# 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:** 8
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/141 "2008-12-26T03:35:25Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > And your last sentence seems to suggest that the Spanish Inquisition was really not that bad just demonized by protestants. Seems to me the Spanish Inquisition did a pretty good job demonizing itself and didn’t need any help from protestants. The Spanish Inquisition was an aberration in the, (still too eager to harm people for the sake of pushing their beliefs about God), Office of the Inquisition. However, there are two aspects of it that tend to be misunderstood. 1. A number of Protestant historians, (or, at least, polemicists), seriously overstated the nature of the Spanish Inquisition, exaggerating the numbers of people harmed and the efficiency of the SI in rooting out people to torture. (They also tended, somehow, to miss the fact that every single one of the religious groups in Europe who achieved any power resorted to exactly the same sort of mindset and actions; the Catholics had an office to run the operation, but the Lutherans, Calvinists, Puritans, and others all found reasons and ways to murder people who believed the “wrong” ideas.) 2. Beyond the tragedy and horror that possessed all Europe throughout the Renaissance period of using torture to impose beliefs, the Spanish Inquisition was used as a tool by Torquemada and the Spanish crown to harrass and subjugate the Jews on the Iberian penninsula far more than the typical attacks on “heretics” that occurred throughout the rest of Europe. (Technically, they were not attacking Jews, who could not be accused of heresy, but their searches for _marranos_ led to attacks upon people who openly practiced their Jewish faith as supporters of the _marranos_. Torquemada was virulently antisemitic and was a principle agent in persuading Ferdinand and Isabella to expel all the Jews from Spain in 1492. Torquemada’s stint as Grand Inquisitor probably resulted in about 2,000 deaths. Various anti-Catholic polemecists have claimed as many as 8,000 deaths in a year with the actual totals running to the tens of thousands. There is no excuse for the actions of the Inquisition, but the exaggeration is not a valid way to condemn them. (_Marranos_, meaning pigs, was the name given to Jews who pretended to convert to Catholicism, (called _conversos_), but who were suspected of being sham Christians and maintaining their Judaism.) ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/142 "2008-12-26T04:48:11Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > He was not confined until his death. He was confined for less than one year. And during that time, he was only “confined” part of the time, and was actually allowed to travel. > > (The other question in your post has been adequately addressed by others, I believe.) One of my questions was about “openly mocking” the pope. It seems that the pope was convinced the character Simplicio was based on himself; some sources contend he was convinced of this by Aristotelians, and it’s not clear Simplicio was a stand-in for Urban VIII. ## The case that it can be called “open mocking” is weak. Disguised mocking possibly. As for his confinement (house arrest), it was indifferently enforced, but in effect till his death. And in violating it GG was probably risking further punishment (the same thing that you’re attacking him for in the OP: violating conditions set by the pope.) [Center for First Amendment Studies:](http://www.csulb.edu/~crsmith/whitepapers/galileo.htm) > [@](#): > > In the end, however, and perhaps because Galileo recanted, Urban showed mercy and allowed Galileo to leave Rome in the custody of the Duke of Siena. > > News of Galileo’s sentence had many effects. In July of 1633, Ascanio Piccolomini, the Archbishop of Siena, endorsed the Dialogue and took custody of Galileo at his palace. Galileo suffered a nervous breakdown and Piccolomini nursed him back to health. > (…) > Jealous clerics then sent word to Urban that Piccolomini was indulging Galileo and encouraging more heretical thinking. Urban solved this problem by allowing Galileo to move home to Arcetri under house arrest. He was also not allowed scholarly visitors nor to teach pupils. He was allowed to attend mass and to visit his daughter at her nunnery in their home town of Arceti where she died in 1634. > > Those around Galileo saw that he was crushed and regularly allowed violations of the visitor sanction. Thomas Hobbes and John Milton, for example, came to Arcetri to visit the scientist. By 1638, Galileo was blind. He died in 1642. * * * And from the same source regarding the question of whether Galileo violated his promise not to endorse heliocentricism: > [@](#): > > n 1629, Galileo submitted the Dialogue to the Inquisition for approval and arrived in Rome in 1630 to obtain a license to print the manuscript. Luckily, the review of the Dialogue was undertaken by Father Riccardi, who had approved The Assayer. When he approved the Dialogue, Galileo was delighted. However, the prince in Rome, who was to publish the work, suddenly died, and Galileo was forced to find another publisher. Before he could seek one in Florence, he had to submit the manuscript to the Inquisition there. Once the Florentine review was underway, Father Riccardi in Rome decided that more changes were needed in the preface and conclusion. The book was not published until 1632 and then with certain changes. It immediately sold out. Galileo’s preface makes much of the fact that the Dialogue had been subject to prior restraint and had been approved by church censors in two cities. Galileo must have felt very secure at this moment of publication that he was safe from persecution. That sounds like he got it legitimately approved by multiple offices of the Inquistion. And of course, Galileo didn’t agree with the restrictions on him because he thought they were fair, but because nutty people with power wanted him to. ---
