The Truth about the Gallileo affair - by an Atheist

[DrTaffy]

The myth about the Church allegedly persecuting Galileo for believing the earth orbited the sun goes hand in hand with the allegation the church taught the earth was flat.

a) that the church persecuted Galileo is established fact, not a mere allegation. The disagreement is only about how extreme or justified that ‘persecution’ might have been
b) the issue was not so much whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa (which is obviously only a matter of the frame of reference you use) but whether the other celestial bodies were orbiting the earth or the sun. Hence the argument that the observation of the phases of Venus was indisputable proof in Galileo’s favour
c) the point that is still relevant today, now that most Catholics accept the death of geocentrism, is that the church tried to stifle scientific debate. The moral position would be the same even if Galileo had been espousing geocentrism and the church espousing heliocentrism. What the Church did morally wrong was prosecute Galileo for holding a scientific opinion, and try to order him not to do so. The moral thing to do would be to present your scientific arguments, not try to prevent others from expressing their opinion.

Being wrong about the facts might be embarassing for those who believed (or still believe) that the church is infallible even on matters of science, but it is the moral failure that arguably undermines the church’s position as a moral authority. Few today argue that the church has special scientific authority, compared to those who think it holds special moral authority.

 

[abucs]

Dr Taffy, how do you square the charge that the church stifled scientific debate and opinions when the pope asked Galileo to write a book detailing the pros and cons of the different theories of celestial movement including his own. Also the trial discussed the scientific question and the leader of the inquisition wrote to Galileo saying that if he could produce proof supporting the heliocentric theory then he would have to change his mind.

It seems a quite reasonable position for the head of the inquisition which clearly puts debate, proof and science at the centre of discussions.

 

[DrTaffy]

Dr Taffy, how do you square the charge that the church stifled scientific debate and opinions when the pope asked Galileo to write a book detailing the pros and cons of the different theories of celestial movement including his own.

Where is the problem?

Asking Galileo to write a book was not stifling debate, prosecuting him for holding a scientific opinion was. They are two seperate actions by the church. Or are you arguing that it is impossible for the Church to do different things on different occasions?

Also the trial discussed the scientific question and the leader of the inquisition wrote to Galileo saying that if he could produce proof supporting the heliocentric theory then he would have to change his mind.

So Galileo was not allowed to hold that scientific opinion unless he first got permission from the Church.

Obviously, you may not agree with me that that was the Church’s position, but do you agree with me that, if true, that would be far more relevant today than whether Galileo or the Pope was right about cosmological models? Beause that, as I understand it, is the root of the secular accusation against Catholicism on the Galileo affair. Not that you were wrong about cosmology, but that you tried to stifle opposing views on a scientific matter.

It seems a quite reasonable position for the head of the inquisition which clearly puts debate, proof and science at the centre of discussions.

It assumes that the church is the ultimate arbiter of all truth, and that scientific arguments may not be presented without the Pope’s approval. This is not reasonable.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Utterly false, as I know from personal experience.

A) he was executed for treason - he was opposing his king, not just espousing any random religious view. Those he tortured and killed were just espousing a religious view he disagreed with, not trying to undermine the State
B) he was at least given the relatively merciful death by beheading, a mercy he denied his victims.

Utterly true, as I know from personal experience. Have you been in the classroom 50 years?

More opposed his King’s presumption in declaring himself, not the Pope, as ultimate arbitrator of whether he should be granted a divorce. That is heresy, for which Henry abandoned his title as Defender of the Faith. Henry was an evil man who founded what is today a dying denomination. No good man beheads his wives so that he can marry others.

 

[abucs]

I agree with you that there can be two or more different actions belying different attitudes. In summation though we have to square these actions and resist the temptation to be overly praising or overly condemning.

For me, in squaring these actions I see the Church was at the forefront of scientific advancement at the time with their education, universities, hospitals and scientists. Many of these people were either clergy of extremely well connected to the Church.

This knowledge is foreign to those of us taught under the new secular paradigm where anything deemed to be favouring ‘a religion’ is banned from many curriculums.

