors and popes used religion as a tool of submission and conformity in promoting their temporal goals.

Those who threatened the ruler's incumbency were made to submit. Subtly or unsubtly, depending on the circumstances.


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The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: Copernican Revolution etc**
By: Cactus Flower
in ALEA
Sat, 01 Aug 15 7:19 AM
Msg. 17231 of 54959

It's a medieval incumbent-innovator argument.

Having a conceptually superior solution isn't the only thing that matters.

If the incumbent controls access to the market (imprimatur, anathema, index of forbidden publications) and distribution (disallowing communication with other heliocentrists, incarcerating the idea), maybe the innovator cannot sell their product (the heliocentric model).

This reminds me of something wise someone said. Now what and who might that be? Very Happy

Once the incumbent learns how to control the levers, they can seem relatively civilised in forcing innovators to submit and rendering their ideas stillborn. Even if, in the first place, to establish themselves, the incumbent murdered their opponents and razed their shrines. One step at a time. Nicaean dogma. Assault on neoplatonic and pagan people and places. Restriction of access to books. Excommunication of opponents. Inquisition. Control of publishing. From intimidation and violence to an almost transparent system of control of a submissive populace. An ecosystem of a curious and unobstructed classical science is channelled, via both Islam and Christianity, into conformity with holistic theologically-sound cosmologies. But finally, curiosity bursts the banks defined for it by religion once the technology exists to enable an uncontrollable flood of knowledge into the countryside.

There is resistance. Incumbents employ their levers to control those things they can. But the reformation creates zones beyond the control of the papacy. It is no coincidence that many innovations of the scientific revolution take place in Northern Europe.

At least in the modern technology world, it is not considered lese majeste to take your shot at changing the way folks conceive the universe. Even if it means trying to sweep aside existing theology and giving precedence to a new language.

"Philosophy is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth." - Galileo


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