The Cosmos

[sealybobo]

I think I said the same thing earlier. We need to drop worshipping St. Peter and Paul and start making Galleleo, Bruno, Newton & Einstein saints.

Which is why I point out that you are the scourge of knowledge and progress.

What a beautiful history your religion has. Burning people at the stake for mocking them. So much for turn the other cheek. What a sick history Christianity comes from. And so brief. Us humans are only starting to understand who we are and where we came from. In 10,000 years they will teach the children about your ancient fables.

They may still debate if there is a god or not but I seriously doubt your religion will stand the test of time.

So you will burn those who mock or defame Galileo. You lack the wits to grasp that Newton was a devout Christian - because you worship Tyson instead of thinking, you fail to understand the reality surrounding you.

In 10,000 years, they may indeed laugh at those who promoted ancient fables, such as Anthropocentric Global Warming and tales of melting ice caps. Primitive fucks motivated by greed, indoctrinating the stupid with the promise of hijacked wisdom.....

Oh, and you ignorant baboon, I have no religion - a sure don't worship someone for going on TV and presenting Beavis and Butt Head cartoons.

If you mean tease when you say burn? Yes I would "burn" anyone who says they believe the Jesus myth. Do they still believe in Santa? Or I would just keep my mouth shut and not take them very seriously ever again. I mean, they believe in super natural beings. Not only that they believe a church that has the most corrupt history of all the previous religions. Their only defense of their history is that atheists have killed more, which isn't even true. So they don't even know where they come from. Most people who say they are christians haven't even read the book. Someone told them a story and said if they don't believe they'll go to hell and so their primitive brains "believe". Cognitive Dissonance. And lets not forget for thousands of years you had to believe or die. Imagine how many free thinkers just went along to get along. Even today you could be ostrasized if you tell people you are an atheist.

 

[sealybobo]

But what about civilizations that self-destruct?

What about them?

Our economic systems were formed when the planet and its air, rivers, oceans, lands, all seemed infinite. They evolved long before we first saw the Earth as the tiny organism that it actually is. They're all alike in one respect they're profit-driven, and therefore, focused on short-term gain. In one respect, we're ahead of the people of Ancient Mesopotamia.

So, you think rivers and lands "evolved?"

Unlike them, we understand what's happening to our world.

In primitive tribes, the people would live in fear of a nature they could not understand. They would look to the smoke coming from the mountain with both fear and awe.

Even then, the charlatans were quick to take advantage, The Shaman would step forward and declare "The GODS are angry at you because of your sins. SACRIFICE to us, give us your virgin daughters to rape and the best of your harvest, and we will appease the gods."

Of course the shamans had no more understanding of the volcano than the villagers, and sure the fuck couldn't control the volcano, they only knew that fear could be manipulated to their own gain.

Anthropogenic global warming is the same scam. People like you, fools who live in fear with no ability to think, are the natural prey of frauds like Michael Mann, Your shamans don't know what caused temperatures to rise in the 80's - nor do they care. They don't know why it stopped a decade ago. They sure the fuck have no impact on it. But morons like you make them rich, you seek to sacrifice your virgin daughters - or at least those of your neighbor - to please the capricious gods who demand sacrifice for carbon sins

You, in your grass skirt, bone through your nose, convinced that Gaea will destroy all in anger over the carbon sins of man.

Mindless savage.

It is ignorance like yours that will destroy the human race.

Every few years, Mount Etna, in Sicily, blows its stack. Each big eruption sends millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Now, combine that with the output of all the other volcanic activity on the planet. Let's take the largest scientific estimate-- about 500 million tons of volcanic CO2 entering the atmosphere ever year. Sounds like a lot, right? But that's not even two percent of the 30 billion tons of CO2 that our civilization is cranking out every year.

Volcanic CO2 has a distinct signature-- it's slightly heavier than the kind produced by burning fossil fuels.
We can tell the difference between the two when we examine them at the atomic level. It's clear that the increased CO2 in the air is not from volcanoes. It's a pretty tight case. Our fingerprints are all over this one.

