Isn't it time for atheists to stop telling the Galileo myth?

If it’s proof you want…

Honestly, I tend to think of it as one of those historical myths that “everyone knows” that’s actually been blown out of proportion or even totally muddled with time. I don’t think it’s part of some kind of atheistic tactic, wherein innocent people are deliberately tricked into believing it - it’s just one of those pieces of “common knowledge” that gets passed around through society. While i’d certainly agree with you that the truth is likely far from the legend (though your points don’t appear to be entirely reasonable, even against each other), it seems to me a bit ironic for you to ask for the stopping of a rumour that religion and atheism are opposed whilst assuming that the rumour is a deliberate act of atheists against religion.

Allow me to quote from the minutes of the Inquisition, dated Thursday, 25 February 1616:

The Catholic Church continues to kill millions with its insane dogma

Old news I know.

Homosexuality is as great a threat as rainforest destruction, says Pope

The Catholic Church is simply evil.

Your post is totally irrelevant to the present discussion and your characterization of the Catholic Church as evil is totally unfair. They are definitely misguided and wrong on some issues but to use that the characterize them as wholly evil is totally unfair. And I say this as an atheist who tries to avoid religious threads because I have no insterest in attacking or defending religion.

Then why don’t they turn over evidence that would convict evildoers among them? Cardinal Roger Mahoney was complicit in covering up molestation for years, shuffling molesters hither and yon, so they could keep up their atrocities, and should be serving hard prison time for aiding and abetting molestation before and after the fact. Did they turn him in to the authorities along with all the evidence? No, they covered it up, and promoted him to CARDINAL for his great work.

Yes, the Catholic Church is EVIL EVIL EVIL!

The earth centered theory moving to sun centered (of our solar system) is part of a repeating pattern that God has placed in creation. We first think of ourselves first (earth centered), but we find our it is not about us, but Jesus (Son/sun).

This pattern is in the church too, we have to come to the point when it is not what we ask God to do for us, but what we can do for Him.

*Sexual abuse cases

Challenging aspects of investigations of sexual abuse Mahony appealed an attempt to gain access to church documents relating to sexual abuse all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court refused to hear the appeal, and the decision required the archdiocese to comply with a subpoena from the Los Angeles County District Attorney for letters to the former priests and notes from counseling sessions conducted by the church.

Oliver O’Grady

The 2006 documentary Deliver Us From Evil is based on accusations that Mahony knew that Oliver O’Grady, a priest who sexually abused children, including a nine-month-old baby, in a string of Central California towns for 20 years, was a child molester but failed to keep him away from children. In 1984, a Stockton police investigation into sexual abuse allegations against O’Grady was reportedly closed after diocesan officials promised to remove the priest from any contact with children. Instead, he was reassigned to a parish about 50 miles (80 km) east, in San Andreas, by Mahony where he continued to molest children. Not long after, Mahony was promoted to archbishop of Los Angeles, the largest Catholic diocese in the country. In Deliver Us From Evil, O’Grady says Mahony was “very supportive and very compassionate and that another situation had been smoothly handled”. Mahony denies knowing that O’Grady was a child molester. [12] However, the documentary provided copies of letters between Mahony and O’Grady during this time. The letters also were a subject of discussion in Mahony’s deposition in a civil lawsuit related to O’Grady. Mahony, under oath, denied knowing of O’Grady’s activity despite evidence to the contrary. During one particular line of question Mahony was asked why he claimed not remember multiple allegations of rape by one of his own subordinates (O’Grady) when he was the Bishop of Stockton. Mahony was advised by his attorney not to answer the question.*

The man should be doing hard time getting a taste of his own medicine, plain and simple. But the Catholic Church would rather pay out millions of donated money that was solicited for good works, rather than fess up and clean house.

Evil, evil, evil.

Did you read the thread title? If you want to dicuss a different topic why don’t you go and start that thread yourself? Please do not hijack this thread.

Man, this is deeeep!

I’m not really sure that’s a particularly impressive pattern; it’s essentially saying “we move from one idea to another idea” which pretty much is too vague to be of any indication of anything in my book. And the son/sun comparison is one that would seem to only work in English, and if I recall correctly you do not place very much stock in the language of man.

No, no, no–you’re not getting the big picture: the Church asserts one system, some guys come along and suggest that the church’s system is incorrect, the church persecutes the guys for a few hundred years as heretics and enemies of truth, then the church admits the guys were right all along and apologizes for persecuting them.

See? No harm, no foul, the natural order of things is followed, we move smoothly and efficiently from one idea to another, and religious folks are at peace with the universe, following God’s divine plan for understanding truth.

I think this is an important point, and makes me wonder: Was anyone in Western Europe an atheist in those days? We’re talking pre-scientific revolution here, and I doubt that any but a very few would have been capable of a world view that included atheism (or agnosticism).

Certainly Galileo was central to the rise of science, and I would put the culmination at Darwin for a time when learned men would start to harbor an atheistic (or agnostic) world view in numbers that were significant.

I can’t say anything in regards to the accuracy of the article. I wouldn’t be surprised if the ancient versions of atheism still included spirits and other things or were perhaps closer to deism.

Well, we don’t really. Galileo’s experience is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not there is a god, but it does demonstrate the abuse potential in organized religion and its propensity to resist any line of thought varying from its own.

how long till my soul gets it right can any human being ever reach that kind of light i call on the resting soul of Galileo king of night vision king of insight

so there

It’s a rebuttal to people claiming the Catholic church is anti-science, though.

I feel sorry for you. I really do.

The abuses of the Catholic church through history are sufficiently numerous and massive that picking Galileo as the whipping boy is fairly random.

And going into modern day, I’m not sure which side of the fence the Pope is on, but it could certainly be said that biochemistry is running at loggerheads with Christians. Delaying the development for cures is going to kill millions of people and yet they’re happy to do so based on nothing more than, “You’re playing god!”

When do we get to the part of ITR’s argument where Galileo stomps puppies and the Pope shits strawberry milkshake?