# Isn't it time for atheists to stop telling the Galileo myth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 23, 2008, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411 "2008-12-23T04:03:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/101 "2008-12-24T16:28:11Z")
OK. I just went through my copy of Sagans book published by Ballantine Books by arrangement with Random House, Copyright 1996. No mention of Galileo in the index. No militant atheism that I can find. If this basic assertion is demonstrably false how much credence do the rest of the OP’s “facts” deserve. What we have is a myth that is not a myth told by atheists and non atheists alike, not because it promotes some atheist agenda but because it comports with historical fact. If the point the OP is trying to make is that Galileo was not physically tortured he needs to establish that anyone said he was. If he is trying to say the church of Galileo’s time was open to the idea of a heliocentric solar system or that Galileo was not threatened with torture and possibly death FOR HIS VIEWS then he is full of shit. If he thinks that atheists believe and repeat the story of Galileo’s treatment in order to make the church look bad he is also wrong. Some people may do it for that reason but most thinking atheists won’t buy that argument any more than they will buy the OP’s. Most non-believers do not need to try to hold the modern church accountable for the actions of the past. If we want to cast aspersions on the church we need look no further than the present day pedophile scandals. Or it’s refusal to permit condom use despite AIDS and poverty being one of the primary causes of suffering to the poor. Forcing them to abstain or have many children is not exactly a recipe for alleviating suffering. Or the fact that while the Vatican decries poverty it is still one of the wealthiest institutions in the world. Or we can look on and smile as the church advocates a more metaphorical and less literal interpretation of scripture in the face of advancing scientific knowledge that makes a literal interpretation increasingly hard to endorse with a straight face. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/102 "2008-12-24T16:45:17Z")
He’s essentially asking atheists to stop recounting a famous (if often over-simplilfied) story about the church deliberately standing in the way of scientific progress, by some heavy-handed uses of its authority, not because it’s false in any sense, other than a nit-picking one, but because it tells a terrible and damning truth about the church as an impediment to knowledge. I understand completely why the OP feels that we should shut up permanently about it asap. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/103 "2008-12-24T17:01:15Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > 1. B. Some atheists will claim that Galileo was threatened with torture, tortured, or threatened with death. All of this if is flatly false. > > 2. C. Some will say that Galileo was prosecuted by the “Inquisition”, leaving readers to assume the Spanish Inquisition. Actually it was the final Inquisition located in Italy, the one that ordered six executions during its entire existence. Galileo was simply put under house arrest. But [Giordano Bruno](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno) was not so lucky. > [@](#): > > In these grim circumstances Bruno continued his Venetian defensive strategy, which consisted in bowing to the Church’s dogmatic teachings, while trying to preserve the basis of his philosophy. In particular Bruno held firm to his belief in the plurality of worlds, although he was admonished to abandon it. His trial was overseen by the inquisitor Cardinal Bellarmine, who demanded a full recantation, which Bruno eventually refused. Instead he appealed in vain to Pope Clement VIII, hoping to save his life through a partial recantation. The Pope expressed himself in favor of a guilty verdict. Consequently, Bruno was declared a heretic, and told he would be handed over to secular authorities. According to the correspondence of one Gaspar Schopp of Breslau, he is said to have made a threatening gesture towards his judges and to have replied: > > “Maiori forsan cum timore sententiam in me fertis quam ego accipiam (Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it).”[11] He was quickly turned over to the secular authorities and, on February 17, 1600 in the Campo de’ Fiori, a central Roman market square, “his tongue imprisoned because of his wicked words” **he was burned at the stake.** [emphasis mine][12] When the fire had died out his ashes were dumped into the Tiber river. All Bruno’s works were placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1603. > > Four hundred years after his execution, official expression of “profound sorrow” and acknowledgement of error at Bruno’s condemnation to death was made, during the papacy of John Paul II[citation needed]. Attempts were made by a group of professors in the Catholic Theological Faculty at Naples, led by the Nolan Domenico Sorrentino, to obtain a full rehabilitation from the Catholic authorities. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/104 "2008-12-24T17:02:50Z")
