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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.
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.
Atheists in particular grossly exaggerate the injustice done to Galileo, but that shouldn’t obscure the fact that he did suffer an injustice.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”