As a believer in the natural rights of man and freedom of conscience I consider it tyranny of the worst sort for EITHER the church or the state to be deciding what scientists need to be imprisoned for promoting a scientific idea.
“Most of the early scientific progress, particularly astronomy, was rooted in the church. Galileo would not so much “discover” that the Earth revolved around the sun, but attempt to prove the theories of a Catholic priest who had died 20 years before Galileo was born, Nicholas Copernicus.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2253681/posts