Posted on 01/18/2010 5:23:37 AM PST by JLWORK
So, I know what you’re wondering. Who’s the old man with the beard in the above portrait? He was Galileo Galilei, Italian physicist, inventor of the telescope, astronomer, lecturer, and author. In 1633 he was indicted, jailed, interrogated, prosecuted, convicted by a jury of ten Roman Catholic Cardinals and ordered into prison by the Pope. Galileo’s crime was that he wrote a five-hundred page book, in which he presented scientific evidence clearly demonstrating that the Earth was not at the center of the Universe.
But the idea was blasphemy.
Europe will witness another heresy trial in Amsterdam on January 20th. The defendant is Geert Wilders, an elected member of the Dutch Parliament. Wilders’ prosecution for crimes which include Inciting Hatred (which can be read as “Insulting Islam”) arise from Muslim objections to, and political pressure against, his fifteen minute movie “Fitna.” The film shows Koranic scriptures and depicts corresponding acts of Muslim violence against infidels. Wilders’ film speaks powerfully against the relentless Islamification of The Netherlands and of Europe. If convicted he faces up to two years in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsrealblog.com ...
No doubt Obama won't lift a finger lest his Islamic gumbahs be angered.
The Netherlands will soon learn the full extent of their incredible stupidity assuming they keep their heads. If they survive the coming war, they will make a statue for this man.
He should just get on a plane, fly to Mexico and come into America illegally to live and work like everyone else. That way, he could screw Europe and make some better money to boot.
Too bad Horowitz is using the popular Galileo myth to make his point. Historians of science know that the version presented by Horowitz was manufactured in the 19th Century. The heliocentric hypothesis wasn’t Galileo’s, but Copernicus’s. Copernicus’s work was sponsored by the church and was circulated for decades before Galileo came on the scene. Galileo did not have the data to show that the Ptolomaic model was wrong. In fact, the data that settled the matter didn’t exist until well after Galileo had died. Galileo was never thrown into a prison. During the trial he was kept in apartments with servants and after the trial was sent home with his pensions from the church intact. The conflict with the Pope, who was a supporter of the Aristolelian/Ptolomaic model, which was the received view in the universities of that time, had more to do with Galileo’s ego and his public ridicule of the Pope than any scientific issue. No, I am not Catholic.
It is shameful that my country - or I should say, the Labour government of my country - stopped Geert Wilders from entering.
Well, were did one think Orwell got his model from? It was all around him.
Anyways, elites are always anti-popular. Has been so since Rome. If they do anything it is to try to welfare, serf, slave the yeomanry by various schemes. Obama/Romney care as an example.
Actually, we are at the center of the universe.
Everything is at the center of the space-time continuum.
In fact, nothing moved from that Big Bang point.
There was no “space” to move to.
But everywhere you are, you are equidistant in time and space from the source
of the cosmic background radiation that is the “edge” of the universe.
Hence you are at its “center”.
Galileo was wrong.
But you're right. It bothers me when people refer to the Galileo episode without apparently bothering to find out what that was all about.
Even after Galileo's first trial (1616) Riceloll and other contemporaries of Galileo were well aware --- and were free to to declare--- that neither the pope nor any Church agency had made an anti-Copernican definition of doctrine. In other words, the geocentric theory was never "dogma," and the heliocentric theory per se was not regarded as heretical, let alone blasphemy.
Bellarmine told Galileo that if he just put up his evidence as supporting a hypothesis--- instead of claiming "absolute philosphical truth"--- there would be no problem.
As it happens, Galileo actually didn't have solid evidence: he said the rotation of the earth was proved by the tides sloshing around. His hypothesis (that the sun as the center of the Universe--- the Universe) was false. His conclusions about Scripture (an area in which he had no expertise) were spurious. And his other major claims --- at that time --- were poorly supported. And so, in the matter of science, Bellarmine actually had the better of the argument.
