How does the church explain dinosaurs?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dustdev14
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
rossum said:
…it was about an incorrect interpretation of “Holy Writ” as held by the Holy Office of the Catholic Church at that time.

rossum
Click to expand...
I’m not denying that. The court authorities were wrong to put this in religious terms during condemnation, however, the point remains that the Church didn’t have an issue with science. The issue was with Galileo putting forward his view without evidence, and without the ability to answer Aristotle’s reasons for a geocentric view. (As I stated in my first post) The problem was not with science or discovery, it was with Galileo’s lack of evidence. He was allowed to discuss it as theory, but not put it forward as truth without first providing evidence to support his claim. That’s the same standard we hold modern scientists to.

Again, the court was wrong to brand him a heretic, I wouldn’t deny that; but his heresy was against accepted interpretations of Biblical texts, not against any actual Dogmatic teaching of the Church.

Bear in mind that Galileo’s use of the word Doctrine relates to the Latin root’s meaning of teaching / instruction; and does not necessarily mean that it relates back to an actual dogma of the Church.
 
Last edited:
ProdglArchitect said:
I’m not denying that. The court authorities were wrong to put this in religious terms
Click to expand...
Regardless, the whole Galileo affair was handled extremely poorly and to this day remains a severe blot on the Church’s history.

I have zero doubt that the Catholic authorities who acted the way they did were under the influence of satan. The Galileo affair was a masterful blow struck against the Church by the devil, so much so he used the Church’s own internal mechanisms and authorities to strike the blow.
 
ChristMyLife said:
Regardless, the whole Galileo affair was handled extremely poorly and to this day remains a severe blot on the Church’s history.
Click to expand...
Agreed.
I have zero doubt that the Catholic authorities who acted the way they did were under the influence of satan. The Galileo affair was a masterful blow struck against the Church by the devil, so much so he used the Church’s own internal mechanisms and authorities to strike the blow.
Click to expand...
I don’t know if I’d go this far. It seems to me more like the people on both sides of the argument going about it stupidly.
 
Vonsalza said:
40.png
ProdglArchitect:
Once again, it was not specifically his support of heliocentrism that got him in trouble, it was his application of it.
Click to expand...
“…and in 1616 the Inquisition formally declared heliocentrism to be heretical.”

As you say.
Click to expand...
Yeah, but the Inquisition was in Spain, and was MOSTLY a function of the Spanish Court and select Spanish clergy. Galileo lived in Italy.
 
phil19034 said:
Yeah, but the Inquisition was in Spain, and was MOSTLY a function of the Spanish Court and select Spanish clergy. Galileo lived in Italy.
Click to expand...
There were multiple inquisitions, the Spanish one was just the most well know because it did the most. (Though, not nearly as much as people claim it did.)

There was a French Inquisition and Roman Inquisition courts as well. I believe they were primarily a lay-order whose goal was to seek out and correct heresy. They operated with permission of local governments, but I think they mainly reported to the Church. This, incidentally, is why their use of torture was limited, unlike the secular state courts.

In Spain they had the additional task of routing out Muslims, seeing as how Spain had just regained herself from an extended period of Islamic conquest…
 
Last edited:
ProdglArchitect said:
40.png
rossum:
…it was about an incorrect interpretation of “Holy Writ” as held by the Holy Office of the Catholic Church at that time.

rossum
Click to expand...
I’m not denying that. The court authorities were wrong to put this in religious terms during condemnation, however, the point remains that the Church didn’t have an issue with science. The issue was with Galileo putting forward his view without evidence, and without the ability to answer Aristotle’s reasons for a geocentric view. (As I stated in my first post) The problem was not with science or discovery, it was with Galileo’s lack of evidence. He was allowed to discuss it as theory, but not put it forward as truth without first providing evidence to support his claim. That’s the same standard we hold modern scientists to.

Again, the court was wrong to brand him a heretic, I wouldn’t deny that; but his heresy was against accepted interpretations of Biblical texts, not against any actual Dogmatic teaching of the Church.

Bear in mind that Galileo’s use of the word Doctrine relates to the Latin root’s meaning of teaching / instruction; and does not necessarily mean that it relates back to an actual dogma of the Church.
Click to expand...
The funny thing was that Galileo was adamant that he was right and that the sun didn’t move and was the center of the universe. He was 100% wrong. He was committing “scientific heresy,” as in he was trying to say something was 100% true with facts and only with circumstantial evidence.

The only thing he was right about was that the sun was the center of the solar system (but he didn’t know about solar systems at the time, nor that the sun revolved around the galaxy, etc.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
The court authorities were wrong to put this in religious terms during condemnation, however, the point remains that the Church didn’t have an issue with science .
Click to expand...
Yes they did.They made a statement about the physical world. That is science. Galileo may not have had sufficient scientific evidence. The Holy Office had even less scientific evidence. The Holy Office made no attempt to justify their position with science, but instead justified it with theology: “Holy Writ”.

