On the revolution of heavenly bodies6/9/2023 When the astronomers of the Scientific Revolution started detecting irregularities in the heavens, this totally contradicted how most learned people thought about, and had thought about, the essential characteristics of the universe. This Christianized version of an ancient Greek model of the universe is where the concept that God and heaven are "up in the sky" and hell is "below the ground" originated. Thus, Christian thinkers embraced the Aristotelian model in part because it fit Christian theology so well: God and the angels were on the outside of the most distant crystal sphere in a state of total perfection, while humans and the devil were on, or inside in the case of Satan, the imperfect world. The earth was imperfect, chaotic, and changing, while the heavens were perfect and uniform. In this model of the universe, the earth was distinct from the other heavenly bodies. ![]() Interestingly, the illustration above was created in 1660, a few decades after Galileo popularized the fact that geocentrism was completely inaccurate. The geocentric universe illustrated, with the sun and planets revolving around the Earth. The idea that the earth is at the center of the universe is known as geocentrism. Ptolemy, who lived centuries after Aristotle, elaborated on the Aristotelian system and claimed that there were not just one but close to eighty spheres, one within the other, which explained the fact that the different heavenly bodies did not all move in the same direction or at the same speed. That sphere slowly rotated, while the sun, moon, and planets were suspended above the earth within the sphere and also rotated around the Earth. ![]() Both argued that the Earth was at the center of the universe, which consisted of a giant crystal sphere studded with the stars. ![]() The most influential ancient sources of scientific knowledge were Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer and mathematician, and Aristotle.
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