A weak pope (Urban VIII) nevertheless permitted a verdict that Galileo was "vehemently suspected" of heresy. (Convicted of being suspected! A stupid conclusion and unjust ruling, very much the product of academic rivalries and clerical factions, plus the fact that Galileo and Urban were both "vehemently" cranky.) The result was that Galileo was put under "house arrest" and permitted to stay in the houses of friends, always comfortable and usually luxurious.
Galileo continued both his work and his correspondance, enjoying both popularity and notoriety, and eventually Urban VIII sent Galileo his special blessing, a reconciliation of the two old men. When he passed away just before his 80 birthday, Galileo was interred not only in consecrated ground, but within the church of Santa Croce at Florence.
Not exactly canonization (for either Urban or Galileo!) but neither was it the melodramatic myth of "dogma" vs "science" as distorted by people who don't know jack chick about either.
Mind you, I love David Horowitz and consider him an activist with great integrity. I just don't like lazy libels serving as journalistic shorthand.
I had the same reservation about pushing the thread away from the Netherlands issue, but I find I have less and less patience with the people who repeat Enlightenment canards about science and other matters. In any event, the truth about the Galileo episode is much more interesting than the myth.
It is actually I and not David Horowitz who authored the posting in question. Thank you for taking the time to read my posting on David Horowitz’s NewsRealBlog.com., and for taking the time to comment here. I congratulate you on your knowledge of the details of Galileo’s ordeal. I did not have the time or space in my posting to delve into the entire history.
I believe the larger point here is that Galileo was in fact prosecuted for arguing in support of an idea (Copernicus’ heliocentric theory) that was controversial in his time. Geert Wilders is looking at two years in prison today for presenting incontrovertible facts for public inspection and debate about Muslim doctrine. We are well into the age of supposed enlightenment and Wilders’ prosecution seems medieval to me.
The point is inexplicably lost on some of my readers who are caught up in the historical minutiae of Galileo’s ordeal, rather than examining the travesty - putting someone in the 21st Century in jeopardy of imprisonment by criminal prosecution and trial, for making a public argument of ideas in defense of basic freedoms.
Best wishes,
JW
Achilles:
Thank you for reading my posting on David Horowitz’s NewRealBlog.com. I am the author, not Mr. Horowitz.
My source for what I presented is Douglas O. Linder, J.D., Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Missouri at Kansas City. You can delve into his background here:
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/linder.htm
Galileo was in fact under arrest by summons, in custody, albeit within the Florentine embassy. He was not free to leave. Galileo was held in the embassy from February 13, 1633, to two days after his sentencing, which took place on June 22, 1633. Following his sentencing, Galileo was released to the “custody” of the Florentine ambassador, thence six days later transferred to the custody of Archbishop Piccolomini at Sienna. He was granted permission in late 1633 to move into his farmhouse, where he died in 1642.
You’ve missed the much larger point.
Please see my response below to Dona-o for the rest.
Best wishes,
JW
I appreciate your comment. As I said, I didn’t want to take the focus off of the important issue of Geert Wilder’s trial. He deserves our support. He deserves to win, and to shame his accusers.
Thank you for reiterating that point.
I didn’t miss the larger point, if by that you mean the material on the Netherlands. While the developments there are lamentable, I chose not to comment on them. As for you, you chose a poor source on the Galileo controversy, and you will find that among serious historians of science that truth about the controversy has very little to do with the oft repeated canard about his “persecution” by the church.
I realize that this was not your main point and that the issue you did raise is currently much more important. I should also say that I don’t intend for what might seem to some a “quibble” to detract from the overall thrust of what you were trying to do. The situation in Europe over all is desperate, and it is becoming more so here daily.
I again thank you for reading, sir, and appreciate your time in debating here.
Best,
JW
Another great article on Geert Wilders here.
I’ll post it when I get back home tonight, but if you want to, why don’t you post it first!!
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjI0MTYxNjQxNThjMDQ0ZWU5ZTJiNDk4YzY4MWIxYTA=
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