 

[sealybobo]

I can't believe how stupid people are. Instead of realizing its the oil and car companies that are lying when they deny global warming, instead they have been convinced it is the scientists that are lying.

As far back as 1896, the Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius calculated that doubling the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would melt the Arctic ice. In the 1930s, the American physicist EO Hulburt, at the Naval Research Laboratory, confirmed that result.
So far, it was still just theoretical. But then, the English engineer Guy Callendar assembled the evidence to show that both the CO2 and the average global temperature were actually increasing. Even now, man may be unwittingly changing the world's climate through the waste products of his civilization. Due to our release, through factories and automobiles every year, of more than six billion tons of carbon dioxide, which helps air absorb heat from the Sun, our atmosphere seems to be getting warmer. This is bad? Well, it's been calculated, a few degrees rise in the Earth's temperature would melt the polar ice caps.

 

[sealybobo]

If we don't change our ways, what will the planet be like in our children's future? Based on scientific projections, if we just keep on doing business as usual, our kids are in for a rough ride.
Killer heat waves, record droughts, rising sea levels, mass extinction of species.
We inherited a bountiful world made possible by a relatively stable climate.
Agriculture and civilization flourished for thousands of years.
And now, our carelessness and greed put all of that at risk.

 

[sealybobo]

Augustin Mouchot in 1878. This is a world lit mostly by gaslight. The automobile is still years away.
But Mouchot was dazzling the crowd with his solar power concentrator. The Sun belongs to all of us! Even though it is 150 million kilometers away from us, feel its awesome power! My invention concentrates the free energy of the Sun and converts it into mechanical motion.
It can power any kind of machine. It can produce electricity or run a printing press or make ice on a hot day.

Mouchot took home the gold medal from the fair.

But the price of coal tumbled, becoming so cheap that there was no interest in solar energy.
Besides, no one understood, back then, what the true cost was of burning fossil fuel.
Mouchot's research funding was cut off.

 

[sealybobo]

The official inauguration of Shuman's solar power plant, in 1913, was a dazzling success.
He had invented a practical way to tap the Sun's energy on an industrial scale, making solar energy even cheaper than coal.
The British and German governments both offered Shuman generous funding to develop his invention.
In a letter to Scientific American, he calculated that his solar power plants, if deployed in an area of the Sahara Desert only 150 miles on a side, could supply as much power as consumed by all the industries of the world.
But it was not to be.
The market for a liquid fossil fuel, petroleum, was exploding for shipping, home heating, and cars and trucks.
Oil was abundant, cheaper even than coal, and much easier to get out of the ground and process.
A year after Shuman's triumph in the desert, World War I broke out.
His solar collectors were recycled into weapons.

 

[sealybobo]

Wind farms take up very little land, and none at all, if offshore, where the winds are strongest.
If we could tap even one percent of their power, we'd have enough energy to run our civilization.
And more solar energy falls on Earth in one hour than all the energy our civilization consumes in an entire year.
If we could harness a tiny fraction of the available solar and wind power, we could supply all our energy needs forever, and without adding any carbon to the atmosphere.
It's not too late.

 

[Uncensored2008]

It is ignorance like yours that will destroy the human race

The "ignorance" that man should think? That we should question dogma and test the validity of claims?

You are a mindless savage, chanting voodoo with no grasp of causality.
.

Every few years, Mount Etna, in Sicily, blows its stack. Each big eruption sends millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Now, combine that with the output of all the other volcanic activity on the planet. Let's take the largest scientific estimate-- about 500 million tons of volcanic CO2 entering the atmosphere ever year. Sounds like a lot, right? But that's not even two percent of the 30 billion tons of CO2 that our civilization is cranking out every year.

Volcanic CO2 has a distinct signature-- it's slightly heavier than the kind produced by burning fossil fuels.
We can tell the difference between the two when we examine them at the atomic level. It's clear that the increased CO2 in the air is not from volcanoes. It's a pretty tight case. Our fingerprints are all over this one.

Carbon Dioxide is a substance that is part of our world. What your shamans have utterly failed to do, is demonstrate causality. While CO2 has risen dramatically, temperatures have declined.

