Galileo was the Roman Catholic Christian who had to straighten out the scientists of his day and age, who actually believed the Sun revolved around the Earth! The Christian Galileo pointed out their stupidity and their ignorance. Once again, it was a Christian who triumphed over the gross ignorance of the scientists of the day.
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Being Christian does NOT mean being anti-science (well, at least it does not HAVE to mean that), and being a scientist does not mean being anti-Christian (though the fundies are doing their darnedest to tempt them in this direction).
Sure, Galileo was a Christian (like pretty much the entire population of Europe at that time), and he was also a real scientist, at a time when few people yet were doing anything that nowadays would be recognized as real science. Sure, he did point out the errors of his colleagues, AS ANY GOOD SCIENTIST SHOULD DO -- and in retaliation for his doing so, the Christian church arrested him, threatened him, and imprisoned him, and came very close to killing him for it.
In this situation, Christianity can claim no credit or glory whatsoever. Galileo was undeniably the hero, and the Christian church was the villain. Don't ever forget that.
~David D.G.
So! This is the fundies' new tactic - if they can't defeat science, they'll try to claim it for themselves. Nice try, NA... and what an ironic name for a Christian, considering all the fun stuff that was done to them in the name of the Church.
David D.G. Have I told you lately how much I fucking love you?
Now let's see what british stand-up comedian Eddie Izzard has to say about Gallileo:
"Anyway, Galileo was there, Galileo, Galilii, Galilorum, Galilis, Galilis, Galilis. Who was a declension. And he looked at the stars and said, "I think, I think the Earth goes round the sun." And the Pope was overjoyed at the truth of his words. And put him under house arrest for 20 years. That Pope has been renamed Pope Shit-for-brains the ninth."
"In this situation, Christianity can claim no credit or glory whatsoever. Galileo was undeniably the hero, and the Christian church was the villain. Don't ever forget that."
Well, Galileo was following Augustine's policy of scripture interpretation to allow poetic freedom to the verses in question. This way of reading in conjuction with Bacon's (another Christian) ideas of reasoned experimentation, influenced Galileo greatly. This seems to give most of the credit to Christianity and ideas directly related to it. I think the real villian you are looking for is the Catholic church's rule. They were the Fundies of that time who had plenty of scientists (not like modern scientists, not using Bacon's ideas) working for them. NA's comments may not be worded the best way, but are fairly accurate.
He got one thing right, Galileo was a Christian. But he was the only Christian who didn't believe in the Geocentric theory. And because of that he was discredited and placed under house arrest by the Church, and it wasn't until 1996 that the Pope finally admitted Galileo was right.
As Adrian pointed out, if "good Christian" Galileo was there to straighten out the stupid heathens it seems to have backfired incredibly, scientists had overwhelmingly switched to heliocentric models before Galileo's enforced recantation in 1633 (Kepler's influential work on Copernican systems, invoking elliptical orbits and explaining his planetary laws for the first time, had been circulating for about 15 years by then). Newton's gravitational explanation of Kepler's laws, published less than 50 years after Galileo's death, in 1687, shut the door on geocentrism for good.
Yet it was another 309 years before the Christian church of which Galileo was a member would formally admit that he was right. In the gross ignorance stakes, the RCC wins hands down over the most stubborn renaissance scientist.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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