🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6159@tuegate.tue.nl>, johan@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl (Johan Wevers) writes...
>sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
> 
>>	   VATICAN CITY _ It's official: The Earth revolves around the sun,
>>even for the Vatican.
> 
>Damn, just now the principle of general covariance sais it's just a matter
>of reference frame. Those ^$*&%((*~"& are xians walk always many years
>behind the scientific developments. Maybe the Vatican will say in 2300 or
>so that Einstein was right instead of Galilei (If the Vatican still exists
>then, of course). Of course, Galilei was closer to the truth than the Vatican.

I think that the Vatican statement is more general than you imply.  The 
point is not that the Church now accepts that the world is Galilean.  Rather,
it conceeds that physics is the right tool for understanding the physical
world, and that the Church should not get involved in deciding whether or 
not a particular cosmology is right or wrong.  

The statement accurately explains that Christians should not confuse
Faith with the belief in any particular out-dated cosmology.  

I think that this is a very positive attitude, and hope that the 
Pat Buchannans and Pat Robertsons of the world take it to heart.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas