Sunday Photo Fiction – August 20th 2017
Hosted by J Hardy at https://sundayphotofictioner.wordpress.com/2017/08/20/sunday-photo-fiction-august-20th-2017/
GAZING INTO A STARRY REALITY
By Neel Anil Panicker
My name is Galileo.
Galileo who? Galileo what? Did I hear you say?
Well, not surprising, though.
In this fast paced emoji driven, information pumping adrenaline high robotic age whoever has the time for digging out relics of some hoary past?
Well, if it’s any consolation, I’m the one to whom is attributed the famous phrase Eppur si muove. It refers to my claim that it’s the Earth that revolves around the Sun and not the other way around.
Big deal, you might say.
But I tell you, in my day around 500 years ago what I said was considered a sacrilege.
The omnipotent, omniscient custodians of the Church (read God) took serious umbrage to my utterances.
I was incarcerated in a deep dungeon, and made to drink poison.
Hey, why am I telling you these things? It’s a story long interred and buried in the dustbin of history?
Right?
Well, folks, I’m doing this so you and the generations that would follow yours learn to stand up to all manner of wrongs and injustices perpetuated in this world in the name of God, that you understand there can exist a happy marriage between science and morality devoid of mass hatred fueled by religious bigotry.
(neelanilpanicker2017 #spf #fiction #200words
BACKGROUND: And yet it moves
“Eppur si muove” redirects here. For other uses, see Eppur si muove (disambiguation).
“And yet it moves” or “Albeit it does move” (Italian: E pur si muove or Eppur si muove [epˈpur si ˈmwɔːve]) is a phrase attributed to the Italian mathematician, physicist and philosopher Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) in 1633 after being forced to recant his claims that the Earth moves around the immovable[1] Sun rather than the converse during the Galileo affair.[2]
In this context, the implication of the phrase is: despite his recantation, the Church’s proclamations to the contrary, or any other conviction or doctrine of men, the Earth does, in fact, move (around the Sun, and not vice versa). As such, the phrase is used today as a sort of pithy retort implying that “it doesn’t matter what you believe; these are the facts.”
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neelwritesblog 
Great take on the prompt Neel, I do hope that we are not gazing into reality with this picture. All I see is more and more pollution of space,
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Good story Neel. We can only hope that future generations learn.
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I like where you went with the prompt. Those spaceships and satellites are direct descendants of the work that Galileo (and others) did, and yet they had to fight so hard to have their new ideas accepted. Interesting background note, too!
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I had read in science school books about Galileo’s theory debunked by the Church. Today’s generation are fortunate to have the liberty of scientific temper.
Good take on the prompt, Neel.
https://ideasolsi65.blogspot.in/2017/08/alien-thoughts.html
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Good story, Neel, and great message.
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Great piece Neel. A thoughtful message in their for sure. People do man things in the name of God and I think it’s likely in most cases, God would not approve. Rather, evoking his name is like using him for scape goat which in itself has much irony.
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