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Thursday, April 12, 2012

Acts 1:11, Gazing Into Heaven

Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?

//No, I'm not going to embark on another lecture about Christians who waste precious time scanning the skies for their Lord to return. I just thought I'd point out something funny.

Remember Galileo, the astronomer who insisted that the earth rotated around the sun, rather than the sun around the earth? That didn't go over too well with the Church, who preferred to believe that the earth is the center of the universe. Galileo and his misinformed followers, the Church insisted, spent altogether too much time themselves staring up into heaven. 

So, today's verse was quoted by a Dominican friar to discourage the use of Galileo's telescope. Note the clever play on Galilee and Galileo.

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