You've been spanked repeatedly over your reliance on witch doctors peddling hocus pocus. I have no desire to again humiliate you over the stupidity of the AGW voodoo.

My point is that you attack the goat herder religions (perhaps not Islam, though) while attempting to make "science" some moronic tribal religion.

Science is a process,. little chimp. It is a method to test the validity of a hypothesis. Since is not a "what," but a "how." You have no grasp of what science is, or how it works, Silly Bonobo.

 

[sealybobo]

The beasts mentioned are the dinosaurs genius

More specifically it is the 'big crocks' on the fifth day of the creation.

If the big bang happened on January 1st of the cosmic calendar, dinosaurs were here on December 23rd. We didn't show up until December 30th and at that point we were just monkeys. All of human history only represents the last 14 seconds of the cosmic calendar. Everyone you ever heard of or read about lived in the last 14 seconds of the year. Dinosaurs were living around December 23rd and they died out long before us.

On day 5 of the cosmic calendar the Milky Way galaxy hadn't even formed yet.

 

[sealybobo]

It is ignorance like yours that will destroy the human race

The "ignorance" that man should think? That we should question dogma and test the validity of claims?

You are a mindless savage, chanting voodoo with no grasp of causality.
.

Every few years, Mount Etna, in Sicily, blows its stack. Each big eruption sends millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Now, combine that with the output of all the other volcanic activity on the planet. Let's take the largest scientific estimate-- about 500 million tons of volcanic CO2 entering the atmosphere ever year. Sounds like a lot, right? But that's not even two percent of the 30 billion tons of CO2 that our civilization is cranking out every year.

Volcanic CO2 has a distinct signature-- it's slightly heavier than the kind produced by burning fossil fuels.
We can tell the difference between the two when we examine them at the atomic level. It's clear that the increased CO2 in the air is not from volcanoes. It's a pretty tight case. Our fingerprints are all over this one.

Carbon Dioxide is a substance that is part of our world. What your shamans have utterly failed to do, is demonstrate causality. While CO2 has risen dramatically, temperatures have declined.

You've been spanked repeatedly over your reliance on witch doctors peddling hocus pocus. I have no desire to again humiliate you over the stupidity of the AGW voodoo.

My point is that you attack the goat herder religions (perhaps not Islam, though) while attempting to make "science" some moronic tribal religion.

Science is a process,. little chimp. It is a method to test the validity of a hypothesis. Since is not a "what," but a "how." You have no grasp of what science is, or how it works, Silly Bonobo.

Tyson addresses your bogus claims. He said, "For all us scientists know, we could be in for global cooling." He also explained that when you warm up the polar caps it might mean longer colder winters for you in middle America.

Read a science book or better yet, watch the Cosmos.

 

[the_human_being]

Did a man named George Washington ever exist? Yes, we have books and movies about a man named George Washington.
Have you ever seen George Washington yourself or heard his voice? No? Then how do you know for certain George Washington ever existed?

You claim God does not exist. We have books and movies about God. You have never seen God nor have you heard His voice. Now, do you still claim George Washington existed but God doesn't?

No one said Washington parted the Delaware or performed miracles. I have no reason not to believe in Washington.

He was a lot like you though.

He never told a lie??????
He tossed a penny across the Delaware??????

Have you watched the Cosmos yet? I seriously doubt it. Because it is better than any holy book or preacher. It explains our human history/existence and god is such a primitive concept that we came up with a long time ago when we were not very bright. I don't care if people think I'm mean. Boo fucking hoo. Religious thought has held us back for far too long. It is time to rid our species of the idea that we are special. How many appendages do you have? 5? So does a duck, cow, dog, lion. We all have basically 2 arms, legs and one head.

Think about it. Life has been on this planet for millions of years and us humans only 1 million. For millions of years the dinosaurs ruled and before them the Trilobites ruled for 300 million years before them.

Us humans have only begun to understand. Stop with the superstitious super natural shit that doesn't exist. Stop worshipping Saint Nick and all the other saints. Time to make Newton and Einstein and Gallaleo and Bruno into saints. If not for them we'd still be in the stone ages. Religion held us back for thousands of years. No more.

