But to avoid these paradoxes...

I love history and old literature. They seem to me more relevant to daily life than many another topic. For instance, reading Democritus again (and I must offer apologies to Burton, whose first name is Robert not Richard), I'm running across the Great Debate of Science vs. the Bible.

Our author (who shall now be BB for Bob Burton) is discussing the debate between the Church and such men as Kepler and Galileo. He notes that many philosophers "accuse the Mosaic cosmology of being a crude popular account, far removed from true philosophical learning. For Moses makes mention of but two planets, [the sun and moon], no four elements, etc... But to proceed, these and such-like insolent and bold attempts, prodigious paradoxes, inferences, must needs follow, if it once be granted [...] [that the earth] is a planet."

These and such-like insolent and bold attempts. Moses will be open to a perilous level of criticism if we dare accuse his account of being less than entirely scientific.

It's interesting to me on a number of levels. For one thing, the church and Bible have not collapsed on account of its being proven that the earth is indeed a planet, and orbits the sun. No one bothers to worry about the fact that Moses fails to detail celestial movements, and those portions of the Bible which were once used to prove that the earth was the stable center of the universe are now considered metaphorical. Also, the mathematics even at this time clearly indicated that the earth could not be the center of the universe. Planets would wander hither and yon, now forwards, now backwards along their course - if the earth were the center. The mathematicians aligned with the church were unable to look at the simplest solution: that the earth and all planets orbit the sun, and such back-and-forth motion comes from the earth now passing, now being surpassed by its fellow travellers.

BB has some conception of this: "But to avoid these paradoxes of the earth's motion (which the Church of Rome hath lately condemned as heretical [...]), our latter mathematicians have rolled all the stones that may be stirred: and, to solve all appearances and objections, have invented new hypotheses, and fabricated new systems of the world, out of their own Dædalian heads."

Because the solution the facts point to is unthinkable, the scientist must needs fabricate new solutions without simple use of fact. BB goes on to list the myriad theories proposed by the geocentrists, all of which are laughable by modern standards.

To avoid these paradoxes, these contradictions between the Bible and science, these scientists chose to avoid the facts rather than challenge the way the Faith read its most sacred text - and in so doing, embraced falsehood. The opposite sin, that of faithlessness, may be more heinous - but is it good to step away from The Truth (and the Way, and the Life) for any reason?

You may have guessed that I'm one of those wicked creatures, a Christian evolutionist. What I have seen leads me to believe that Moses' purpose was to convey the truth of Why we are here, What we are and Who made us, while the details of How, When, and Where are best answered by the clues left in Creation. But there is a cautionary note in here for the science-oriented.

The philosophers who did not adhere strictly to Scripture as understood laughed at Moses for making no mention of the four elements. But today we laugh at them for making so much mention of them. The fundamental basis of natural philosophy - elemental theory - has since been proven as ridiculous as a geocentric universe. Perhaps this is why Moses makes so little mention of any scientific fact: if he listed the history of the universe to the last accurate detail, every age would laugh at him for failing to agree with its own inaccuracies.

Perhaps the lesson is simply that we need to pursue truth, whether it trashes our old scientific concepts or our old religious ones. And we need to avoid simply laughing at our foes, lest we ourselves prove the ridiculous ones in the end.