Galileo himself was extremely well connected to the Church. I see the Church as being a main driver of the scientific revolution. It is from this position, in conjunction with the turmoil and dangers of the protestant rebellion that the church saw its place to act. I stand to be corrected, but I don’t think Galileo or anybody else at the time criticised the Church as acting outside their jurisdiction. That charge I believe came only centuries later when scientific organisations had bloomed and could stand on their own two feet.

In`some ways it is like a professor at a modern day university teaching his students ‘chaos theory’ as fact or ‘string theory’ as fact or ‘parallel universes theory’ as fact. If a science professor was to do this then the dean of the university would have a quiet word to the professor about the difference between holding a theory and teaching it at university as fact.

This is was what happened to Galileo the first time around when he was told not to write it as fact if he didn’t have proof. When Galileo’s personal friend became pope Galileo decided that he could go back to writing it as fact.

If the professor at the modern day university went back to teaching ‘chaos theory’ etc as fact then the dean would surely dismiss him and the word would go out about his unsuitability.

If the theory the professor taught ended up being proved true centuries later then perhaps the university looks a little silly, but from their perspective they did the right thing.

Where the church made a mistake was that it put too much emphasis on phrases from biblical books. I think a factor was the social upheaval of the reformation and its claim of scriptural interpretation that was then prevalent. If we look at Copernicus beforehand and Kepler afterwards we see different reactions from the Church.

Even though the scientists opposing Galileo got the better of him in the debate at the time, the Copernican system was eventually proved correct 200 years later with the observance of stellar parallax. This makes the Church look a little silly.

Today the Church is not needed to drive the scientific revolution and it has taken root all across what was Christendom and further afield with many of the universities now not run by Christian authorities. So it might seem strange to us today that the Church at one stage was a main driver of science which included arbitration and judgement of disputes. From memory I don’t think the church rushed to take up the case but was rather dragged into it. From our perspective, without knowledge of the Church’s role in the development of science the Church might look harsh and meddling.

Also the term ‘persecution’ I think is quite strong, especially when it is used to imagine a campaign against science by the church. We have to remember that Galileo was 69 years old at the time of the trial after a life time of Church support and praise.

The sentence does sound harsh - home arrest for Galileo, no more practice of science, no more publishing but the reality was that Galileo went back to his villa, continued his science and published more books. The big bad church didn’t do anything in retaliation and as mentioned before Galileo kept his papal pension, got letters from the pope asking if there was anything he could do to help Galileo; an archbishop invited Galileo to stay with him for 6 months and the Tuscan ambassador wrote to his king detailing what good standing Galileo was held in. This is really a stretch to call it persecution, much less as THE example of church persecution of science.

 

[DrTaffy]

DrTaffy;12451698:

Charlemagne III;12449109:

Needless to say, if you had attended public school, you would never have heard of More’s courage in standing up to the heresy of Henry VIII.

Utterly false, as I know from personal experience.

Utterly true, as I know from personal experience. Have you been in the classroom 50 years?

I only need to have attended one public school and heard of how Thomas More died to know that your assertion was false. If you have been in the classroom 50 years and your students never heard how More died (or were never taught that you only need one counterexample to disprove an assertion) maybe you should blame the teacher?

More opposed his King’s presumption …

a.k.a. ‘treason’ - he supported a foreign power trying to overthrow his King.

I’m not saying that killing him was moral, just that it was far less clearly immoral than More’s own actions.

No good man beheads his wives so that he can marry others.

Does a good man, or a good religion, torture people to death for holding different religious views?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Seriously? What exactly do you think role of Chancellor at the time was?

Any decent biography of Thomas More, even a rabidly pro-Catholic one, would surely confirm this for you. He freely admitted imprisoning ‘heretics’ in his own house, and was indisputably accused of torturing ‘heretics’ - and the actual executions are, of course, a matter of public record.

Provide the documation or admit it didn’t happen. To hurl out accusations of moral culpability is more than gossip, it is slander.

Linus2nd

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Does a good man, or a good religion, torture people to death for holding different religious views?

Again, please identify your sources.

Does a good king behead his wives so he can marry again? Does a good religion still hold up Henry and his successors, rather than Peter and his successors, as the nominal head of their church?