**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 26, 2008, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/143 "2008-12-26T05:18:52Z")
I figure not only do have to _not_ stop telling the Galileo story, we should continue to use it and similar accounts of religion-fired-abuses to fight any freedom-restricting faith-based initiatives that some people might try to get written into law. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/144 "2008-12-26T05:23:47Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > It seems I incorrectly remembered where Sagan wrote about it, for which I apologize. I read _The Demon-Haunted World_ many years ago. In D’Souza’s book he quotes Sagan as saying “Galileo was put in a Catholic dungeon and threatened with torture for his heretical view that the earth moved about the sun.” He provides the reference. Since D’souza was presumably not working from memory when he wrote his book and had ample opportunity to research his cites and in fact the quote never appears in Sagan’s book, what should we surmise about D’Souza’s credibility? But even if the quote was accurate you still have not proved it is a myth. I bet at some point during Galileo’s ordeal he may have seen the inside of a dungeon and he certainly was threatened with torture for his heretical view that the earth moved about the sun. So remind me again what your point was? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/145 "2008-12-26T06:50:47Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Can you tell me where I can find this transcript? I searched on google for the part that you posted, but I only found it on a message board and a blog. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t classify those as the most trustworthy sources. From the fourth deposition of Galileo, June 21, 1633: [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/depositions.html](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/galileo/depositions.html) > [@](#): > > Having been told that from the book itself and the reasons advanced for the affirmative side, namely that the earth moves and the sun is motionless, he is presumed, as it was stated, that he holds Copernicus’s opinion, or at least that he held it at the time, therefore he was told that unless he decided to proffer the truth, one would have recourse to the remedies of the law and to appropriate steps against him. > A: I do not hold this opinion of Copernicus, and I have not held it after being ordered by injunction to abandon it. For the rest, here I am in your hands; do as you please. > > And he was told to tell the truth; otherwise one would have recourse to torture. > A: I am here to obey, but I have not held this opinion after the determination was made, as I said. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/146 "2008-12-26T12:07:22Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Beyond the tragedy and horror that possessed all Europe throughout the Renaissance period of using torture to impose beliefs, the Spanish Inquisition was used as a tool by Torquemada and the Spanish crown to harrass and subjugate the Jews on the Iberian penninsula far more than the typical attacks on “heretics” that occurred throughout the rest of Europe. (Technically, they were not attacking Jews, who could not be accused of heresy, but their searches for _marranos_ led to attacks upon people who openly practiced their Jewish faith as supporters of the _marranos_. Torquemada was virulently antisemitic and was a principle agent in persuading Ferdinand and Isabella to expel all the Jews from Spain in 1492. Torquemada’s stint as Grand Inquisitor probably resulted in about 2,000 deaths. Various anti-Catholic polemecists have claimed as many as 8,000 deaths in a year with the actual totals running to the tens of thousands. There is no excuse for the actions of the Inquisition, but the exaggeration is not a valid way to condemn them. > (_Marranos_, meaning pigs, was the name given to Jews who pretended to convert to Catholicism, (called _conversos_), but who were suspected of being sham Christians and maintaining their Judaism.) I think this is a somewhat unfair view. As you say, Jews were allowed to leave or to convert and stay. They were not killed, they were not enslaved or sold into slavery, they were allowed to leave or convert and stay. Which, given the tenor of the times was not a bad deal. If they wanted to stay they had to “integrate”. How is that different from politicians in America and Europe _today_ saying immigrants have to integrate? We want them to integrate in aspects we consider important today and then they wanted them to integrate in aspects they considered important then but it is the same thing: we pay lip service to _diversity_ and we like “diversity” in the superficial things but humans want to be surrounded by others like themselves. This has not changed one bit in all these hundreds of years. Converted Jews were specially targetted because they were suspected of having converted outwardly for convenience and continuing to practice their faith in private. This has not changed either. The concealed enemy inside the walls is always the most feared and the most likely to be a target. Pretty much every people and regime have been like this. During WWII America sent Japanese Americans to concentration camps. Did they have the choice of leaving the country? Did they have the choice of affirming their support for America? During the cold war America went on a wild witch hunt for communists and quite a few people suffered the consequences. Today it is people of middle eastern descent, Muslims, etc. who suffer the same fate. If you are in those groups the Homeland Security people do not trust you and will keep close tabs on you. How can we condemn what happened almost five centuries ago when we pretty much continue to do the same today? We now see even torture has not quite fallen out of style and many Americans support its use. So I think it is a bit naive to blame the 16th century Inquisition for keeping a close look on people who they suspected may be “enemy infiltrators”. Things have not changed that much at all. