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What do you believe is the general public understanding of the misunderstanding between the Catholic church and Galileo ?

What has that to do with the question of the truth? If the "general public understanding" in this Protestant nation is the result of anti-Catholic prejudice using the incident as a bludgeon, of what import is that?

If we study the issue and find it more complex than "Catholics bad science good" does that change if the public impression remains rooted in prejudice?

Quick answer ... it has to do with 'intent'.

D.... had made a charge that PM had a chip on his shoulder against Catholicm.
You anti-Catholic, you live with a chip on your shoulder against Catholics, despite all your "let's just be friends" rhetoric, ...

As a member of the same general public as is D..., and PM, ... and most everyone who posts on these threads, ... my understanding of the Catholic church/Galileo incident is, essentially that the Catholic church attempted to suppress Galileo's advocacy of the view that the earth rotates around the sun, ... rather than vice-versa ... something that Pope John Paul II apologized for in 1992.

In my opinion, ... this is not a particularly anti-Catholic viewpoint.

To me, ... it is factual as far as I know.

I was simply asking D... for the Catholic viewpoint on this incident, since he apparently feels that the general public's viewpoint on this issue is anti-Catholic.

Is that an unreasonable request ?

To me, ... it is factual as far as I know.

Understood.

I was simply asking D... for the Catholic viewpoint on this incident, since he apparently feels that the general public's viewpoint on this issue is anti-Catholic. Is that an unreasonable request ?

No. Let me do you one better. Here is an old G-File from Jonah Goldberg addressing the issue.

Of course, he is referring to the story everyone learns in grade school; a lovable old scientist is condemned to Hell for refusing to deny the truth of the cosmos (in this case the Copernican notion of heliocentricity -- the sun’s the center of things rather than the earth). The story is employed to teach children that closed-minded religious people are afraid of science and the truth. Virtually every morally troubling development in science results in a public invocation of this old saw. If Galileo is not called as a central witness for the scientists, then his ghost is surely conjured by the press.

The problem is, it’s spin. Ancient, pro-enlightenment, zealot spin.