Religion was the theme in my email box today as folks sent along articles they thought I might enjoy.
It began with, lo and behold, Episcopal Barbie. The comments on this article are some of the snarkiest I’ve ever seen. Bless us everyone. Please, bring back the Barbie plane and Bob Mackie ensembles and maybe a dash of pink.
Then came Ringo Starr’s reaction to the Vatican forgiving the Beatles for being “satanic.”
“I think the Vatican, they’ve got more to talk about than the Beatles,” Starr said in a gross understatement.
Even my Writer’s Almanac newsletter had a science-vs.-religion bit on Galileo this morning. The man was threatened, interrogated and jailed for daring to suggest the planets rotate around the sun. He died in 1642; the Church lifted the ban on his work in 1718.
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them,” Galileo wrote. “He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.”
Love that.