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/147 "2008-12-26T14:05:08Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I figure (we) not only do have to _not_ stop telling the Galileo story, we should continue to use it and similar accounts of religion-fired-abuses to fight any freedom-restricting faith-based initiatives that some people might try to get written into law. I support a moratorium on the misuse of Galileo’s story. Most often these days this doesn’t involve people invoking religious abuses; instead it’s those who promote pseudoscience and health quackery. When their pet theories are held up to criticism and ridicule, they compare themselves to Galileo battling the forces of orthodoxy. It is to barf. This tactic has been given a name - the [Galileo gambit](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Gambit). ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/148 "2008-12-26T20:46:14Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > So I think it is a bit naive to blame the 16th century Inquisition for keeping a close look on people who they suspected may be “enemy infiltrators”. > > Things have not changed that much at all. It was wrong when they did it, and it is wrong when we do it. That’s not naive at all. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/149 "2008-12-26T20:53:27Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Can you tell me where I can find this transcript? I searched on google for the part that you posted, but I only found it on a message board and a blog. I hope you’ll forgive me if I don’t classify those as the most trustworthy sources. It’s in [this book](http://www.amazon.com/Galileo-Life-James-Reston/dp/189312262X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230324713&sr=1-2), which I own. Sorry I can’t give you anything clickable. I suppose I could take a digital picture of the page and post it. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/150 "2008-12-26T21:06:34Z")
> [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > It was wrong when they did it, and it is wrong when we do it. That’s not naive at all. Yes, but my point is that we think we have advanced a lot since then and yet a lot of people today think it is OK. My point is that mostly we find things are OK if “my people” do them and are terrible if “they” do it. Put any distance, either geographical or historical and we condemn things which we are ready to condone if done by “our people” today. People today are justifying lying, cheating, killing and torturing solely on the basis that “it is in our interest” to do so. And yet those same people are ostensibly appalled that the same thing was done 500 years ago by someone else. In my view what was bad then is much worse today because we have advanced morally. Slavery was bad but understandable in the 16th century, indefensible in the 19th century and a major crime in the 21st century. Things have changed and it would be silly to judge what happened 500 years ago by the standards of today. That is my point. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2008, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/151 "2008-12-26T21:18:14Z")
Apropos of nothing: During the inquisition, torture could be a very, very bureaucratic procedure, ponderous and rule-bound. It was scheduled in advance, certain officials were expected to be there, certain tortures were expected to be used during that session, and there was a definite agenda to stick to with specific time limits. Many torture sessions got postponed or cancelled due to scheduling conflicts, illness, lost memos, and so forth. One victim said that in the hands of ordinary professional torturers, he’d have told them anything they wanted to hear within 15 minutes, but in the hands of the inquisition, he held out for 2 months before authorities lost interest (one key committee member died) and let him go. It sounds so much like our current committee process at work. Or at least my own operating schedule. Carry on! ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/152 "2008-12-27T00:15:13Z")
> [@sailor](#): > > I think this is a somewhat unfair view. > > As you say, Jews were allowed to leave or to convert and stay. They were not killed, they were not enslaved or sold into slavery, they were allowed to leave or convert and stay. Which, given the tenor of the times was not a bad deal. I’m hardly a constant critic of the Catholic church, but I do not consider telling a large number of people that “all” they have to do is change their religious beliefs or leave their homes and move to new lands to be “not a bad deal.” They were required to sell all their property, but were forbidden to take with them gold or coin when they left. Prior to the expulsion, there had been a twelve year period during which a number of Jews had been accused of trying to convert Christians away from their faith, for which the Jews were tortured and slain. By the Alhambra Decree, any Jew who failed to leave or convert was to be killed. Those who converted were then harrassed by Torquemada and his minions for any sign that they might have not “truly” converted, (such as using a habitual expression spoken among Jews or declining to eat pork). While comparing the expulsion to the immoral detention and removal of the Nisei Japanese during WWII might establish that we are still liable to behave wrongly, that hardly mitigates the actions taken against the Jews in Iberia who were not even related to any group threatening Spain. (Granada, the last Muslim state in Iberia, had already been a vassal state to Aragon for years and was not a threat in any sense. It was overthrown simply as an expansion of Ferdinand and Isabella’s desire for power and the Jews, while suffering less persecution in Granada, were hardly fomenting insurrection from that state.) The number of deaths attributed to the (Spanish) Inquistition has been greatly exaggerated and the fact that Protestant lands engaged in the same sort of behavior has been downplayed in many cases, but I don’t think there is any reason to minimize what actually happened. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/153 "2008-12-27T12:09:13Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I don’t think there is any reason to minimize what actually happened. The facts are what they are and I am not minimizing anything; I am trying to put things in their historical context, out of which they are meaningless. Trying to judge people who lived hundreds of years ago by the standards of today makes no sense, specially when those standards of today are more theoretical than real and are broken at the first convenience. Demanding that people who lived centuries ago behave according to moral rules of today which even today we do not really respect is just not fair. Let us put things in context. The Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492. Three hundred years later, much closer to our times, Catholics were being persecuted in Scotland. In the second half of the 18th century, Scots were forbidden to practice Catholicism, [own arms](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarming_Act), [wear their traditional clothes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dress_Act), [children were forced to say school prayers for the King and Royal family](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Act_of_Proscription), etc. After the battle of Culloden the treatment the Scots got was ruthless, brutal. I do not know when Catholics were allowed to own property and practice their religion again but it was probably well into the 19th century. My (Catholic) ancestors had to flee Scotland for their lives and found refuge in Spain. There is the story of how one managed to escape the English by hiding in a hole in the floor while his wife sat on a chair over it. Do the English find their treatment of Catholics as morally condemnable and repulsive as that of Jews by Spain 300 years earlier? Of course not. Again, it is bad when “they” do it and if “we” do it it means we have a pretty good reason. It is the history of humanity. The English all know about the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition. But what do they have to say about the horrors they have inflicted on some other groups? The Spanish Inquisition is the stereotype of something bad and is often cited as an example of religious persecution. Why isn’t the persecution of Catholics by the English cited and remembered? It is much closer in time and in geography and history. I would be a lot more sympathetic to criticism of what happened 500 years ago if it were done by peoples who would be well past such actions and who would in no way allow such things to be done by their own governments today. But when they have done similar things much more recently and fail to acknowledge them and condemn them, then I become quite cynical. When the US government is criticizing other countries for their Human Rights records it just tells me that there is indeed two different standards: one for “us” and one for “them”. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_Call_Me_Shirley)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/154 "2008-12-27T15:58:43Z")
> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#): > > Apropos of nothing: During the inquisition, torture could be a very, very bureaucratic procedure, ponderous and rule-bound. It was scheduled in advance, certain officials were expected to be there, certain tortures were expected to be used during that session, and there was a definite agenda to stick to with specific time limits. > > Many torture sessions got postponed or cancelled due to scheduling conflicts, illness, lost memos, and so forth. > > One victim said that in the hands of ordinary professional torturers, he’d have told them anything they wanted to hear within 15 minutes, but in the hands of the inquisition, he held out for 2 months before authorities lost interest (one key committee member died) and let him go. > > It sounds so much like our current committee process at work. Or at least my own operating schedule. > > Carry on! True, and I would add, the torture sessions were meticulously documented. Every question, action, utterance, gasp, and cry of pain were noted for the record. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/155 "2008-12-27T16:07:18Z")
Of course, back in medieval times, “AAAUGH” was spelled “AAAVGHE.” ---
**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 27, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/156 "2008-12-27T16:28:24Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > True, and I would add, the torture sessions were meticulously documented. Every question, action, utterance, gasp, and cry of pain were noted for the record. “And then Sister Theresa put a leash on the nude heretic and gave a thumbs-up…” ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/157 "2008-12-27T16:28:33Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > True, and I would add, the torture sessions were meticulously documented. Every question, action, utterance, gasp, and cry of pain were noted for the record. The formality and bureaucracy of those times are just amazing. I have the records of several trials and it is amazing how everything was meticulously recorded and how, just like today, lawyers managed to talk a lot and hide even more with their words. Trials would give cause for more trials and matters would drag on for years until they no longer mattered. (Not much has changed in Spain in this respect. Lots of formalities, lots of bureaucracy and a judicial system which is a shame for any advanced country and which resolves little and when it no longer matters. ) [Antonio Perez](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Perez), secretary of King Philip II, suffered through several trials and the records of some are still in existance. One of them has been published as _Los procesos de Castilla contra Antonio Pérez (The Judicial Processes of Castile Against Antonio Pérez)_ and documents how he was subjected to torture one day in 1590. Every turn of the rack and every cry are right there. The fact is that he never confessed what he knew, even under torture. As someone of the period observed, whay would you confess? If you admitted to anything you were just in for more trouble and saying “no” is just as easy as saying “yes”, torture or no torture. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2008, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/158 "2008-12-27T16:35:42Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > “And then Sister Theresa put a leash on the nude heretic and gave a thumbs-up…” Look, the Holy Church has clearly explained that those engravings were the work of a few bad apples, not the result of any organized policy from higher up. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/159 "2008-12-29T00:43:29Z")
Coming at this four pages in, I’m hardly going to wrestle with the whole thread. The following are specific comments on the OP: > [@](#): > > 1. Galileo himself was a Catholic for his entire life, from childhood to death. He was a member of the church, a regular attendee, and there’s no evidence of his having any doubt of the basic soundness of Church authority. Of course. > [@](#): > > 1. The Catholic Church was a supporter of Galileo throughout his career. They not only provided moral support and encouragement, but also funding and other institutional support. Another fact that atheists often fail to mention is that Pope Urban VIII (the supposed villain of the tale) wrote a poem praising Galileo. _Factions_ within the Catholic Church supported him. Just as factions within it opposed him. > [@](#): > > 1. The claim is often made that the Church was afraid of Galileo’s heliocentric theory because they were a threat to Church Doctrine. This is completely false statement. The Church had no position on the issue of geocentric vs. heliocentric universe. They did not have any reason to care particularly about the issue. Two clergymen, Fr Clavius and Fr Grienberger, looked through his telescope and may have helped him take data. The “may have helped him take data” strikes me as particularly odd. That Clavius and Grienberger looked through one of his telescopes and duly testified to what they’d seen is amply recorded. Grienberger then went on to be generally a Galileo supporter in the decades that followed (Clavius died in 1612, so is much less significant in the debate). But “may have helped him take data”? > [@](#): > > 1. Now one aspect of the Galileo is a half-truth: there was a sizable force in the scholarly world that was viciously opposed to the heliocentric theory. Aristotelean naturalists, who basically believed that Aristotle was prefect, held considerable sway in the 16th century. For instance, Professors at Oxford could be fined serious money if they contradicted Aristotle. Of course, these folks were often the intellectual opponents of Orthodox Catholics, since Aristotle was an atheist (or agnostic or deist, depending on how you look at it). And “Orthodox Catholics” were never Aristoleleans? > [@](#): > > 1. Now it was these academics who probably started Galileo’s troubles by reporting him to Church authorities as a heretic. (We don’t know exactly what they said, but we can make an educated guess.) Cardinal Robert Bellarmine investigated in 1616. He spoke with Galileo, and Galileo admitted there was no conclusive evidence for the heliocentric theory. In order to give the controversy time to calm down, Bellarmine asked Galileo to temporarily refrain from speaking out on the issue. Galileo promised to so in writing, and spent the next years on other scientific research. The first two sentences here are misleadingly vague. The 1616 proceedings were probably prompted by the complaint against Galileo written in February 1615 by Father Niccolo Lorini. An academic - he was professor of church history at Florence - but also a Dominican priest. And it’s the latter position he particularly emphasises in the document. For, contrary to the assertion above, we know exactly what Lorini said, because the document survives in the Vatican. (See Finoccchiaro’s translation in his _The Galileo Affair_, California, 1989, p134-5.) > [@](#): > > 1. In 1632 Galileo jumped back into the heliocentric vs. geocentric debate, breaking his promise. Moreover, he did it in a particularly aggressive work that openly mocked the Pope (for no apparent reason) and also treaded on other, purely theological and philosophical issues that were controversial