Bree

Geez. I used to tag along to CCD with my Catholic classmates, and I recall that the team leaders dragged evolution through the mud! Oh well, what the Pope says, goes.

Thanks, Rimstalker.

The Admiral

Yep, Gemma is right on that one point. The church does admit the truth of evolution but at some unknown point in time god inserted the soul into the evolving body. They got around to admiting it when the evidence became so overwhelming that they couldn't deny it any longer.

Another name for The Holy Office is The Inquisition and the threat of torture was always there.

Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 when Galileo was 36 years old.

The Admiral

ksagnostic

Some conservative American Catholics have not accepted evolution (because their political and social allies tend to be evangelical protestants who have never accepted evolution, so they assume that accepting evolution is not the "Christian" thing to do), but that has not been the position of the Church in Rome for a long time (or for that matter most Catholic teaching institutions in the US).

livius drusus

From Gemma's link:
I imagine Urban VIII would have had a hard time invoking the doctrine of Papal Infallibility considering that it didn't even exist until 1870. Pius IX pulled that one out of his pursed ass in reaction to the unification of Italy and the loss of his precious Papal states.

Facing the demise of the papacy as a political power after a dozen centuries of warmongering and intrigue, Pius locked himself up in the Vatican, called the First Vatican Council, and had himself and his Petrine heirs declared infallibile in matters of morals and doctrine. He then forbade all catholics from participating in the politics of the new nation, which was a wee troublesome considering virtually the entire population of Italy was (and still is, in a half-assed sort of way) catholic.

Pius IX is also responsible for the laughable doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the infamous kidnapping of the jewish boy Edgardo Mortara, revoking the civil rights of Jews and forcing the Roman ones back into the medieval ghetto. Not surprisingly, he was beatified in 2000 and will soon be added to the long illustrious list of violent, authoritarian, anti-semitic saints.

Reuter's article on the controversial beatification
Brief bio of Pius IX

wade-w

Then article you ask about is nothing more that an attempt at spin, as far as I can see. So, it was all right for Copernicus and Kepler to talk about heliocentrism as long as the discussion was restricted to mere specualtion. But the moment Gallileo advocated the truth of the heliocentric model, he was charged with heresy.

So the whole trial and heresy conviction was really Gallileo's fault for speaking the truth as he saw it, in spite of the church's official stance on the matter. If that isn't anti-science, I don't know what is.

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Hugo Holbling

Galileo's ideas were opposed at the time by empirical facts (as they were understood) and theoretical considerations; ergo, the actions of the church could not be construed as anti-science. Kuhn and Feyerabend have alot to say on this matter.

Anyway: where's Bede?

Vorkosigan

It would be a lot easier to maintain that position if the indictment wasn't for heresy and the specific heresy of maintaining that the earth moves, AND if the Church hadn't continued to teach geocentric science in its missions abroad until well into the 18th century.

Galileo's conviction and punishment also chilled the intellectual atmosphere throughout Europe. Kepler was also persecuted (he was a Protestant) and his mother was condemned as a witch in 1620 (Kepler defended her and got her off). Kepler was also the one who figured out that the AD calendric system was off by 4 years or so.

In any case Galileo was condemned in 1633. Kepler had already published major works in support of his system a decade earlier, including observations of the satellites of Jupiter and his major mathematical works. There's no way you could maintain in 1633 that the heliocentrism was inferior to geocentricism. 25 years earlier, possibly. But by that time, there was no mathematical question about it. Heliocentrism was clearly superior. Kepler had proved it in a series of works between 1617 and 1621.

Vorkosigan

Hugo Holbling

I was only refering to the time when Galileo first made his ideas known; anything later is beyond my pay band and is best directed to Bede, i'd say. I'm no expert here, but it can't hurt to jump in on the theist side once in a while.

Incidently, what do you make of Feyerabend's claims re: Galileo in his Against Method, assuming you've read it?

Happy New Year, Michael.

Hubble head

hahahah....were'd gemma go?

Bede

Well, I'm flattered to have my opinion sought out.

The link we started out with is undeniably apologetic but then so are some of the responces.

The reason Galileo was put on trial was that he was challenging the authority of too many powerful people. The science was irrelevant to the case as shown by the fact that evidence was probably faked and the Two World Systems already had its imprimatur when it was condemned!

It is true that Galileo lost the scientific argument (as proven by Feyerabend - thanks Hugo) but the error of the church was to make a short term victory into a long term defeat by throwing its authority behind a narrow interpretation. This was stupid but an inevitable effect of a non-accountable and defensive institution.

The longer term effects appear to have been fairly marginal. The Jesuits and every other Catholics used the copernican system but stated it was a useful fiction (which they admitted was, itself, a useful fiction). I have not had a chance to check Needham but from what I understand it, the Jesuits found the Chinese still believing in a flat earth and used the Ptolemaic system to teach navigation etc (where it is still used today for all intents and purposes). Galileo was the only scientist to ever be prosecuted for scientific ideas (Kepler was never persecuted for his science and of course, his mother's witch accusation was not connected to it at all). There is no evidence of a serious decline in science done by Catholics as the French and German experience proved.

Essentially the Galileo affair was a single isolated and very unfortunate event on which an enormous mythical edifice of the eternal conflict between science and religion has been built.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason