The Flat-Earth Myth By Matthew Flannagan…

Men in Black … “Five hundred years ago,” the Tommy Lee Jones character informs the Will Smith character, “everyone believed the earth was flat.” Well, no they didn’t. One thousand years ago they didn’t either. In fact, almost every educated person fr…

.. and Merry Christmas to you too Jeremy.

I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and express my hope that the coming year is full of blessing and fulfillment for all of you.
Christmas is part of God’s way of enabling us to fulfill our purpose, “To know God and enjoy Him forever”

God Bless and Shalom

I hope some of the readers here got something from the discussion of the Galileo Affair. I realise these sort of internet discussions often generate more heat than light and this may turn some people off.

However, I encourage those who may still have an interest to read Galileo’s book (“Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems” by Galileo Galilei (1632) ). It can be accessed at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law web site (in HTML format).www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/dialogue.html

I have converted this to a pdf format so that it can be downloaded and read at leisure (works well on a eReader.). openparachute.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/dialogue-concerning-the-two.pdf
The book is surprisingly approachable for a modern reader considering its age (although there are some missing figues and some of the text recognition failed). One gets an idea of both the ground-breaking evidence and ideas arising from Galileo’s telescopic observations and also the way that theological and philosophical arguments (which seem silly to us today) were seriously considered at the time).

At only 92 pages long its well worth investing the time in such a significant work which is often misrepresented in discussions about the Galileo Affair – even by people who should no better.

The web site contains other documents relating to the trial of Galileo (www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/galileo.html) – including the full text of the inquisition’s sentence (Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo – http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/condemnation.html) which prohibited the above book (This prohibition lasted for 200 years).

You say, ““.. clearly the power of satan are not on his side in this instance and so for the reasons he has already elaborated they must be against him.”

I understand what you’re saying here is that I’m ‘taking this out of context by applying it ‘in general’, that Jesus isn’t trying to tell his followers that they ought to be gathering people together as opposed to dividing or scattering them.

“He who is not with me is against me…”, has a specific intent here.

How specific are we talking here? To make you right and me wrong? A broader definition? To make Jesus right in THIS particular instance and the Pharixees wrong? Is there no way we can extrapolate this to a more general scenario?

NO! LISTEN TO THE MASTER! (Matt, you’re up!)

I see.

So, anyone imagining that Jesus is against Satan overall, is mistaken.

You must know. .