Did the Church really set Western society back hundreds of years?

[sedonaman]

You’re clearly confused here. This should clear up the issue: astronomy.nmsu.edu/geas/lectures/lecture11/slide02.html

What Galileo saw – Venus in full phase – is impossible under a geocentric system. Galileo had observational evidence that contradicted geocentrism years before his trial. That’s a documented fact.
…

You are the one who is confused. The simplified geocentric system represented in the drawing below clearly shows that an observer on earth E would see phases of planet P illuminated by the sun S. So it is not impossible.

 

[Pfaffenhoffen]

The Church set Western society forward hundreds of years.
Had not been for the Church, we would be adoring Jupiter, Bachus, Venus, Mars, Neptun, we would have slaves and casts.
We would have a theory of round time: Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn…and so on endless circle, birth, growth, reproduction, death, endless circles, we would believe in reincarnations, endless circles.
With Christianity, time is a line projecting into the future, into the coming the Lord Jesus.

 

[kama3]

You are the one who is confused. The simplified geocentric system represented in the drawing below clearly shows that an observer on earth E would see phases of planet P illuminated by the sun S. So it is not impossible.

You are the one who does not understand the Ptolemaic model.

In your model, observer on Earth can see a full Venus when the angle (elongation) between the Venus and Sun is 180 degrees. Problem is, observed elongation of Venus never exceeds 47.8 degrees. That’s the reason why Venus is called the Morning Star or the Evening Star: it can be only seen before sunrise or after sunset, never in the middle of the night, as your model would require.

To account for limited elongation of Venus, the Ptolemaic model actually works like this: youtube.com/watch?v=GvX78dpQ7GM

and the sequence of phases of Venus it predicts looks like this: youtube.com/watch?v=OlnlbZHP-jk

and Galileo saw this: youtube.com/watch?v=0Z_v7Tag4fg

 

[sedonaman]

You are the one who does not understand the Ptolemaic model.

In your model, observer on Earth can see a full Venus when the angle (elongation) between the Venus and Sun is 180 degrees. Problem is, observed elongation of Venus never exceeds 47.8 degrees. That’s the reason why Venus is called the Morning Star or the Evening Star: it can be only seen before sunrise or after sunset, never in the middle of the night, as your model would require.

To account for limited elongation of Venus, the Ptolemaic model actually works like this: youtube.com/watch?v=GvX78dpQ7GM

and the sequence of phases of Venus it predicts looks like this: youtube.com/watch?v=OlnlbZHP-jk

and Galileo saw this: youtube.com/watch?v=0Z_v7Tag4fg

It wasn’t meant to be Venus but a generic planet to illustrate that phases of a planet are visible from earth in a geocentric system. All I have to do is find only one such case to make your statement untrue.

 

[kama3]

It wasn’t meant to be Venus but a generic planet to illustrate that phases of a planet are visible from earth in a geocentric system. All I have to do is find only one such case to make your statement untrue.

And that generic statement, referencing a non-existing planetary system has any relevance because…?

You have to remember that both Galileo and the Church agreed that our solar system is the only one in existence and located in the center of the Universe. You have claimed upthread that Galileo couldn’t prove his case. That’s wrong: the behavior of Venus he observed in 1610, i.e. both the presence of the full phase and the sequence of phases – was impossible under the Ptolemaic system! Not some Ptolemaic system, the Ptolemaic model of our Solar System in use at the time, epicycles and all.

So your argument makes absoutely no sense whatsoever in the context of the case. In fact, you would be interesed to learn that at the same time, one guy was promptly burned alive for proposing extrasolar planets and aliens inhabiting them!

 

[Andromedus]

I saw in a thread on here someone mentioned Occam’s Razor. So I went and looked it up, and found that the great thinker who invented it was, yet again, a Catholic, and a 14th century Franciscan Friar at that. That gave me the idea for this thread.

Atheists love to proclaim that the Medieval Church set Western society back hundreds of years, and that if it weren’t for the Church we would be flying around in hover cars and such. I’ve seen it all over the place, and even in acquaintances that I’ve talked to. They claim we did all kinds of book burnings and persecution of free thinkers (like Galileo).

It seems very silly to me to say such a thing, when it was the Church who produced the university, and the scientific method, and many great thinkers and clergymen such as this William of Ockham, and Nicolaus Copernicus, and Roger Bacon, and Gregor Mendel, etc. etc.

So how many of these claims have any footing to stand on? Did the Church fight for or against knowledge and scientific thought?

Well, there is the affair with Galileo, he was treated badly but that case is more complicated than some people think and therefore it is often portrayed as more simple than it really was.

Personally I think the source of the problem is that people think a bit too negative about the Middle Ages and perhaps also because people thinks that Antiquity was so ‘‘awesome’’. Because of this thinking the Church becomes guilty by association since it became the dominant religion in the later centuries of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Some peoples views on the period might also be affected by things which happened later in history: the Galileo affair, Witch Hunts, Creationism etc. There is also more than one misunderstanding and misconception of the time period. Like the myth that people during this time thought that the Earth was flat, they didn’t believe that. On one occasion I actually talked to a woman who thought that the Pope admitted first during the 20th century that the Earth is a globe… which is ridiculous especially since it never even was denied.

 

[sedonaman]

And that generic statement, referencing a non-existing planetary system has any relevance because…?

… Gallileo had two others: he saw phases of Venus and moons of Jupiter – phenomena which are impossible under a geocentric system. …