At least in America and Europe you hear very very little about god now a days. And most people you ask don't take those bible stories literally. About time.

I outgrew Mother Goose by the time I was four.

 

[the_human_being]

It just doesn't work. It's just junk science and myth:


Abiogenesis enigma Protein 8217 s origin Releasing the Truth

Please in the future only submit evidence that has already gone through peer review.

Does it bother you that we are related to trees and bugs? Everything alive is related.

In Sept of the cosmic calendar molecules became complex. They made DNA. They began to reproduce, plants and yes cells joined and became multi cell organisms. Mutations happen all the time. Some are improvements such as the polar bear turning white from brown. Or the Emperor Crab, Dogs, Cows, horses. Through artificial selection we have gotten rid of plants and animals we don't want and now corn, wheat, rice grow. Do you think that was natural selection?

In November the Microbes invented sex. By accident. December 1st the sky was made by life. Life breathing created the atmosphere.

Dec 15th the Cambrain explosion. Life exploded. Dec 20th plants. Our ancestor the Lung fish left water for land for good. Trees and reptiles Dec 23rd. Dec 26th first mammals. 27th birds. Dec 30th first monkeys.

Whatever pushes your button

It's your link, How does Science PROVE the Bible
Even the title is screwed up. It is text in the Bible that is being submitted as proof of something, not Science. The whole article is illogically.

Actually we don't have to prove anything. Your own evolutionist scientists have been caught in enough fraud to totally make any comment on evolution suspect.

Big Bang Theory Busted By 33 Top Scientists

This is absurd. Because of science we know where and when the universe started. It was the big bang moment. With computers we can run simulations based on where the stars are all going and track them back to where they started. Are you still arguing the flat earth theory? Because of science we also know how big the universe is, how many other stars/suns are out there, what gravity is, atoms, microbes, fossels, bacteria, etc.

You theists already had your chance. Your 7 day 6500 year story didn't hold up. Do you have another story or is it Big Bang vs. your Creation story? Because if it is, we already won.

And if a supernatural being caused the big bang, prove it. If a creator/god created us, prove it. Otherwise all you have is a 2000 year old lie. The Jews have a 5000 year old lie. The Muslims have a 500 year old lie and the Mormons have a 200 year old lie. The Greek gods before the Jews was a lie too.

No, we have God and the Bible. The Bible states that all things are possible with God. Mathematics says your big bang is impossible and your single cell organism is also impossible.

What you are saying is not true. At least not yet. It hasn't gone through peer review yet. Why do you keep saying it as if it is a fact? Why all of the sudden do you believe what a scientists/mathamatician is saying? Bias? Are you a liar? Of course you are. But you get a pass because you believe in Jesus right? This is another reason why your religion is bullshit. You get to be evil war mongering liars and greedy hypocrites and go to heaven? Pathetic.

You can tell if a person is an atheist without him/her ever saying a word. An atheist has an unmistakable odor of burnt sulphur about them.

 

[Uncensored2008]

You can tell if a person is an atheist without him/her ever saying a word. An atheist has an unmistakable odor of burnt sulphur about them.

I am an agnostic. I believe that which can be tested and demonstrated.

The Silly Bonobo is a mindless savage, an adherent of the fear of nature, attributing phenomenon he cannot comprehend on spirits and angry gods. He is no "Atheist," he has made Neil Tyson and Carl Sagan into gods - something Sagan would have never wanted.

 

[sealybobo]

You can tell if a person is an atheist without him/her ever saying a word. An atheist has an unmistakable odor of burnt sulphur about them.

I am an agnostic. I believe that which can be tested and demonstrated.

The Silly Bonobo is a mindless savage, an adherent of the fear of nature, attributing phenomenon he cannot comprehend on spirits and angry gods. He is no "Atheist," he has made Neil Tyson and Carl Sagan into gods - something Sagan would have never wanted.

