Today In History
It’s (not very) funny how things sometimes work out, especially when lawyers and tortured souls are concerned. Personally, I feel a strong magnetic parallel between ancient events and things that I must be letting happen to me, since there’s no other reasonable explanation.
On this date in 1633, Galileo Galilei recanted the views he held that the Earth was not at the center of the universe by saying this: “I abjure with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith these errors and heresies, and I curse and detest them as well as any other error, heresy or sect contrary to the Holy Catholic Church.” So, though he knew and could prove without a doubt the absolute truth that any schoolchild past a certain age will affirm with a shrug, he tore out his soul and laid it at the feet of the Holy See and, basically, lied to make it all go away.
On this same date in 1969, Judy Garland decided that enough was enough, that the pain would simply never end and took more than a handful of barbiturates. She sleeps even now.
If one is weak and by nature trusting and does not hold malice against his fellow man, he is at great risk to harm. If the mother does not teach her child to be wary and removed of the motives of others, she does him a grave disservice. As a man rises up each morning to find his bread, the stratae at which this sustenance can be derived is varied and often indirect and so, to survive, it can be argued, all acts reside in the possible with no consequence to those of absent morality.
God cannot be relied upon to arbitrate men’s souls, it has been seen. Instead, men make agreements amongst themselves based on God’s given commandments, with the prima facie intent of outlining the order of society. Without the intervention of the divine, though, these promises are more useful in the delay of contrary action by those of purer motive against those of puerile motive.
Therefore, the weak are sacrificed by measures or miles to the will and daring of the ignoble aggressor. The fantasy of peace and harmony among the diverse elements is the cloak that harbours melancholy, insipid anarchy.
The only defense of the morally just is to remove opportunity.
Therefore, both Galileo and Garland succeeded in controlling their respective destinies, denying the deviant pleasures of the world with their defiance.