The Galileo Controversy

Galileo is concerned with obtaining the truth about the world we live in, whether religion provides an answer or science. This is evident in the letter when he is discussing the “celestial bodies” concerning the work of Copernicus. Galileo believes that it would be wholly unjustified to ban Copernicus’ work after it has been confirmed over the years, he puts it: “in my judgement to be a contravention of the truth” if this were to occur. Basically Galileo believes if something is true, the basis of the truth either, religious or scientific is equally creditable. He further states that if scientific fact is unattainable, it must be a thing of faith and religion; “where human reasoning cannot reach” and there “is no science but only opinion of faith” the truth must be in the Scripture. This is demonstrated in the letter “whether the stars are animate” or “whether or not the heavens are spherical”. Galileo believes that ultimately that the science behind a phenomena will

In the letter Galileo explained that it would not matter if something in the Bible was disproven, the primary purpose of the Bible is salvation. He also believed that God gave him and others intellect. He reasoned that if God did not want people to gain knowledge, then God would not have gave them the ability to reason or the ability to make new discoveries. Galileo also believed that if the sacred scribes wanted us to have all the answers they would have written them, and that the Holy Ghost intended to only teach us how to get to heaven, not how heaven goes.

Galileo does not support religion because he is more focused on science. Galileo was going against the Holy Scripture and religion in general. This supports the connecting of science to religion negatively. Many people agree that science and religion were the same thing and if one idea parted from the other, it was considered

The letter was made public and Church Inquisition consultants pronounced Copernican theory heretical. In 1616, Galileo was ordered not to “hold, teach, or defend in any manner” the Copernican theory regarding the motion of the earth. Although it stopped Galileo from teaching what he believed for a few years, seven years later he would be right back on the same track.

Claim: Galileo was not really a heretic because he may have been trying to expand and interpretation of the Bible, and he most likely did not directly ever say that the Bible was wrong.

A quote that may support this theory comes from a document written by Galileo himself to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany. “Showing a greater fondness for their own opinions than for truth, they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them” (Document A). In the context, Galileo is saying how he had just proved this was the truth using math, science, and the technology he has available to him. Although these statements include evidence that can persuade one to believe Galileo was a not heretic, there is also compelling information that can prove

Galileo was seen as a heretic at first, causing the church to ban the spreading of his theory, but after several investigation they recognized that the Italian was truly correct. Galileo Galilei was once considered as a heretic, however, centuries proved that he was not a heretic, just a user of the mind’s inquistary that lead him to be scientifically

There were many who cited portions of scripture such as Joshua 10:13, which states “So the Sun stood still in the midst of heaven” (Joshua 10:13), and Isaiah 40:22, which states “he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” (Isaiah 40:22), as pieces of holy evidence to refute and definitely disprove the heliocentric theory as truth. However, Galileo could not easily be written off as a rambling, heretical madman either, seeing as his theories were first proposed by Nicolaus Copernicus, who was “not only a Catholic, but a priest and a canon.” (Galileo, Letter to Christina, 2) Even if Galileo was not a respected member of the Church, Copernicus was, and if his theories had originally been proposed by a Catholic canon, then it was harder to dismiss his ideas as heretical. Additionally, Galileo himself frequently offered to present others with evidence of the truth of his theories, stating “to the leading philosophers of the faculty here…I have offered a thousand times of my own accord to show my studies…” (Galileo, Letter to Kepler).

Galileo used a telescope and shined the sun’s rays onto a paper to see solar flares emit from off the sun’s surface, through this he proved that the sun was not only spherical but rotated. He found that many other celestial bodies orbiting things other than earth, which destroyed the previously accepted geocentric theory. Galileo wanted to reconcile scripture with his astronomical findings of the time. Galileo wrote a letter to a student to explain how Copernican theory was not going against Biblical passages, but rather that the scripture written was from an earthly perspective and that recommended that science gave an altered, more correct perspective. He faced hatred from the Vatican and was told not to teach of a heliocentric universe even with all of the evidence he had collected at the

Towards the conclusion of Galileo's letter he offers an argument of truths. The argument basically states this: if the truth of the Bible conflicts with the truth of fact, and two truths cannot contradict, then one or the other is wrong. Since the truth of fact cannot be wrong, except for ignorance, then the scientific interpretations found in the Bible may therefore be in err. Galileo's doesn't exactly feel that the Bible is wrong, he is just providing one more argument towards the difference in science and the Bible. The errors themselves, he states, are most likely due to the inability to "affirm that all

Even though Galileos beliefs were held in practicing Catholicsim, his writings were showing evidence for “Copernican heliocentrism.” The Catholic Church, however, disapproved of heliocentricity, feeling that it was contrary to the statements in the Bible: if God created human beings as His supreme creation, He would place man at the center of His cosmos. (At that time the more literal Biblical interpretation was prevalent with the church fathers, especially among the Dominican Order, facilitators of the Inquisition)2 However, real power layed with the Church, and Galileo's arguments were most fiercely fought on the religious level. Cardinal Robert Bellarmine insisted that Galileo furnish more adequate proof of his new theories before he would be allowed to teach them as true or even as probably true.

In summer of 1609, Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) pointed his revolutionary astronomical telescope to the heavens under the starry Venetian sky; his greatly important observations unveiled the mysteries of universe and would end up changing the course of scientific thought forever. Galileo lived in an age where there was much status quo, when scientists and philosophers would accept scientific and religious doctrine that had stood for hundreds, if not thousands, of years instead of challenging the accepted knowledge in favor of intellectual progress. Galileo’s scientific methods lead to significant discoveries explaining key scientific laws, such as the

Galileo's championing of heliocentrism and Copernicanism was controversial during his lifetime, when most subscribed to either geocentrism or the Tychonic system.[4] He met with opposition from astronomers, who doubted heliocentrism because of the absence of an observed stellar parallax.[4] The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly

According to Galileo, some people thought his teachings were heretical because several professors used Bible passages to support their arguments that the earth moves while the sun stands still. These professors may not have had a full understanding of what they were reading in the Bible (http://sheg.stanford.edu/). Galileo defends himself against the charges that are brought against him by saying that the Bible is complex and may say something different from which the words actually mean. He stated that he did not believe that God would give us reason, senses, and intellect and not expect us to use them. Based on the information given on the timeline, I do not think the Catholic Church would be accepting of Galileo’s

I sat on the left side of the theater down at the bottom while I was intrigued by the play Galileo.The play Galileo was about how Galileo attempted to pass on his heliocentric plans to the Catholic Church. Shockingly, things would not end to support him. In the start of the play, it depicts Galileo as a normal man with a youthful understudy. Galileo would, in the end, locate an amazing "discovery," and construct a telescope, the first of its kind. Or, then again, so they thought. All through the play, Galileo would need to defeat many obstacles keeping in mind the end goal to demonstrate his discoveries revise. Through the course of the play, I saw various things that emerged. The Catholic Church endeavored to inspire Galileo to reprove his thoughts. This is vital because this demonstrated how essential it was for the Catholic Church to keep up its picture. Had Galileo Proved them off-base about this, maybe they would begin to ponder what else the Catholic Church wasn't right about. The most critical thing to me was, telescopes had just been invented. History and many individuals acknowledge Galileo for the creation of the telescope. In fact, the telescope had just been concocted in Holland by Hans Lippershey