Finished Reading “Heretics”

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  "G. K. Chesterton, the "Prince of Paradox," is at his witty best in this collection of twenty essays and articles from the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on  "heretics" - those who pride themselves on their superiority to Christian views - Chesterton appraises prominent figures who fall into that category from the literary and art worlds... those who hold incomplete and inadequate views about "life, the universe, and everything." He is, in short, criticizing all that host of non-Christian views of reality, as he demonstrated in his follow-up book Orthodoxy. The book is both an easy read and a difficult read. But he manages to demonstrate, among other things, that our new 21st century heresies are really not new because he himself deals with most of them." (Goodreads)

Finished Reading: Ptolemy

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Finished reading Book 1 (Sections 1-8) and Book 3 of The Almagest by Ptolemy (c 100. - 170 AD).  Ptolemy, known for his contributions in the fields of mathematics, geography and astronomy is perhaps most well known for the idea of an earth-central universe though the idea was not unique to him. While Ptolemy was wrong in some areas of astronomy, he should be credited for the depth and breadth of the science his attempts. For example, his argument for the spherical shape of the earth is held against the possibility that the earth could be no other shape: flat, square, pyramid or cylindrical. Ptolemy held that our seasons are controlled by the proximity of the sun to the earth as it circles the earth—closer in summer than in winter. Contrasted against Aristotle who held that heavenly bodies consisted of four elements (earth, air, fire, water), Ptolemy recognized differences in  stars and planets  they orbit, fixed in their enveloping shell.

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