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"The Inquisition was to root out people within the Church."

I am sure that they took the time to discern the real denomination of whoever came before their courts. lol

"So since there "never will be absolute proof for a scientific theory," then we HAVEN'T proven that the Earth revolves around the Sun?"

We haven't pinpointed the exact orbits, no.

"Galileo had a HYPOTHESIS. His HYPOTHESIS had to be proven, something he couldn't definitively do, which Newton did, and more advanced telescopes proved. So if his "theory" can't be proven...what, we don't revolve around the Sun, or we need more evidence, or it is something that can be DISproven?"

I don't give a rat's ass if Galileo had any evidence or not. It was wrong for the church to silence him, NO MATTER WHAT his argument was. That it was correct is beside the point. That he had positive evidence is beside the point.

"I never said he had no evidence, I said he couldn't PROVE it. He had evidence, and quite compelling evidence at that. Had he stuck with THAT, and laid it out as a HYPOTHESIS, there never would've been any issue. But he taught as FACT that which he could not prove WAS fact."

So what? The Church couldn't prove a damn thing either. Why do they get a pass?

"Again bringing up the intro that someone ELSE wrote? "

Are you deliberately stupid? I have repeatedly said someone else wrote the intro for Copernicus. That's the whole point; if Copernicus' ACTUAL beliefs were known, the book would have been banned.

" Had he been "silenced,"..."

He was forced to recant. That's the state silencing a dissenter.

"You seem to think that I agree with his "persecution"--from our stand point, the Church was totally wrong; but from THEIR standpoint, he was teaching as fact that which he couldn't PROVE was fact."

You DO agree with it. That is why you are defending what the Church today has condemned.

"Because ONE MAN, with compelling evidence (but not COMPLETE and FINAL) evidence said they were wrong? How does that work? "

Reason. That and separation of Church and state.

1) Research the Inquisition. It is far less intrusive than modern history has led you to believe.

2) So since we haven't pinpointed the exact orbits, the Earth doesn't revolve around the Sun? In which case Galileo wasn't right after all?

3) He submitted himself to the authority of the Church. The Church was the religious and secular authority in his region; he could have moved out of such influence. He still would have been under pressure from the scientific crowd, but he did not have to submit himself to their power.

4) Copernicus wrote an intro just the same. I included it in the post, you might see. His beliefs WERE well known. It was not until Galileo taught those beliefs as FACT that Copernicus' work came under fire. He wrote the book, as you will see, after prompting by CATHOLIC friends, including a priest and a cardinal. You have some really misguided perceptions about the age of the Scientific Revolution if you think that Copernicus was alone with his thoughts, that no one else knew them.

5) ...a "state" to whose power the "silenced" submitted himself...

6) I agree only with the desire to protect truth; the Church, while wrong (as I have said repeatedly), was, simply, motivated out of a desire to protect truth. It is hardly science if one man can come along claiming proof of something not only fairly revolutionary (an idea 70 years old vs. an accepted "fact" nearly 1500) but counter-intuitive and beyond the grasp of reason and everyone just says "Hooray for you! You did it!" Science is not that--science is observing, testing, analyzing, recording, and holding your work out to be refuted. Galileo taught it as fact before it was established as such.
And again, he submitted himself to the authority of the Church.

7) "Reason" says that the Earth is stationary--it doesn't feel like its moving, it doesn't look like it's moving, and (apparently) hasn't been proven its moving. Galileo said the opposite, albeit with compelling evidence, but not concrete and final evidence (which apparently still hasn't come...)
As for separation of Church and state, I agree with you. I, however, am capable of looking at it from the historic perspective without the taint of our modern sensibilities.