A phrase which pops up in the Bible often is for people to "fall down as if dead;" Dante uses "fall, as a dead body falls" etc
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Death is the consequence of the Fall: "if you eat that fruit you will die"
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In Dante's worldview, the Devil = the Earth's center of gravity; the Earth itself is, if you will, the accumulated dirt surrounding him
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Now, remember that this is the geocentric conception--the Devil is not only the center of the Earth, but the center of the universe
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Earth may no longer be at the center of everything, but gravity still is--all dead matter falls into itself, etc; only living things resist
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Back to Dante tho--this universe is fallen and fundamentally *unreal,* the REAL universe is the Empyrean, in the presence of God
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In the REAL universe, God, not the devil, is at the center--the heavenly spheres are closer to God the further they are from Earth...
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...ie, the sphere of Saturn encompasses that of Jupiter; the sphere of the Stars encompasses Saturn, etc, but in the Empyrean, it's reversed
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From that perspective, the higher heavens are CLOSER to the center; the Primum Mobile is closer to God than the Stars, which are closer...
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...than Saturn, etc, leaving the devil something like a thin smear blown up on the very edge of existence, as far as possible from God
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Why do angels fly? Not because they have wings, but because they are more REAL; they are free of the gravity of sin
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And what do we know of the most massive objects in the cosmos? Not even light escapes them!
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While we are alive, we are subject to gravity--to sin--but we are also free to FIGHT it, we can stand up, we can grow, we can climb
End of conversation
New conversation -
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What is a mountain but the betrayal of gravity, what is the continuity of life - love - but the ultimate betrayal of entropy?
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