Truth

Everyone seems to believe a little bit differently.  The oldest beliefs were  Many believe in conventional religions.  Conventional religions creed are ancient, dating

Most religions assume ancient creeds had some incredible power.   just because were so old.   had the best truth ignoring advances in modern psychology and science or competing religions.

In every religion, there was the worship of ancient ideas, a reverence for "if it is old enough it must be holy." Some ideas were too pious, such as Buddhist's ideas about letting insects bite you. Most had a leader and special books that were to be never questioned.

I wanted to figure things out myself, to be modern without throwing away what was old but worked. I really wanted some religious philosophy that took the best ideas from all religions and believed in science. The closest thing I found was the Unitarian Universalist religion that allow everyone to build their own believe system or theology.

 Church Truth vs. Scientific Truth

Until about five hundred years ago people believed in there authority, and there was little call to find "the truth." If you started to think for yourself, it was your inner truth.  During certain periods, if you disagreed with the Church big time, you could be charged with heresy and tortured. 

Around the 17th century there were people who were beginning to do science. Anatomists were dissecting the human body and they did find new things, but nothing to suggest that everything was made up of earth, water, air, fire, and aether which was the Church's view.

Astronomy vs. The Church

The study of the planets and stars was more interesting before our modern day electronic entertainment.  Outdoor lightning has lit up the sky, so we cannot see the grandeur of the Milky Way.

Before modern astronomy, must people believed what they saw.  For instance, the sun rises from the East every morning and sets in the West.  It seemed natural that the Sun moved across the sky because it was revolving around the Earth.

If you assume that the Earth is not moving, then the Sun does move around the Earth.  And so do the moon, planets and the stars.

But if you try to make sense out of their movements, the job becomes very complicated.  Sometimes the planets move backwards.  If we hold the Earth still, it is almost impossible to predict the path of the planets across the sky.  Even the sun does strange things.  It moves around sky lower in the winter and higher in the summer.  If we go to the Southern Hemisphere, it is summer down there, while it is winter here.  Just too complicated.

A much simpler way to look at it is to let the Earth move. In this version, Earth turns on its axis once a day, and revolves around the sun once a year.  The planets revolve around the sun. The planets closer to the Sun move faster, so Venus and Mercury seem to move backward and speed up as pass us in orbit.  The seasons are produced due to the tilt of the Earth.  When the North Pole points more to the Sun, Northern Hemisphere experiences summer. 

The Catholic Church dogma stated the Sun moved around the Earth. Science disagreed.  It was far simpler to allow the Earth to move.

Some Astronomy History

The astronomer Nicholas Copernicus in 1543 (some 65 years before the invention of the telescope in 1608), discovered that the Earth and planets moved around the Sun. Using observations of the planets and working out the mathematics, Heliocentric theory was shown to be true.

The Italian academic Galileo in 1609 heard of a new invention, the telescope. He brought one with about 3x power, and made improvements until he achieved 20x power. 

According to history, Galileo was the first person to look at the heavens.  What he saw made him question the authority of the Catholic Church. He saw the moons of Jupiter move around Jupiter, and the phase of Venus. There were mountains on the Earth's moon.  This was not in the Bible. This was further proof that the Earth and planets revolved around the sun.

The Bible has Errors

Gradually people began to question authority.  But the Christian religion and the Bible are very popular today especially in the United States.

Yet the Bible was wrong. More so, the Bible contradicts itself. It approves slavery as being normal, and indicates that women are inferior to men.  There are mixed teachings such as "an eye for an eye" (Old Testament) and "turn the other cheek"(New Testament)

Recommended  books which support many of my ideas.

Feel free to write me if you have questions or
comments.

My email address is:

     george@deepermind.com

Built using Microsoft Expression Web 4 which is available without charge. This web site is copyrighted (©) 2005-2021. No reproduction can take place without permission. Revised January 28, 2021.