I too believe what can be tested and demonstrated. So why don't you believe or admit that for thousands of years religious authority has suppressed mankind and knowledge? Why do you an agnostic protest so much? I guess Sagan and Tyson don't completely blame religion. They blame our war mongering ancestors too. In the Cosmos they blame rulers in China for extinguishing vast amounts of knowledge from great Chinese philosophers. The Library of Alexander was wiped out by rulers long before Christianity. Great Greek and Arabic philosophers works were stomped out too by rulers that were not Christians. I'm not putting it all on Christians. They are just one of many different kinds of theists.

Please explain when you wrote "attributing phenomenon he cannot comprehend on spirits and angry gods"

I did that? Please explain.

 

[sealybobo]

You can tell if a person is an atheist without him/her ever saying a word. An atheist has an unmistakable odor of burnt sulphur about them.

I am an agnostic. I believe that which can be tested and demonstrated.

The Silly Bonobo is a mindless savage, an adherent of the fear of nature, attributing phenomenon he cannot comprehend on spirits and angry gods. He is no "Atheist," he has made Neil Tyson and Carl Sagan into gods - something Sagan would have never wanted.

And I think your opinion is strictly political. You are clearly a right wing lunatic. Of course you don't believe in global warming. Another reason why you guys are just a different kind of right wing nut from the republican tree.

 

[sealybobo]

It just doesn't work. It's just junk science and myth:


Abiogenesis enigma Protein 8217 s origin Releasing the Truth

Please in the future only submit evidence that has already gone through peer review.

Does it bother you that we are related to trees and bugs? Everything alive is related.

In Sept of the cosmic calendar molecules became complex. They made DNA. They began to reproduce, plants and yes cells joined and became multi cell organisms. Mutations happen all the time. Some are improvements such as the polar bear turning white from brown. Or the Emperor Crab, Dogs, Cows, horses. Through artificial selection we have gotten rid of plants and animals we don't want and now corn, wheat, rice grow. Do you think that was natural selection?

In November the Microbes invented sex. By accident. December 1st the sky was made by life. Life breathing created the atmosphere.

Dec 15th the Cambrain explosion. Life exploded. Dec 20th plants. Our ancestor the Lung fish left water for land for good. Trees and reptiles Dec 23rd. Dec 26th first mammals. 27th birds. Dec 30th first monkeys.

It's your link, How does Science PROVE the Bible
Even the title is screwed up. It is text in the Bible that is being submitted as proof of something, not Science. The whole article is illogically.

Actually we don't have to prove anything. Your own evolutionist scientists have been caught in enough fraud to totally make any comment on evolution suspect.

Big Bang Theory Busted By 33 Top Scientists

This is absurd. Because of science we know where and when the universe started. It was the big bang moment. With computers we can run simulations based on where the stars are all going and track them back to where they started. Are you still arguing the flat earth theory? Because of science we also know how big the universe is, how many other stars/suns are out there, what gravity is, atoms, microbes, fossels, bacteria, etc.

You theists already had your chance. Your 7 day 6500 year story didn't hold up. Do you have another story or is it Big Bang vs. your Creation story? Because if it is, we already won.

And if a supernatural being caused the big bang, prove it. If a creator/god created us, prove it. Otherwise all you have is a 2000 year old lie. The Jews have a 5000 year old lie. The Muslims have a 500 year old lie and the Mormons have a 200 year old lie. The Greek gods before the Jews was a lie too.

No, we have God and the Bible. The Bible states that all things are possible with God. Mathematics says your big bang is impossible and your single cell organism is also impossible.

What you are saying is not true. At least not yet. It hasn't gone through peer review yet. Why do you keep saying it as if it is a fact? Why all of the sudden do you believe what a scientists/mathamatician is saying? Bias? Are you a liar? Of course you are. But you get a pass because you believe in Jesus right? This is another reason why your religion is bullshit. You get to be evil war mongering liars and greedy hypocrites and go to heaven? Pathetic.

You can tell if a person is an atheist without him/her ever saying a word. An atheist has an unmistakable odor of burnt sulphur about them.