because they related to the conflict of the Reformation. Galileo’s academic enemies came back and accused him of heresy again. His supporters (who included the Pope) wanted to basically give him a slap on the wrist, but the trial spiraled out of control. I’d agree that the 1632 process probably has to be seen as a very human screwup rather than as a symbolic clash. But every statement here can be argued about - and has been in detail over the centuries. Thus, for example, the argument that the _Dialogue_ “openly mocked the Pope” is one that was fashionable amongst the specialists about twenty years ago, but that has tended to fall out of favour since. I tentatively suspect that it was its deployment by Owen Gingerich in his _Scientific American_ article for the 1982 anniversary (it’s reprinted in his _The Great Copernicus Chase_, Cambridge, 1992) that brought it to wider attention and led to it being repeated by apologists ever since. There are those historians of science, notably David Lindberg, who do still emphasise the point, but the most important recent Galileo scholarship has reacted against the hypothesis. Most obviously, while not addressing the specific point explicitly, Biagioli’s massively influential _Galileo, Courtier_ (Chicago, 1993) was the argument that he was the superb contemporary debater, negating the idea that would somehow boorishly blunder into a dispute with the Pope in this way. More explicitly, Maurice Finocchiaro’s excellent _Retrying Galileo, 1633-1992_ (California, 2005) has pointed out the weakness of the “insult” argument: there isn’t any immediately contemporary evidence that anyone explicitly thought the Pope was insulted by the book before or during the trial. That said, I think Finocchiaro slightly overstates his case. One Vatican official involved did think that the Pope _might_ take offence. There’s just no explicit evidence that he did. For these - and other - reasons, the statement that the book “openly mocked the Pope” is an example of an _interpretation_ of the Galileo affair. It’s certainly a possible version of events and clearly one that some specialists have argued is correct. But it’s insane to pretend that it’s somehow the obvious interpretation of those events. > [@](#): > > 1. A. Galileo was never imprisoned. He was placed under house arrest at a luxurious villa, and allowed to travel several times. (Kind of live being jailed at a beachfront condo or a luxury ski chalet. He probably had the time of his life.) It is certainly a myth that he was ever _in prison_. But this is otherwise trivialising the conditions. Some of the houses he was initially restricted to were grand, but the villa in Arcetri is rather modest. He was allowed to routinely travel the very short distance to visit his daughters in the convent of San Matteo in the village, virtually round the corner, but that was about it. Otherwise, the only visit I’m aware of that he was allowed to make was to Poggibonsi iin October 1636 to meet the French ambassador, a trip for which the latter had to apply for him to be allowed to make. By contrast, Galileo’s own appeals to be allowed to travel to seek medical attention were turned down. > [@](#): > > 1. B. Some atheists will claim that Galileo was threatened with torture, tortured, or threatened with death. All of this if is flatly false. It is more accurate to say that he was clearly _at least formally_ threatened with torture and that there has been a centuries-long, somewhat technical, academic debate about the significance of this. Certainly some scholars of the matter have argued that this was just a formality and understood as such by all involved. Other experts have argued that threatening someone with torture was, um, threatening them torture. Similarly with the potential of a death sentence. Simply ignoring this range of opinions is whitewashing over a significant debate within Galilean historiography. The experts are agreed that he wasn’t actually tortured. > [@](#): > > 1. 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. A slippery argument. Yes, especially stupid people might assume that the _Spanish_ Inquisition had authority in Italy. So what? > [@](#): > > 1. D. And lastly, that bit about Galileo staying true to his scientific findings under his breath, while pretending to admit to being wrong? Never happened. I’d personally tend to guess that he never said _Eppur si mouve_, but the likes of Stillman Drake have argued that the story can be traced back to 1643 and hence may be reliable in some form (_Galileo at Work_, Chicago, 1978, p357). Dogmatism on the matter is probably inappropriate. > [@](#): > > And if you’re hungry for cites: Even the secondary literature by historians of science on Galileo is immense. And often constructs very different interpretations based on the same evidence. The tertiary literature cherrypicking from that isn’t to be recommended. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2008, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411/160 "2008-12-29T01:09:48Z")
> [@](#): > > [Charles Darwin was a Racist and Eugenicist](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=479449) Entirely as a redundant footnote to that thread, I’ll take this opportunity to note that the forthcoming _[Darwin’s Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Darwins-Sacred-Cause-Slavery-Origins/dp/1846140358/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230512398&sr=8-5)_ by Desmond and Moore, two out of the three leading Darwinian biographers, is apparently the detailed explicit argument that his work was driven by anti-slavery and anti-racism motives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-it-time-for-atheists-to-stop-telling-the-galileo-myth/478411.md?page=9)