The cowardly bishops who kissed Henry’s backside to save their own backsides, were they honorable men?

 

[Ben_Quincy]

Warning:

Discuss the topic, not each other.

 

[weller2]

And what is your expertise?

And why does it matter? All I wrote is easily verifiable.

The grand question is this: why the tribunal in 1633 did not bother to read Kepler’s book written in 1621? The circulation of information in 17th century was slow, but not that slow.

 

[weller2]

I think that there were more than just two views of planetary movements at the time. It is correct that the phases of Venus was strong evidence against all solar system bodies orbiting the Earth. It did not prove a Sun centred solar system though.

Other theories, such as all of the planets except the earth orbiting the Sun and the Sun orbiting the earth was consistent with the observed phases of Venus. From memory, Tycho Brahe supported such a view at one time or another.

But this model is identical to the Copernican model due to relativity of motion – Tychoean model is Copernican model in Earth’s reference frame.

Incidentally, it was Gallileo who formulated the law of relativity of motion.

One thing that’s completely apparent about the case is that the 1633 tribunal did not do its homework.

 

[weller2]

Good question. I can’t think of any Christians who killed atheists for being atheists.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_%C5%81yszczy%C5%84ski

You’re welcome.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazimierz_%C5%81yszczy%C5%84ski

You’re welcome.

Thank you. But one solitary case does not make a pattern, whereas the 20th Century was an onslaught against millions of Christians by the atheist Stalin alone.

You’re welcome.

 

[weller2]

Thank you. But one solitary case does not make a pattern, whereas the 20th Century was an onslaught against millions of Christians by the atheist Stalin alone.

There two problems with the statement:

(1) the number of people executed for religion under Stalin was, counting generously, some 10 thousand, not in millions, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_Soviet_Union

(2) Stalin’s regime was not really atheistic, rather, Stalin has made himself a god for all practical purposes, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_cult_of_personality

A much better example would be Albania en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_atheism#Albania

 

[Linusthe2nd]

And why does it matter? All I wrote is easily verifiable.

The grand question is this: why the tribunal in 1633 did not bother to read Kepler’s book written in 1621? The circulation of information in 17th century was slow, but not that slow.

You made the assertions, so what is your expertise. Assertions need to be proven.

How do you know they didn’t read Kepler’s book. But from what we know Kepler’s book was not definitive. As it has been pointed out the proof did not come until the 19th century. That is good enough for me.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

Provide the documation or admit it didn’t happen. To hurl out accusations of moral culpability is more than gossip, it is slander.

You made the assertions, so what is your expertise. Assertions need to be proven.

You may have forgotten that three days back I gave you a reminder, that you still haven’t given any evidence for your OP allegation of “lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts”.

Would you please cite your evidence of high school and university texts which are at variance with the official Church report (posts #24 and #25)?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

You may have forgotten that three days back I gave you a reminder, that you still haven’t given any evidence for your OP allegation of “lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts”.

You go first, accusing someone of burning a man alive for owning a Bible printed in English doesn’t compare to my assertion.

Would you please cite your evidence of high school and university texts which are at variance with the official Church report (posts #24 and #25)?

I never made such a statement.

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

I never made such a statement.

Your OP still has your name on it, it is still there for everyone to see, and it still says:

lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts

So, again: three days back I gave you a reminder, that you still haven’t given any evidence for your OP allegation of “lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts”.

So, again, would you please cite your evidence of high school and university texts which are at variance with the official Church report (posts #24 and #25)?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Your OP still has your name on it, it is still there for everyone to see, and it still says:

So, again: three days back I gave you a reminder, that you still haven’t given any evidence for your OP allegation of “lies that you still find repeated in high school and university texts”.

So, again, would you please cite your evidence of high school and university texts which are at variance with the official Church report (posts #24 and #25)?

My answer is post 96. Show me the color of your green, then we will look at other issues .

Linus2nd

 

[inocente]

My answer is post 96. Show me the color of your green, then we will look at other issues .

Linus2nd

No point continuing with the thread then, as you appear to have admitted your OP claim is bogus.

You can always start another thread to “look at other issues” - otherwise it would be a novel experience to find someone trying to derail their own thread.