My apologies if after hearing your stories I don't immediately go get baptized. If your story is so compelling, how come all the Jews are still Jews? In fact it was Jews who saw him do miracles. He was a Jew and lived with Jews. So why didn't 99% of the Jews convert? How about even half of them? If the story isn't even convincing to Jews, why should I buy it? Or anyone else for that matter? And Muslims are buying a completely different load of crap?

You can tell a person is a theist when they blow themselves up with a bomb for god or go shoot up a place because someone drew a picture of their god.

You can draw a mocking picture of Sagan fucking Tyson in the ass we won't care.

 

[sealybobo]

Cosmos - Carl Sagan Episode Scripts SS

 

[Care4all]

The beasts mentioned are the dinosaurs genius

More specifically it is the 'big crocks' on the fifth day of the creation.

If the big bang happened on January 1st of the cosmic calendar, dinosaurs were here on December 23rd. We didn't show up until December 30th and at that point we were just monkeys. All of human history only represents the last 14 seconds of the cosmic calendar. Everyone you ever heard of or read about lived in the last 14 seconds of the year. Dinosaurs were living around December 23rd and they died out long before us.

On day 5 of the cosmic calendar the Milky Way galaxy hadn't even formed yet.

Maybe the days of Bible are the 'days' from God's view, and since God is the Alpha AND the Omega, the days are counted from His perspective... and maybe from the ''omega'' view....in other words, looking backwards from 'the actual end of the Universe'... so on the 5th day in the Bible from God's perspective of knowing the WHOLE picture and time frame, could fit perfectly with, the timing of the Days in Genesis/the timing of the final Cosmic Calendar?

 

[Daniyel]

The beasts mentioned are the dinosaurs genius

More specifically it is the 'big crocks' on the fifth day of the creation.

If the big bang happened on January 1st of the cosmic calendar, dinosaurs were here on December 23rd. We didn't show up until December 30th and at that point we were just monkeys. All of human history only represents the last 14 seconds of the cosmic calendar. Everyone you ever heard of or read about lived in the last 14 seconds of the year. Dinosaurs were living around December 23rd and they died out long before us.

On day 5 of the cosmic calendar the Milky Way galaxy hadn't even formed yet.

Maybe the days of Bible are the 'days' from God's view, and since God is the Alpha AND the Omega, the days are counted from His perspective... and maybe from the ''omega'' view....in other words, looking backwards from 'the actual end of the Universe'... so on the 5th day in the Bible from God's perspective of knowing the WHOLE picture and time frame, could fit perfectly with, the timing of the Days in Genesis/the timing of the final Cosmic Calendar?

This is actually one of the Jewish theories according to some scholars.
There is also another vast theories that can also explain it according to Elder Commentators;
1. Our world is the 7th world created..
2. The world is created 350 years after the creation of the Torah(the OT this one relates to the OT as notes when history and names are just the instruments)
3. Time is not static.
4. Time might been defined differently in the past(Noah lived over 400 years, Moses 120,Serah 700+)

And the interesting part is that none of them oppose each other.

 

[sealybobo]

The beasts mentioned are the dinosaurs genius

More specifically it is the 'big crocks' on the fifth day of the creation.

If the big bang happened on January 1st of the cosmic calendar, dinosaurs were here on December 23rd. We didn't show up until December 30th and at that point we were just monkeys. All of human history only represents the last 14 seconds of the cosmic calendar. Everyone you ever heard of or read about lived in the last 14 seconds of the year. Dinosaurs were living around December 23rd and they died out long before us.

On day 5 of the cosmic calendar the Milky Way galaxy hadn't even formed yet.

Maybe the days of Bible are the 'days' from God's view, and since God is the Alpha AND the Omega, the days are counted from His perspective... and maybe from the ''omega'' view....in other words, looking backwards from 'the actual end of the Universe'... so on the 5th day in the Bible from God's perspective of knowing the WHOLE picture and time frame, could fit perfectly with, the timing of the Days in Genesis/the timing of the final Cosmic Calendar?

Here is what I got from two episodes of the Cosmos with Carl Sagan where it explains the history of our religion. I think it confirms what I"m saying about how the power structure/churches/kings/rulers of our society use religion to keep us stupid.

