[Tribune7]

The idea that God didn't interfere with his divine creation was neccessary for men of science to do their work, but it was antithetical to The Church- that's why Galileo needed to recant!

Ironically, it may have been the Reformation politics that caused Galileo to get grief. Luther was condemning Copernicus -- which the Catholics never did -- and this may have caused the Catholics to try and shut up Galileo.

And in fairness, the resolution was by no means certain at the time. There were smart, open-minded people on the other side of the issue. I think Francis Bacon may have even been a geo-centric.

[ffusco]

So they were keeping up with the Jonses!

I need to do moe research about this- very interesting.

[zonan]

From what I understand of the history of science, the persecution of Galileo was mostly because of church politics. If one acknowledged that the planets moved around the sun, then the next progression was that each star was like our sun and had its own planets. Who was pope there?