Conversation Among Friends - vatican - Comments

Attack by Theologians

Joey — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:57:05 -0400

Galileo was never "attacked by theologians" as the first article states.

Galileo pushed the issue on the Church - the discussion could have stayed in the realm of science. But even scientists were not accepting heliocentricity.

I think if you attack religion from the perspective of science you should have some evidence. Galileo did not - yet insisted and insulted - he was arrogant and wrong and demanding. So, he got his case heard, he had no evidence, and he was denied - tell me again what the Church did wrong here. . . ???

i did..

Peter — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 19:30:26 -0400

..judge for myself. that the church did slam Galileo is beyond doubt. pope JP II would not have apologized if that hadn't been the case.

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo for an astonishingly detailed summary.

frankly, the church has no business citing scientists before a tribunal and issuing gag orders. whether Galileo was a prick or not is beside the point, and whether he was right or wrong is also.

however, i did not put up the article to show that the church had sinned. i know that the church is full of sinners (volunteers, anybody?). all people sin, and even popes are people. it's simply an interesting thing that the vatican actively gets involved in science. i approve. very laudable.

Galileo summary

Joey — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:07:02 -0400

Here is the story on Galileo.

You judge for yourself. I'll comment later.

history?

Peter — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 13:26:17 -0400

JS - what history books are you reading? that Galileo was put in front of a tribunal is i think universally acknowledged...

Galileo distortion

Joey — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 09:40:19 -0400

The Papal Astronomy article contains a typical distortion:

"Galileo was later attacked by Catholic theologians who held that his theories went against scripture, and was eventually tried for heresy by the Inquisition."

This is not true. This is the same dumb lie that serious historians gave up on decades ago. This is just junk reporting - then some pseudo-intellectual is going to pick this up and think it's true.

Notice how the article fails to mention that Kepler got his telescope via the Jesuits.