Galileo was charged with Heresy, not with bad science. He pleaded guilty to heresy. You, or your sources, are trying to rewrite history here.
I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, that is, of having held and believed that the Sun is the centre of the universe and immoveable, and that the Earth is not the centre of the same, and that it does move.
Click to expand...
Galileo’s crime was religious, not scientific.

rossum
 
I’m afraid your a tad guilty of not knowing your history yourself. The Church has used some truth to promote a mythologized version of events the same way those who wish to denounce the Roman Church has done. Both parties are guilty. Me and Gorgias has had this discussion…somewhat in depth already. I wont go into details here unless you wish specifics to be answered because I’ve already presented evidence elsewhere that you should read. Look up and read our exchange in the thread “If I can find an answer to these questions, I will turn back to religion” …I didn’t start this thread.
Heres some of what your off about,
  1. Galileo hadn’t formulated a theory of Heliocentrism at the time of the first inquisition into allegations against him. Actually it took Galileo and much observation and experimental evidences before he became convinced that Geocentrism was incorrect. The turning point was his improvement of his telescope and the evidences it presented. The myth is that Galileo presented his theories as truths…this is incorrect. His proofs were proofs used to show that Geocentrism was wrong. Not that Heliocetricsm was the end all of theories.
  2. Not “every learned man of the time” rejected his theories. As a matter of fact the Pope himself during Galileo’s persecution was an admirer and as a Bishop before he became pope actually encouraged Galileo’s enquiries into Helliocentrism and encouraged Galileo to publish…which eventually ended up as the “Dialogue” which got Galileo into trouble with the inquisition the second time.
  3. Galileo never tried to prove the Church was wrong…actually Galileo went out of his way to appease the Churches wishes even though ironically the Church was flat wrong in their declaration that Geocentricism was true and Galileo showed good evidences as to why it was wrong. At the first inquisition of Galileo…in absentia Galileo was actually judged to be innocent of the charges even though he was well into discussions of why Geocentricism was wrong. He went afterword to Rome of his own accord and presented his evidences which were deemed superior to those of Geocentricism. That he was told not to have belief in or promote any belief in the Heliocentric view was most likely a political maneuver by the Roman Church to give them time to come up with a way to save face since they had already declared Geocentricism a correct view of creation.
    Read the thread…get back to me. we can discuss it further. There’s so much more to the story than most people on both sides seem to care to present. Its a case not so easily dismissed by simply saying the poor undeservedly mistreated but oh so tolerant Roman Church was forced into imprisoning Galileo because he was such a jerk of a man. Historical evidence simply doesn’t back this view up. The actual minutes of the inquisition meeting itself doesn’t back this view up. This stuff has been mythologized on both sides of the issue.
 
phil19034 said:
40.png
ProdglArchitect:
There was a French Inquisition and Roman Inquisition courts as well. I believe they were primarily a lay-order whose goal
Click to expand...
Yes, they were primary lay.
Click to expand...
The wiki says the Office of the Inquisition were primarily composed of local clergy in their early instances and were staffed by Dominicans in later instances. Abolished everywhere except Rome during Napoleon and formed the Holy Office.

Cardinal Ratzinger ran it before becoming pope. In charge on minor and mundane things like doctrine. Probably the pope himself and through ecumenical council were the only things that spoke with greater authority on doctrinal issues.
 
Last edited:
Vonsalza said:
40.png
phil19034:
40.png
ProdglArchitect:
There was a French Inquisition and Roman Inquisition courts as well. I believe they were primarily a lay-order whose goal
Click to expand...
Yes, they were primary lay.
Click to expand...
The wiki says they were primarily composed of local clergy in their early instances and were staffed by Dominicans in later instances. Abolished everywhere except Rome during Napoleon and formed the Holy Office.

Cardinal Ratzinger ran it before becoming pope. In charge on minor and mundane things like doctrine. Probably the pope himself and through ecumenical council were the only things that spoke with greater authority.

I only see Catholics downplay it when talking about Galileo.
Click to expand...
If you are referring to the tribunal, then yes, they were clergy. The problem is that there was no official office called inquisitor. There was inquisition, but no office. However, there was a permanent tribunal.

From what I understand (and I might be wrong), often people used the terms inquisition and tribunal interchangeably from time to time.
  • inquisitions were temporary bodies
  • tribunals were/are permanent bodies
Everything I read about Galileo, it was the Tribunal he was facing. Not an impromptu inquisition.
 
Last edited:
When I’m looking for an explanation of dinosaurs, I go to the museum. 😐
 
To Rossum and Setacros, I’ll be sure to dig into it some more. I don’t want to be wrong just to avoid the Church looking bad; but I also don’t want to have facts distorted to fit a narrative that was developed long after the fact.

(You know, like all those people who think that Pope Pius XII was a monster who helped the Nazis, despite the plethora of first hand evidence showing literally the opposite…)
BlueMaxx said:
I watch Land of the Lost…

Click to expand...
I loved that show so much as a kid. Part of me wants to watch it again… the rest of me wants to live in blissful ignorance about how bad it actually was…)
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top