4 ms·

They have come a long way since convicting Galileo of "a strong suspicion of heresy".

by NoSalt 1y ago

michaelsbradley 1y ago
Well, science came a long way in general. There were a number of objections to Galileo's ideas that were not religiously motivated. See The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown, in 9 parts, a must read! Part 1: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 2: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-down-for.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 3: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-great.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 4: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-down-n.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 5: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-heres-mud.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 6: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/6-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-comet.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/6-great-ptolemaic-smackd... Part 7: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/7-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-time-and_29.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/7-great-ptolemaic-smackd... Part 8: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/8-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-trial-and.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/8-great-ptolemaic-smackd... Part 9: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/9-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-from.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/9-great-ptolemaic-smackd...
lordleft 1y ago
Galileo's treatment by the Church was abominable, but it's often forgotten that the Church not only drew the lines of permissible thought, but also served as the primary vehicle for advancing and enabling the life of the mind through its patronage of the university system. It was not merely an oppressor, nor just a benevolent enabler; it was somehow both.
- TimTheTinker 1y ago
  When the church stopped being the arbiter of permissible thought, other arbiters rushed in to fill the void -- such is human nature. The question is not whether such institutions exist in society, but who they are at present.
- pwil30 1y ago
  FWIW, The Vatican Observatory had an interesting podcast series discussing the "real story" of the Church v. Galileo: Pt 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BNHHy5etQc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BNHHy5etQc Pt 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FYYB9kqkE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FYYB9kqkE4
lo_zamoyski 1y ago
This is an unfortunate piece of propaganda popularized by foes of the Church. Its stickiness is partly due to its role as a founding myth of the "faith as enemy of science" mythology which tries to reverse the facts by arrogating rationality and science onto itself and presents the Catholic Church as the great mythic foe of darkness from which science was liberated. On the contrary, it is in the bosom of the Church that intellectual life flourished in Europe. Scholastic thought brought to fruition a degree of rigorous thinking unseen before. It worked out the intellectual foundations that made modern science possible. As Stanley Jaki argues, despite the obvious ingenuity of various ancient cultures and civilizations, science never really took off anywhere else to become a sustained enterprise. This is not a coincidence, but a result of worldview and beliefs about the nature of reality, the possibility of knowledge, and the point of human existence. If you believe reality is fickle and unintelligible, if you believe life runs in circles and leads nowhere, you will have little motivation to pursue science. Where Galileo is concerned, the whole affair was hardly a matter of science. Galileo was notoriously cantankerous, and it was his habit of insulting and assaulting public figures (which included some who were his friends) that landed him in hot water. (Public insults were his way of responding to people who either disagreed with his unproven claims, ones he pushed aggressively, or tried to explain to him that he had not actually demonstrated his claims.) Heliocentrism was not heretical, so there was no possible doctrinal basis for accusing him of heresy. And the penalty was that an old man was put under house arrest in a comfy apartment overlooking the Vatican gardens. Whatever you might say about the justice of the penalty, given the norms of the day (witch hunts in Northern Europe anyone?), this was relatively mild, and nothing to do with "science".
- aruggirello 1y ago
  > This is an unfortunate piece of propaganda popularized by foes of the Church As is/was at least in part, with the Inquisition's tools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden
  - Apocryphon 1y ago
    Okay the Inquisition doubtless tortured some folks but you picked the worst example to make your point- > Despite its reputation as a medieval instrument of torture, there is no evidence of the existence of iron maidens before the 19th century.

They have come a long way since convicting Galileo of "a strong suspicion of heresy".

by NoSalt 1y ago

They have come a long way since convicting Galileo of "a strong suspicion of heresy".

Well, science came a long way in general. There were a number of objections to Galileo's ideas that were not religiously motivated. See The Great Ptolemaic Smackdown, in 9 parts, a must read! Part 1: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 2: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-down-for.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 3: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-great.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 4: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-down-n.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 5: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-heres-mud.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-great-ptolemaic-smac... Part 6: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/6-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-comet.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/6-great-ptolemaic-smackd... Part 7: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/7-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-time-and_29.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/09/7-great-ptolemaic-smackd... Part 8: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/8-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-trial-and.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/8-great-ptolemaic-smackd... Part 9: http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/9-great-ptolemaic-smackdown-from.html http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/9-great-ptolemaic-smackd...

lordleft 1y ago

Galileo's treatment by the Church was abominable, but it's often forgotten that the Church not only drew the lines of permissible thought, but also served as the primary vehicle for advancing and enabling the life of the mind through its patronage of the university system. It was not merely an oppressor, nor just a benevolent enabler; it was somehow both.

TimTheTinker 1y ago
When the church stopped being the arbiter of permissible thought, other arbiters rushed in to fill the void -- such is human nature. The question is not whether such institutions exist in society, but who they are at present.
pwil30 1y ago
FWIW, The Vatican Observatory had an interesting podcast series discussing the "real story" of the Church v. Galileo: Pt 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BNHHy5etQc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BNHHy5etQc Pt 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FYYB9kqkE4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FYYB9kqkE4

lo_zamoyski 1y ago

This is an unfortunate piece of propaganda popularized by foes of the Church. Its stickiness is partly due to its role as a founding myth of the "faith as enemy of science" mythology which tries to reverse the facts by arrogating rationality and science onto itself and presents the Catholic Church as the great mythic foe of darkness from which science was liberated. On the contrary, it is in the bosom of the Church that intellectual life flourished in Europe. Scholastic thought brought to fruition a degree of rigorous thinking unseen before. It worked out the intellectual foundations that made modern science possible. As Stanley Jaki argues, despite the obvious ingenuity of various ancient cultures and civilizations, science never really took off anywhere else to become a sustained enterprise. This is not a coincidence, but a result of worldview and beliefs about the nature of reality, the possibility of knowledge, and the point of human existence. If you believe reality is fickle and unintelligible, if you believe life runs in circles and leads nowhere, you will have little motivation to pursue science. Where Galileo is concerned, the whole affair was hardly a matter of science. Galileo was notoriously cantankerous, and it was his habit of insulting and assaulting public figures (which included some who were his friends) that landed him in hot water. (Public insults were his way of responding to people who either disagreed with his unproven claims, ones he pushed aggressively, or tried to explain to him that he had not actually demonstrated his claims.) Heliocentrism was not heretical, so there was no possible doctrinal basis for accusing him of heresy. And the penalty was that an old man was put under house arrest in a comfy apartment overlooking the Vatican gardens. Whatever you might say about the justice of the penalty, given the norms of the day (witch hunts in Northern Europe anyone?), this was relatively mild, and nothing to do with "science".

aruggirello 1y ago
> This is an unfortunate piece of propaganda popularized by foes of the Church As is/was at least in part, with the Inquisition's tools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_maiden
- Apocryphon 1y ago
  Okay the Inquisition doubtless tortured some folks but you picked the worst example to make your point- > Despite its reputation as a medieval instrument of torture, there is no evidence of the existence of iron maidens before the 19th century.