...for a long time I wanted to become a theologian... now, however, behold how through my efforts God is being debated in astronomy.
Interpretation
Johannes Kepler reflects on his initial desire to study theology, only to find that his work in astronomy has led to discussions about God.
In this quote, Johannes Kepler expresses a shift in his intellectual pursuits. Initially aspiring to be a theologian, Kepler reveals that through his astronomical efforts, he has become part of a broader discourse on the nature of God. This illustrates the intersection of faith and science, suggesting that exploring the universe can lead to greater understanding of the divine.
In practice
A lecturer discussing the relationship between science and spirituality might use this quote to illustrate how they are not mutually exclusive.
...Those laws are within the grasp of the human mind. God wanted us to recognize them by creating us after his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts... and if piety allow us to say so, our understanding is in this respect of the same kind as the divine, at least as far as we are able to grasp something of it in our mortal life.
A most unfailing experience... of the excitement of sublunary (that is, human) natures by the conjunctions and aspects of the planets has instructed and compelled my unwilling belief.
We find, therefore, under this orderly arrangement, a wonderful symmetry in the universe, and a definite relation of harmony in the motion and magnitude of the orbs, of a kind that is not possible to obtain in any other way.
I am stealing the golden vessels of the Egyptians to build a tabernacle to my God from them, far far away from the boundaries of Egypt. If you forgive me, I shall rejoice; if you are enraged with me, I shall bear it. See, I cast the die, and I write the book. Whether it is to be read by the people of the present or of the future makes no difference: let it await its reader for a hundred years, if God himself has stood ready for six thousand years for one to study him.
Eyesight should learn from reason.
I measured the skies, now the shadows I measure, Sky-bound was the mind, earth-bound the body rests. [Kepler's epitaph]
The theory of evolution by cumulative natural selection is the only theory we know of that is in principle capable of explaining the existence of organized complexity.
There is, even today, a Flat Earth Society that meets every year to say the Earth is flat. The science about climate change is very clear. There really is no room for doubt at this point.
I think it inevitably follows, that as new species in the course of time are formed through natural selection, others will become rarer and rarer, and finally extinct. The forms which stand in closest competition with those undergoing modification and improvement will naturally suffer most.
Let's get into talking about how autism is similar animal behavior. The thing is I don't think in a language, and animals don't think in a language. It's sensory based thinking, thinking in pictures, thinking in smells, thinking in touches. It's putting these sensory based memories into categories.
Do I get grief for the fact that in communicating, say, about the baboons I'm doing so much anthropomorphizing? One hopes that the parts that are blatantly ridiculous will be perceived as such. I've nonetheless been stunned by some of my more humorless colleagues - to see that they were not capable of recognizing that.
We all know that UFOs are real. All we need to ask is where do they come from, and what do they want?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.