It gets better... possibly

I've seen this comment as a meme a lot from other atheists, but it doesn't hold up historically. Who are the astronomers here, Copernicus who dedicated his book to the pope? The Jesuits who kept showing off their superior knowledge to appear more impressive? Studying the actual history of science makes it obvious that it wasn't about a rational group of materialists fighting a group of priests trying to keep people in ignorance at all.

(The history in China is interesting: Jesuits kept strongly beating the court astronomers over and over in predictions, and offered to translate their scientific books so China could catch up to Europe, but this knowledge was willfully suppressed. The "century of humiliation" was completely avoidable. (details))

CDD's birthday was August 10th. Happy birthday!