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To: malakhi
And what, in your view, was Galileo's 'crime'? Is it your position that the church should be above criticism?

No. It is my position that when a man is condemned for his frontal attack on the Church, it should not be mis-interpreted as Church hatred for science. It was about politics, not science.

Shalom.

322 posted on 05/25/2005 12:52:14 PM PDT by ArGee (Why do we let the abnormal tell us what's normal?)
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To: ArGee
It is my position that when a man is condemned for his frontal attack on the Church, it should not be mis-interpreted as Church hatred for science.

Do you dispute the accuracy of Ichneumon's citations of the Galileo case in his #266? How do you not read that as a condemnation of science?

328 posted on 05/25/2005 12:56:18 PM PDT by malakhi
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To: ArGee
But the specific politics were that the churches position was that the planets were moved by the will of God. Expressing any other opinion was criminal. It was a matter of faith and the pope had spoken.

That amounts to hatred of science.

You can't change that by focusing on Galileo's (correct and moral) defiance of church authority. Many other scientists of the day agreed with Galileo privately. Galileo was brave and honest putting his scientific opinion on paper. That's why everybody knows his name, nobody knows which of the corrupt midevil popes was on the other side.

331 posted on 05/25/2005 1:03:04 PM PDT by Dinsdale
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To: ArGee
No. It is my position that when a man is condemned for his frontal attack on the Church, it should not be mis-interpreted as Church hatred for science. It was about politics, not science.

This is such serious malarky that it offends me. Galileo was expressing a technical opinion about the nature of the universe in disagreement with the church, which, for all practical purposes, was, at the time, also the state. And a pretty bloody arbitrarily powerful one at that.

The argument was most definitely and overwhelmingly about science, and the nature of the universe. And to charactarize anything Galileo might have said, no matter how intemperate, as an "attack" on the church is like accusing a flea of trying to attack an elephant.

You have some pretty odd sensibilities, to be touting conventional, conservative and polite rules of argumentation in one breath, and promulgating this very odd, rather senseless, and un-historical take on the Trial of Galileo, with no more apparent thought to defend it in detail than a sparrow has for quantum mechanics. I believe I'll ask you to quit offering us instructions on proper argumentation.

344 posted on 05/25/2005 1:40:38 PM PDT by donh
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