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> Inquisition meant still burning or torturing people to death - or threatening of doing so, if they continue to speak heresy, like "the earth moves around the
by bobthechef 6y ago
> Inquisition meant still burning or torturing people to death - or threatening of doing so, if they continue to speak heresy, like "the earth moves around the sun".
A perfect example of the tidy little "big bad Church vs. SCIENCE (tm)" fables that refuse to die. The first problem with your statement is that somehow heliocentrism is heretical. Show me where this contradicts dogma. You can't because it's not true. A moment of reflection should make it obvious that it is utterly irrelevant, from a theological perspective, whether the ball of burning gas revolves around the rock or the rock resolves around the burning ball of gas. To claim that because the Bible uses language that speaks of the sun rising and setting, it must mean that such trivialities are theologically important is as absurd as claiming that geocentrism is widespread today because we still use that language. This is phenomenological and descriptive language that is only used as an occasion to convey some other point, not a scientific explanation. Common sense is easily blinded by bigotry.
> (Galileo and the Inquisition)
This whole "affair" actually lasted decades and really had nothing to do with heliocentrism. Galileo had made political enemies and was known for his harassment and vicious remarks directed at people in power, who, btw, were slow to anger; it took decades for him to finally be put under...house arrest overlooking the Vatican gardens. Seems pretty mild esp. given the witch hunts taking place in Protestant northern Europe at the time.
> Inquisition (which still exists today! only with no physical authority anymore) might be a bit missrepresented in their thirst for blood - but the harm they done over the centuries to free thinking and therefore advancement of science and technology and therefore progress of humanity as its whole - is something on its own validating their bad reputation.
Not this again. Show me where the brave, good, noble men of SCIENCE (tm) were prevented from climbing the hills of PROGRESS (tm) by the big, bad, mean old Church? If you peer a little more closely at the stock examples (Bruno is one), you find nothing of the sort. You find no such trend. This is a historically illiterate trope that, frankly, is embarrassing.
- goto11 6y agoThe church did also ban the astronomical works by Copernicus and Kepler.
- cygx 6y agoFor reference, here's an excerpt of Galileo's Papal Condemnation of 1633: > We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the said Galileo, by reason of the matters adduced in trial, and by you confessed as above, have rendered yourself in the judgment of this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely, of having believed and held the doctrine—which is false and contrary to the sacred and divine Scriptures—that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west and that the Earth moves and is not the center of the world; and that an opinion may be held and defended as probably after it has been declared and defined to be contrary to the Holy Scripture; [...]
- viklove 6y agoMan, reading this thread makes me feel like I'm on some pro-christian, fringe, conspiracy-theory subreddit. This is what HN has become? How weird.
- goto11 6y agoCatholic thinkers have been building a revisionist conternarrative to the prevalent "age of reason" narrative. The counter narrative is that the Church was actually the ones promoting science, Galileo was just being an asshole, and the inquisition was really a fair and decent institution which only tortured lightly and only burned people when it was absolutely unavoidable. But yeah, I am surprised how prevalent this thinking is here on HN.