The Earth is Not the Center of the Universe

To a body of infinite size there can be ascribed neither center nor boundary ... Just as we regard ourselves as at the center of that universally equidistant circle, which is the great horizon and the limit of our own encircling ethereal region, so doubtless the inhabitants of the moon believe themselves to be at the center (of a great horizon) that embraces this earth, the sun, and the stars, and is the boundary of the radii of their own horizon. Thus the earth no more than any other world i...

 Byron Charged With Atheism

Over the next decade Herschel’s work began to be widely known by the younger generation of Romantic writers. Byron visited him at Slough in 1811, and viewed the stars through his telescope, which gave him an alarmingly religious experience: ‘The Night is also a religious concern; and even more so, when I viewed the Moon and Stars through Herschel’s telescope, and saw that they were worlds.’124 Later Byron defended himself against accusations of atheism. ‘I did not expect that, becau...

 Attempts to Discern the Authorship of the Treatise of the...

here have been but few scholars whose religious beliefs were dubious, who have not been credited with the authorship of this treatise. Avervoes, a famous Arabian commentator on Aristotle's works, and celebrated for his learning, was the first to whom this production was attributed. He lived about the middle of the twelfth century when the three impostors "were first spoken of. He was not a Christian, as he treated their religion as "the Impossible," nor a Jew, whose law he called "a Religion...