[bdeaner]

I think the record of his condemnation that I cited should be enough to give anyone pause.

It was not about the science, as the article suggests. It was about the politics surrounding the science. They didn't arrest and put Copernicus on house arrest, did they? No. Why? Because he didn't overstep political bounds in the way Galileo did. The Church was not ever anti-science. The Church is the foundation for science -- the belief in a rational universe is only really possible if you assume the universe has a rational order. And the only reason to assume there is such an order is if there was a rational Creator. That's why paganism did not produce a scientific revolution -- their assumed cosmos were always chaotic due to the supposed capriciousness of the gods.

[dr_lew]

They didn't arrest and put Copernicus on house arrest, did they? No. Why? Because he didn't overstep political bounds in the way Galileo did.

Yeah, he stayed in bounds by delaying the publication of his thesis until the year of his death in 1543, and even then it was only the urging of others that overcame his reticence.

Galileo was born in 1564, and Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600, Galileo's 36th year. Wouldn't that have scared him? No ... he was playing the game, which Bruno had refused to do.

[dr_lew]

That's why paganism did not produce a scientific revolution -- their assumed cosmos were always chaotic due to the supposed capriciousness of the gods.

kosmos 1
I. order, kosmôi and kata kosmon in order, duly, Il., etc.; maps atar ou kata kosmon id=Il.; oudeni kosmôi in no sort of order, Hdt., attic
2. good order, good behaviour, decency, Aesch., Dem.
3. the form, fashion of a thing, Od., Hdt.
4. of states, order, government, Hdt., Thuc.

The recognition that Thomas is fundamentally an Aristotelian is not equivalent to the claim that Aristotle is the only influence on him. It is the claim that whatever Thomas takes on from other sources is held to be compatible with what he already holds in common with Aristotle.

- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Saint Thomas Aquinas

[DesertRhino]

“They didn’t arrest and put Copernicus on house arrest, did they?”

That* is the point. Who in the hell is the Pope to have anybody ARRESTED?

[Ditto]

They didn't arrest and put Copernicus on house arrest, did they?

Well Copernicus didn't call the King of the Papal States (also known as the Pope) a blabbering simpleton either, which is exactly what Galileo did in his book.

Church or no church, the fact is that the Pope at that time was also a reigning monarch and in the 17th Century, no monarch took insults like that lightly.

Henry VIII would have cut his head off and then drawn and quartered him, not given him penance and house arrest in a pretty nice villa.

Galileo for all his brilliance was also an egotist who caused his own problems with his attitude, not his science.