Today, Christians across the globe are celebrating the birth of Jesus, a man born 2000 years ago and whom, they believe, was sent by God to redeem their souls. Fifteen hundred years later, Nikolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer and mathematician, advanced the theory that the sun was the center of our solar system. Of course, this theory also implied that man's home planet is not the center of the Universe, thereby diminishing the importance of our species. As one might expect, the Church was quick to condemn the ideas of Copernicus.
We now know that the earth is a smallish planet that orbits a medium-sized star on an outer arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. Our home galaxy contains billions of stars and is one of billions of galaxies across the expanding sphere of our Universe. Whether you believe that man is God's pinnacle of creation or not, we certainly are no where near the center of the action.
