Posted on 02/19/2009 8:50:01 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
The Galileo affair: history or heroic hagiography?
by Thomas Schirrmacher
Summary
The 17th century controversy between Galileo and the Vatican is examined. Fifteen theses are advanced, with supporting evidence, to show that the Galileo affair cannot serve as an argument for any position on the relation of religion and science. Contrary to legend, both Galileo and the Copernican system were well regarded by church officials. Galileo was the victim of his own arrogance, the envy of his colleagues and the politics of Pope Urban VIII. He was not accused of criticising the Bible, but disobeying a papal decree...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationontheweb.com ...
Ping!
Much of it is Enlightenment propoganda. Trading on Newton’s system, they looked back and represented Galileo as a prophet scorned. Most of them, especially Voltaire, had only a high schoolers understanding of Newton, but pretended to know much more. The Church was in a kind of intellectual doldrums, with no one of the stature of an Aquinas to dig into the new science and reflect on it.
Thanks for the ping!
Galileo sought the independence of scientific pursuit from religious doctrine. He argued in his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina that whatever scientific truth one might find must be compatible with the Bible, because the Bible is infallible, and any apparent discrepancy must be due to a misinterpretation of the Bible.
Galileo was not blamed for criticising the Bible but for disobeying papal orders.
We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in the trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgement of the Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having believed and held the doctrine which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures - that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; ...
Yes,
I remember a brainwashing attempt in my first university, where we were instructed to read Galileo’s “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina.” We were told this meant that he was an early proponent of the separation of Church and State/Science/etc. and that he was anti-religious altogether.
But a careful reading of the actual material, rather than the self serving modern or postmodern drivel that was to do our thinking for us, would cause one to draw no such conclusion.
His saying that the purpose of the bible was (something to the effect)to show us how to go to heaven, not how heaven goes, did not deny scripture as some would spin it.
This is epidemic in academia - Locke was misquoted, with ellipses often used to turn his ideas into their opposites, and Newton’s assertion that the Church Father’s non-use of a particular Trinitarian passage of scripture was probable evidence that it did not read so in their time is used to say that he was non-Trinitarian, rather than an early textual critic. [Perhaps he was non-Trinitarian, however, this passage alone can not be used to support this theory :) ]
Modern man wants to justify itself by pointing to people who did not and could not share the same premises and say that they are drawn from same well. Then it wants to pretend that empiricism and “scientific” thought led to what it now calls the failure of the enlightenment experiment (in bloodshed) but will somehow lead to a different end, because we know better now. Posh.
Galileo is a satellite system that Boeing couldn’t get the shelves on the satellite to respond correctly. Down in El Sugundo. Big ones to be launched by big rockets. They have microwave anechoic ranges that you can drive a truck through. Sometimes things just don’t work.
Thank you for sharing your insights, dear BobS!
Atheists in particular grossly exaggerate the injustice done to Galileo, but that shouldn’t obscure the fact that he did suffer an injustice.
Yes, he credits "an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree" with the epigram: "That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the the heavens go."
But this is a very clear expression of the separation of scientific and religious matters which you attribute to brainwashing.
It is still chilling to think that the Vatican once had a say in scientific matters. I'm glad we have progressed, and the theocrats are losing big time.
You wrote:
“It is still chilling to think that the Vatican once had a say in scientific matters.”
It did? When? Does the US government have a say in scientific matters when it bans the cloning of human beings?
“I’m glad we have progressed, and the theocrats are losing big time.”
Yeah, that starry future with human clones, cyborg enhanced human brains, DNA threads spliced free of diseases, organ harvesting, etc....yeah, that’s so much to look forward to.
Yeah, go ahead and use your straw men of cloning and "organ harvesting" (which is a stupid myth created by people opposed to organ donation).
I look forward to a day when 6,000 year old Earthers share the fate of the Flat Earth Society and the Temperance League.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
The evanescent subtense to the angle of contact, in all curves which at the point of contact have a finite curvature, is ultimately as the square of the subtense of the conterminous arc.
Ho ho! How did he miss that one?
The greatness of Galileo is acknowledged by everyone, like that of Einstein; but unlike the latter, whom we are honoring today before the College of Cardinals in the apostolic palace, the former had to suffer a great deal - we cannot conceal the fact - at the hands of men and organisms of the Church. - Pope John Paul II
cited in
GALILEO : For Copernicanism and for the Church
Vatican Observatory Publications
by Annibale Fantoli
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