Much of the OP has been shredded by this point, but I would challenge the claim that Galileo’s work > [@](#): > > openly mocked the Pope (for no apparent reason) The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems never mentions Urban. Rather it hammers the unscientific philosophy Urban and others promoted, often using Urban’s own words. The fact that Galileo had been prohibited from promoting heliocentrism was certainly reason enough for this critique. Galileo did not intend for this to be a personal attack on the Pope and he was surprised by the reaction when the book was published. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/105 "2008-12-24T17:20:18Z")
Does anyone other than me find it ironic that the same thing that happened to Galileo–being contradicted by someone who happened to be completely incorrect–is what the OP is trying to accomplish with people who want to recount Galileo’s story? “Shut up about that, it didn’t happen like you say it did, and even if it did so what, but it didn’t so shut up already” sort of thing. Maybe this irony is just so obvious that it’s assumed in this thread without specifically noting its presence. ---
**Author:** ![sqweels](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f19dbf/32.png) [@sqweels](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sqweels)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/106 "2008-12-24T18:54:12Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > So to sum up for those getting here late. ITR Champion posted some utter rubbish about how the Catholic church was all “Yay Heliocentrism!” and gave Galileo the Honeymoon suite at the Inquisition Arms hotel, that lucky stiff. They put him in the _comfy chair!_ ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/107 "2008-12-24T19:41:46Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > Hmmm let me see…Carl Sagan or some random religious guy with an ax to grind who is promoting revisionist history on the internet…that’s a tough call… Try Arthur Koestler’s _The Sleepwalkers_, then. The account he gives of Galileo’s “persecution” and trial pretty much agrees with the OP’s. Galileo was a vain, quarrelsome man with a rare talent for making enemies unnecessarily. Galileo continually resorted to abuse and personal attacks in his writings and stepped on an awful lot of toes that didn’t need to be stepped on. What’s more, he had considerable support among the Church’s scholars and intellectuals, and it is simply a plain falsehood that the entire Church heirarchy was against Galileo and heliocentrism. His troubles with the Church would never have happened if he had only shown a decent respect for his peers. This is pretty much an atheist myth. It’s the sort of thing that your average garden variety, superficially educated atheist reaches for when he wants to “prove” that religion is oppressive. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/108 "2008-12-24T19:50:55Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > What’s more, he had considerable support among the Church’s scholars and intellectuals, and it is simply a plain falsehood that the entire Church heirarchy was against Galileo and heliocentrism. It never _has_ to be the entire Church hierarchy. I personally don’t think the Church has ever been sufficiently organized in its history for the _entire_ Church hierarchy to agree on _anything_. Rather, the power of the Church was such that it only took a schmuck buttinski or two, operating under the cloak of its authority, to cause harm in areas the Church doesn’t or shouldn’t belong. It’s rather like the local Party Commissar who uses his authority to send people he doesn’t like to Siberia. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/109 "2008-12-24T19:58:38Z")
> [@Baal\_Houtham](#): > > No matter how thin you slice the potatoes, the man was silenced much of his life, and then tried and confined until his death. No, it’s like a drunken Andy Capp telling the constable, “The fight started when he hit me back.” Galileo brought his troubles on himself. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/110 "2008-12-24T20:04:07Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Galileo was a vain, quarrelsome man with a rare talent for making enemies unnecessarily. Galileo continually resorted to abuse and personal attacks in his writings and stepped on an awful lot of toes that didn’t need to be stepped on. What’s more, he had considerable support among the Church’s scholars and intellectuals, and it is simply a plain falsehood that the entire Church heirarchy was against Galileo and heliocentrism. His troubles with the Church would never have happened if he had only shown a decent respect for his peers. Granting all that for the sake of argument, the central truth of the “myth” remains that the Church used its authority in an oppressive, repressive and suppressive manner to silence one of the great men of science, would be true whether or not Galileo relaxed by biting the heads of live kittens and punting babies into the river Po. It’s somewhat disturbing to see intelligent people defend the Church’s actions by attacking the character of its victim. and this ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/111 "2008-12-24T20:05:41Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It never _has_ to be the entire Church hierarchy. I personally don’t think the Church has ever been sufficiently organized in its history