Because Dutch Holland in the 17th century was tolerant of unorthodox opinions it was a refuge for intellectuals fleeing the thought control and censorship of religious rule in Europe. These free thinking people had an impact on revolutionaries named Paine, Hamilton, Adams Franklin and Jefferson. The Dutch offered a professorship to Galileo who had been forced by the Catholic Church under threat of torture to recant the heretical position that the Earth went around the sun and not vice versa. His first astronomical telescope was based on a spyglass of Dutch manufacture.
Galileo had announced other worlds. Giordano Bruno had speculated on intelligent life elsewhere.
For this they were made to suffer brutally. But in Holland, the astronomer Huygens who strongly supported both ideas, was showered with honors.

One day a long time ago the stars in the sky were promoted to gods. They were given names and relatives and special responsibilities. There was a god for every human concern. Gods ran nature. Nothing happened without the direct intervention of some god. If the gods were happy, there was plenty of food but if something displeased the gods, and it didn't take much, the consequences were awesome: Droughts, floods, storms, wars earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, epidemics. They invented rituals and myths. Some desperate and cruel, others imaginative and benign. The ancient Greeks explained that diffuse band of brightness in the night sky . as the milk of the goddess Hera. We still call it the Milky Way.

Then came the Greek island of Samos 2500 years ago where a glorious awakening occurred. They realized that bad things that happen are not caused by demons or the gods. In the 6th century BC was the first conflict between science and mysticism, between nature and the gods. But why here? Because other societies like lndia or Egypt, Babylon, Rome China, Rome & Mesoamerica were all at the center of old empires. They were set in their ways, hostile to new ideas. But lonia was a multitude of newly colonized islands and city-states. Isolation, even if incomplete, promotes diversity. No single concentration of power could enforce conformity. Free inquiry became possible. What do you do when you're faced with several different gods each claiming the same territory? The Babylonian Marduk and the Greek Zeus were each considered king of the gods master of the sky. You might decide, since they otherwise had different attributes that one of them was merely invented by the priests. But if one, why not both? And so it was here that the great idea arose: The realization that there might be a way to know the world without the god hypothesis. This Greek revolution happened 600 BC. Democritus believed that the prevailing religions of his time were evil and that neither souls nor immortal gods existed. There is no evidence that Democritus was persecuted for his beliefs. But then again, he came from Samos. However, in his time, the brief tradition of tolerance for unconventional views was beginning to erode. Another contemporary named Anaxagoras, taught that the moon was a place made of ordinary matter and that the sun was a red-hot stone far away in the sky. For this, Anaxagoras was condemned . Convicted and imprisoned for impiety. People began to be persecuted for their ideas. The mystics were beginning to win. It was guys like Plato and Pythagoras who kept science and math from the masses.
Plato expressed hostility to observation and experiment and taught contempt for the real world and disdain for the practical application of scientific knowledge. Plato's followers succeeded in extinguishing the light of science and experiment. Plato's unease with the world as revealed by our senses was to dominate and stifle Western philosophy. Even as late as 1600. Athens, in the time of Plato and Aristotle had a vast slave population. All of that brave Athenian talk about democracy
applied only to a privileged few. Plato and Aristotle were comfortable in a slave society. Their way dominate Western thinking for more than 20 centuries.

Suppressing the facts. Thinking that science should be kept fora small elite. The distaste for experiment, the embrace of mysticism, the easy acceptance of slave societies. Their influence has significantly set us back. The books of the lonian scientists are entirely lost. Their views were suppressed, ridiculed and forgotten by the Platonists and by the Christians, who adopted much of the philosophy of Plato. Finally, 2000 years later, after a long, mystical sleep .
in which the tools of scientific inquiry lay moldering, the lonian approach was rediscovered. The Western world reawakened. Experiment and open inquiry slowly became respectable once again.
Aristarchus in Samos, three centuries after Pythagoras held that the Earth moves around the sun.
He correctly located our place in the solar system. For his trouble, he was accused of heresy.
These are ideas that we ordinarily associate with the name Copernicus. But Copernicus seems to have gotten some hint of these ideas by reading about Aristarchus.