Galileo's Spirit
A Look at the Christian Faith Through the Inspired Pen of Galileo
by The LiberatorAfter reading many letters by a certain friend, I must say that I have grown. I think that I am going to join the Christian belief system and explain it to you exactly as I have been told. Let's begin this fantastical journey.
‘The Bible is the Word of God,’ is a great place to begin. Generation after generation, Christians have been planting this seed of wisdom in the heads of their young. Praise be to God because God breathed the words He wanted written in the minds of those human scribes. Call it Godly inspiration. When children ask the question "How do you know God really had men write the Bible?" the classic response "Because it is written in The Bible" still holds.
Other people who are not as devout will challenge this faith; let them not enter among us. As it is written, we know only those who place their faith in God and his son Jesus Christ will be allowed to gain entrance into Heaven. Those that denounce God, Christ and the scriptures will be kept from eternal bliss and left to wander Purgatory/Limbo or possibly Hell. So if we're right, you blasphemous heathens, look at what you have to loose. If we're wrong, we just led the good life and have kept a time honored, meaningless tradition in place.
While we are on the subject of disbelievers, let's talk about scientists. I'm not talking about those Christian scientists who use their craft to help others. You know, the scientists who perform tests on animals to further advance the cosmetic industry. They are just animals.
I want to talk about those thinkers who challenge everything under the sun, including the Christian faith. First of all, they do not realize that the Christian faith is rooted in obedience and acceptance. How dare one man challenge a belief system that has worked for almost two thousand years! This sort of behavior smacks of rudeness, or even cockiness, let alone being impolite. How could nearly 2000 years of Christian dominance be wrong?Status quo is the Christian tradition. It keeps the power stick where it belongs, in the hands of the true believers. They are the intelligent ones--they believe in a Christian God--so they deserve the power. These people rightfully silence opposing views; Hypatia and Galileo are two excellent examples. Hypatia was murdered for her scientific belief system. Galileo was threatened for proclaiming that the sun was the center of the solar system. All right, so the men and women who practice Christianity are not perfect. Save for God, who really is perfect?
Over the ages, tribes of men placed their smart men in positions of leadership. How else could they have survived through the great hardships they endured? Our ability to think is what probably got us through some scary times. So brains ruled the day, early on. Generations later, respect was awarded to these smart men and they capitalized on that power. They became Kings and Queens.
As people began to have time to think, which is known as
the Devil's playground, our leaders needed a way to silence this growing evil. So these Kings enlisted the aid of philosophers. These philosophers spouted off all the time anyway and already had some things written down, however crudely. Kings had the same material written down in a controlled setting so that God could be properly called upon and/or heard. With this newly compiled work, Kings enforced its obvious importance on their subjects. Their subjects didn't need much convincing and quickly came around.The way that obedience and passiveness are instilled in the Christian tradition today is partially due to the ceremony. "Stand up, sit down, kneel and pass the basket" is the tenant of our philosophy. We are God's sheep you know. Therefore, it takes a lifetime of practice in becoming the perfect sheep. Christianity gets pelted at us when we are young, when we marry, when we baptize our own children, and when we die. Priests and nuns are the intermediaries and help us achieve this goal.
Priests and nuns do the best they can for us. Through a strength given to them by God, male priests propel a wisdom which is ageless, timeless. Female nuns support what the priests come up with and that's how it should be. [
Although if nuns are said to have married God, what about priests? I don't have a satisfactory answer.] Even though nature dictates that creatures should take part in intercourse, our closest children of God, priests and nuns, do not. It's what keeps them pure and on the righteous path God has laid out for us. There are no nasty side affects, like pedofilia in men or extreme authoritarianism in women, that arise from our Christian lifestyles.Purity is what we all should be striving for. The only way to reach it is through God's word, the Bible. The only article from science which has stood the same test of time is Euclid's Elements (c.300 B.C.), which is a necessary ingredient for mathematical success to this day. That work aside, what other article has gotten it right the first time? Keep in mind that there were slight revisions with the Bible and the Elements, but their original intent still holds. The Bible has been translated through multiple languages. The Elements have been transformed into new languages too--algebra and our current form of geometry.
It is clear that God's word really hasn't changed, only our version of it. We see that change is the universal constant and it permeates the world around us, but God holds fast. He should be the guiding light through the storm, the candle by which to learn by, and the fire that purifies our meat. I'm sure if you search hard enough, there will be a verse or passage in the Bible, written in the poetic style those God inspired men used, that will mirror your thoughts and help you through life.
Remember, it's not you being the decision maker and the problem solver because you can not do that by yourself as one mortal man/woman. God makes it all happen.I once heard a thinker make a ridiculous argument. He said the whole universe is being run by gremlins. He said they move so fast they become invisible and otherwise undetectable. I asked him where he heard such a silly thing. He learned about it through his parents. He also said, "
You heard of gremlins, haven't you?" He had no other way of proving their existence to me, yet he truly believed in them. So he prayed to the great, invisible gremlin statues put in place to honor The King of All Gremlins, "Phluk." He did it so that the gremlins would act favorably on him and so that he be allowed to play within the gremlin grottos upon his death. I asked him how he has heard of these grounds. He said that it has been written.In closing, I hope this letter was a source of inspiration for you. Christians should be uplifted. Non-believers should feel, well... silly. It was not written to offend anyone but to inspire all of us. It was my intention to be received in that manner. I also would feel honored to correspond with anyone regarding these issues in an open format or in a more personal, one on one style.
I would like to dedicate this letter to Galileo. I have done my best to use his same style. I hope I have succeeded. In either case, send a letter by CLICKING HERE to acquire my further response.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. Galileo Galilei