Oh, I dunno. The advantage of the Galileo example is that what he was proposing is fairly easy to grasp, as opposed to someone who got condemned for nitpicking some arbitrary aspect of trinity interpretation. I like the example especially because heliocentricism is one of the first major leaps in modern science - using careful calculation and observation to model an empirical process in a manner that could be repeated and matched elsewhere, by scientists who don’t share one’s religious or cultural background.
Well, that and it makes the Church look like a bunch of slope-browed primitives, which tickles me somewhat.
I confess, I feel that what now about certain Christian doctrine that flies in the face of so much scientific evidence. I have to wonder what part of our humanity holds onto that stuff so fiercely,… and why.
I’ve done some minor googling and been unable to find any confirmation that Galileo’s 1932 book “openly mocked the Pope.”
Do you have a cite for that?
And as others have said, waiting 16 years to comment further on something that you regard as a HUGE advancement for science and civilization doesn’t seem like much of a broken promise. Do you have any information on why Galileo agreed to suspend comment of heliocentricity in the first place.
I’m guessing that he was intimidated into the agreement. If so, then the attempt in your OP to disparage GG for “breaking his promise” seems absurd and cheapens your entire argument.
Do you have some info on how freely his “promise” was given?
You seem to contend that it really wasn’t The Church doing it, but just some parts of the Church. But somehow those enemies of GG manage to cause his trial to spiral out of control… even though the Pope liked GG. That sounds kinda like a No True Catholic scenario.
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 doubt about it. No doubt that by today’s standards it would be unjustifiable. But it did not happen today, it happened when it happened. It happened when such things were happening all over Europe and would continue to happen for centuries so it is just a product of the times. In those times there was no concept of separation of church and state such as we have today. Religion was part of State policy everywhere and even more so in Rome. They jsut did not have the notion of freedom of religion we have today and it would be unfair to judge them for that. The expulsion of the Jews in Spain was more a political move than a religious move even though motivated by religion.
So, it is just as silly to say it really did not happen, as the OP tries to do, as it is to try to taint today’s Catholic Church with what happened. In those times yu could get your neck sliced anywhere in Europe for contradicting your king in matters of religion or anything else. Look at Henry VIII in England. Are we supposed to judge today’s English monarchy by that?
To say “The [modern] Catholic Church is evil because of what they did to Galileo” is silly. To say, based on what happened to Galileo and on a lot of other things, “This is why we have to keep religion separate from government” is not at all silly.
Yes I do admit it is a week pattern in itself, but there are also other patters I’ve noticed that fits this coming to Jesus, this was just one of many He has allowed me to notice.
Some words seem to be divinely inspired, sun/Son I feel is one, and God does use the sun as a example of walking in the light, and His mercies are new every morning.
There is a parable how a master gives his servants a certain amount of talents, which refer to money, but in english have also the meaning of a ability, which fits the parable and expands the meaning.
Also it is God that knew how language would develop, and would have structured it how He wanted.
And yet plenty of people are doing that, even in this thread.
Nobody would deny that. But that is not the issue raised in this OP.
In the hopes of improving the image of the Catholic Church, rather than put the facts in their historical perspective, the OP is denying they happened at all.
And others are saying they did happen and therefore today’s catholic Church is tainted by those acts.
Both sides are wrong. Galileo was unfairly persecuted, although not as badly as some make it to be and not as bad as it could have been with another ruler. And the fact that it happened does not reflect on the Church of today which must be judged by what it does today and which is NOT the subject of this thread.
Well, some of us have merely been arguing about what the facts are concerning the “Galileo myth”, without trying to bash the 21st Century Catholic Church (or for that matter to argue that the heliocentric theory somehow has something to do with the messiahood of Jesus).
And one reason why people might raise the not-so-mythical Galileo myth is, not to demonize the existing Catholic Church, but to point out the dangers of allowing organized religion to gain political power. This obviously applies to the usual church-state issues, but could also be broadened to being part of a more general critique of the idea that we have to accept that religion is above criticism and must be allowed to occupy some privileged place in society.
God is so far above us that this is not a issue, He could, if He wanted to He could create a word relationship for you personally, one that only you would see no matter what language you speak.
Do you honestly think that Carl Sagan had no axe to grind against religion? He was a pretty miltant atheist who made his disdain for religion abundantly clear.
Interestingly enough, you see objections like that voiced on the SDMB regularly. Sources such as Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, and the Internet Infidels are routinely cited in these debates, despite their open disdain for all things religious. Yet if you cite pro-theism, pro-Christianity, or pro-religion sources, they will be dismissed on the grounds that they “have an axe to grind.”
Of course we now know the sun is a big ball of gas. And there are billions of them, many of which are bigger, older, more powerful, and closer to the galactic center than ours, and that ours is not the only galaxy in the universe, which seems to have no center at all. Some sons will blow up, some will collapse in on themselves, but eventually they will all be dead. Just how far did God intend us to take this analogy?
The modern English sense of the word “talent” derives from its meaning as a unit of currency, and was in fact influenced by the parable you mentioned. There is nothing coincidental or miraculous about this.
I’m not sure it’s even a great rebuttal to that. You’d have to explain a clear dividing line between what constitutes heresy and what constitutes science, and I’m not sure that’s something that really can be articulated.
I can’t really figure out the purpose of this thread. If the OP’s purpose is to figure out what exactly happened to Galileo, then I think that’s a useful and interesting discussion. But even if I accept the OP’s version of the facts, I don’t think the Catholic Church comes off looking great. Even with the OP’s version of the facts, I don’t see why an athiest would stop using Galileo as an example of how religion can obstruct free inquiry.
I’ve seen one poster post a quote (tomndebb?) regarding how Christians should treat observations of the physical world that makes a much better case that the Church isn’t anti-science. I think that sort of thing makes a far better case that religion doesn’t have to be anti-science than the OP does.
Actually, Sagan, Dawkins et al. (mostly Dawkins, as he seems to be the one mostly brought up) do seem to be dismissed on the “axe to grind” grounds. It seems to me this is more of a side vs. side thing; some religious posters are more willing to give credence to religious sources, and atheistic posters to atheistic sources. The times when a religious person agrees with atheistic cites (as yourself do quite often, to your credit) are pretty much as few on the ground, as far as I can tell.
Do you really think Carl Sagan is less credible than some revisionist witnesser on a message board? Whether he was a militant atheist I will leave to folks like you to discuss, the fact remains that I will bet dollars to donuts he knew more about the history of science and how the universe works than all the people who have ever posted on this board. I don’t just blindly pick people to believe but if I did I could certainly do worse than Carl Sagan.
If ITR’s point is just that the Church didn’t persecute Galileo as bad as it persecuted others in that it didn’t stick hot pokers up his ass or burn him at the stake as they did with so many others then I might be willing to consider the evidence, but then that is not much of a point.
:rolleyes: It is not flatly false, as even the slightest bit of research would show. It’s not like you have to look very far to find this out, all you have to do is look at the official decree of the church, which in describing the trial, states etiam comminata ei tortura, “and also having threatened him with torture.” Torture was not hidden back then; it was considered a valid way to extract a confession.
From the transcript of the trial:
Maculano: I repeat. From the nature of the book, you are believed to have held the opinion of the earth’s movement and the sun’s stability. Unless you tell the truth the Holy Church will resort to the remedies of the law against you. We will take appropriate steps against you.
Galileo: I do not hold the opinion of Copernicus. For the rest I am in your hands. Do with me as you please.
Maculano: Tell the truth. Otherwise we will have no recourse but torture.