for the _entire_ Church hierarchy to agree on _anything_. Rather, the power of the Church was such that it only took a schmuck buttinski or two, operating under the cloak of its authority, to cause harm in areas the Church doesn’t or shouldn’t belong. It’s rather like the local Party Commissar who uses his authority to send people he doesn’t like to Siberia. But that’s the way the myth is presented: a monolithic Church condemns Galileo for heresy without a peep from any dissenters. The point of the myth is to make the Galileo affair sound like one of Stalin’s show trials, which it wasn’t. The affair is distorted and misrepresented to make it seem that the Church was using an absolute, totalitarian power to suppress all intellectual inquiry and all freedom of speech. Everything you’ve said about the subject in this thread sounds like a half-baked, ad hoc rationalization. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/112 "2008-12-24T21:10:17Z")
I’ve heard before that Galileo was quarrelsome, picked fights, was an ornery so-and-so. Heck, it’s probably true. Nonetheless, this argument boils down to saying that the Church–or at any rate, the Congregation of the Index, an important body in the central bureaucracy of the church–let Galileo get their goat and goad them into saying this: > [@](#): > > …And whereas it has also come to the knowledge of the said Congregation that the Pythagorean doctrine—which is false and altogether opposed to the Holy Scripture—of the motion of the Earth, and the immobility of the Sun, which is also taught by Nicolaus Copernicus in _De revolutionibus orbium coelestium_, and by Diego de Zuniga [in his book] on Job, is now being spread abroad and accepted by many—as may be seen from a certain letter of a Carmelite Father, entitled _Letter of the Rev. Father Paolo Antonio Foscarini, Carmelite, on the Opinion of the Pythagoreans and of Copernicus concerning the Motion of the Earth, and the Stability of the Sun, and the New Pythagorean System of the World, at Naples, Printed by Lazzaro Scoriggio_, 1615: wherein the said Father attempts to show that the aforesaid doctrine of the immobility of the sun in the centre of the world, and of the Earth’s motion, is consonant with truth and is not opposed to Holy Scripture. Therefore, in order that this opinion may not insinuate itself any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation has decreed that the said Nicolaus Copernicus, _De revolutionibus orbium_, and Diego de Zuniga, On Job, be suspended until they be corrected; but that the book of the Carmelite Father, Paolo Antonio Foscarini, be altogether prohibited and condemned, and that all other works likewise, in which the same is taught, be prohibited, as by this present decree it prohibits, condemns, and suspends them all respectively. In witness whereof the present decree has been signed and sealed with the hands and with the seal of the most eminent and Reverend Lord Cardinal of St. Cecilia, Bishop of Albano, on the fifth day of March, 1616. Which if you ask me makes them look kind of stupid. Stupid on a historical scale, in fact. And you can say “myth” all you want, but the basics of the _true_ story–and quite regardless of whether or not Galileo was any good at winning friends and influencing Princes of the Church–are quite legitimately a cautionary tale about what the relationship should _not_ be between the church and the state (or religion and political power). Or between the church and science. Or between authority in general and freedom of inquiry and freedom of thought. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2008, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/113 "2008-12-24T21:19:50Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > Galileo was a vain, quarrelsome man with a rare talent for making enemies unnecessarily. Galileo continually resorted to abuse and personal attacks in his writings and stepped on an awful lot of toes that didn’t need to be stepped on. \ > > This is pretty much an atheist myth. It’s the sort of thing that your average garden variety, superficially educated atheist reaches for when he wants to “prove” that religion is oppressive. Yes the popular view of Galileo vs the facts is probably overly critical of the handling of church of this matter and/or easy on Galileo (who appears to be at least a dick), but 1. this is not in any way an exclusively atheist myth. 2. being a dick does not warrant a life-time house arrest. And I’m disregarding the fact that Galileo was right. ---
**Author:** ![Valteron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f17d59/32.png) [@Valteron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Valteron)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/114 "2008-12-25T00:48:23Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > This is pretty much an atheist myth. It’s the sort of thing that your average garden variety, superficially educated atheist reaches for when he wants to “prove” that religion is oppressive. Well of course we reach for that. After all, it’s not as if religion had done things like torturing and burning people alive for having different opinions, declaring crusades that turned into bloodbaths, depriving women of access to contraception even when pregnancy could endanger their lives, having people like Margaret Sanger imprisoned and lobbying to make birth control illegal, telling people condoms cause AIDS, covering up molestation of children by their priests, denying gays access to civil marriage, backing fascist dictators like Franco and Musolinni, etc. etc. If they had ever done things like that we would not have to resort to myths to prove that religion is oppressive. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/115 "2008-12-25T01:31:04Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > But that’s the way the myth is presented: a monolithic Church condemns Galileo for heresy without a peep from any dissenters. The point of the myth is to make the Galileo affair sound like one of Stalin’s show trials, which it wasn’t. The affair is distorted and misrepresented to make it seem that the Church was using an absolute, totalitarian power to suppress all intellectual inquiry and all freedom of speech. Everything you’ve said about the subject in this thread sounds like a half-baked, ad hoc rationalization. I disagree with your impression of everything I’ve said in this thread, and I invite everyone with an interest to read up on the actual course of events. It’ll still turn out to be abuse of power by the Church because Galileo made them uncomfortable. It doesn’t matter if he was jerk. It doesn’t even matter that he was right. The Church, ostensibly an organization of mercy and justice, threatened a man with torture. No amount of verbal gymnastics from ITR will change that and all he’s done is taken his own credibility to Golgotha and crucified it and it sure ain’t coming back in three days. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/116 "2008-12-25T02:07:55Z")
What does it tell is about the OP that he dumps this glurge of a thread that goes on for multiple pages and days but he himself bowed out about an hour after posting it with no meaningful rebuttal of the many refutations? Tells me he just wants to witness. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/117 "2008-12-25T02:15:30Z")
[Isn’t it time for the atheists at the Vatican to stop telling the Galileo myth?](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28371902/) > [@](#): > > “The dramatic clash between Galileo and some men of the Church left wounds that are still open today,” the Vatican’s chief astronomer, the Rev. Jose Funes, wrote recently in Osservatore. "The Church in some ways has recognized its errors. > > “Maybe it could do better. One can always do better,” he wrote. Shameful how this guy feels justified in criticizing the Church’s behavior just because he’s chief astronomer at the Vatican. On the other hand, it’s refreshing that the Vatican of today feels comfortable enough to bestow formal organizational positions and clerical titles on atheists like this fellow. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/118 "2008-12-25T04:58:15Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > This is pretty much an atheist myth. It’s the sort of thing that your average garden variety, superficially educated atheist reaches for when he wants to “prove” that religion is oppressive. [Nitpick] This was originally a Protestant attack on the Catholic Church, (much as the similar idiotic claim that Columbus was trying to prove the world was round was a Protestant attack on the RCC, with it author being even more dishonest than the various commentators on Galileo in that the authorities of the church who debated Columbus were actually right). Now, it is true that among people who have a grudge against the RCC–Protestant, Atheist, or just grumpy–the Galileo story is one that gets trotted out with a certain number of inaccuracies on a semi-regular basis, but it is hardly the exclusive province of atheists. [/Nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/119 "2008-12-25T05:18:00Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > What does it tell is about the OP that he dumps this glurge of a thread that goes on for multiple pages and days but he himself bowed out about an hour after posting it with no meaningful rebuttal of the many refutations? Tells me he just wants to witness. Well, I’m not making excuses for the OP. I, for one, would like to see **ITR Champion** come back, but… To be fair, he hasn’t posted in any other thread since his last post in this one AND it is a pretty busy time of year for a lot of people. For the time being, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. So, don’t forget to address my question (post #32), **ITR**! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2008, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/120 "2008-12-25T06:37:39Z")
> [@Terrifel](#): > > [Isn’t it time for the atheists at the Vatican to stop telling the Galileo myth?](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28371902/)Shameful how this guy feels justified in criticizing the Church’s behavior just because he’s chief astronomer at the Vatican. On the other hand, it’s refreshing that the Vatican of today feels comfortable enough to bestow formal organizational positions and clerical titles on atheists like this fellow. Got any links where a modern Church official admits to torture taking place during the Inquisition? I’d like some rebuttals handy for ITR’s next thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411.md?page=7)