A story.

Once Upon a time, there was a community of people who wondered how the sun moved across the sky.   They decided that it must be pulled across in a fine chariot with beautiful horses.

Some time later, a man named Copernicus made some very careful observations and determined that, in fact, the sun doesn’t move across the sky at all.  Later, another scientist, Galileo, tried to persuade the church that these ideas did not necessarily contradict scripture.

This angered the religious leaders because it offended their idea of a creation made by a god that must, obviously, be the center of the universe.  So they cast him out and for about 500 years (or so) he suffered the excruciating agonies of hell (or so we must assume).

Then, the church said, “oops, we didn’t really mean it”, and reinstated him, thus (again presumably), stamping his admission ticket to heaven.

Or maybe not

(photo by Sandy Snyder)