Monday Poem

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From the Indictment and Abjuration of 1633:
"Whereas you, Galileo, son of Vincenzio Galilei ... were denounced in 1615, to this Holy Office, for holding as true a false doctrine ... namely, that the sun is immovable in the center of the world, and the earth moves ... We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you ... have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy... "
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Dermatology & Galileo
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A creationist student of mine with a wart the size of a gumball on the end of his nose recently told me science is overrated and is anathema to God.  In the same breath he said he was seeing a dermatologist about the wart.

I asked, “Have you prayed about this?”

He said, “All the time.”

I asked, “Has it helped with the wart?”

He said, “I don’t pray about the wart.  I pray for forgiveness for consulting a dermatologist.”

As his guru, I told him it would be smart to meditate not only on the wart, but upon his inclination to view God as an idiot.  He looked at me as if I’d told him the earth revolves around the sun and excused himself to call his dermatologist on his iphone.
--Roshi Bob


Perennial Argument
Jim Culleny

"The earth revolves around the sun,"
Galileo said.

"No," said the Pope,
"and if you say it again
you'll be cut off from the benefit
of my infallibility and exiled
to the wilderness of reason
and lose all hope of hope."

"Ok, maybe for the moment
it does not," the miffed voyeur said,
and sheathed his telescope.
"But trust me, it will when
you've turned your head."

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