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Kirata -> RE: Pope Says God is Behind the Big Bang (2/10/2011 2:26:52 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GotSteel
The objections presented to Galileo during his trial for heresy were scriptural not observational and the scriptural statements are most certainly not things that could be determined through actual observation.
Actually, the objection presented was the then current interpretation of scripture, which was based on Aristotle. The Copernican view had its supporters, as did Galileo himself, but they were in the minority. Foscarini was one of them, to whom Cardinal Bellarmine wrote:
if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than what is demonstrated is false.
Unfortunately, the majority of the intellectuals in the Church at the time revered Aristotle, and were disinclined to open-mindedness. They knew that meditation was no different from huffing toxic fumes -- oops, I mean to say they knew that the Earth was the center of the universe -- Aristotle had declared it to be so, and there was no need to waste their time looking through some silly fellow's kalidescope -- oops, I mean telescope.
Thus deprived of his only defense, Galileo succumbed to the Inquisition. But, more in a pro forma way than might otherwise have been expected, and he continued to work and write until he died in 1642 at the age of 70.
It should be noted that Galileo was never in a dungeon or tortured; during the Inquisition process he stayed mostly at the house of the Tuscan ambassador to the Vatican and for a short time in a comfortable apartment in the Inquisition building. After the process he spent six months at the palace of Ascanio Piccolomini (c. 1590–1671), the archbishop of Siena and a friend and patron, and then moved into a villa near Arcetri, in the hills above Florence.
I realize, of course, that you would much rather blame scripture than Aristotle, but suck it up.
K.
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