Galileo & The Christian Church

The story below is an excerpt taken from Foxe's Book of Martyrs and is an account, published first in 1563, of the atrocities against humankind, committed by the Christian church in their effort to eliminate other religious and secular beliefs. Science was considered the enemy of the church, much as it is today, albeit the consequences were more harshly delivered.

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564 and died after having fever and heart palpitations on January 8, 1642. He was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher who played a major role in the Scientific Revolution. His achievements include improvements to the telescope and consequent astronomical observations resulting in his conclusion that the earth revolved around the sun. As noted below, it was this discovery that would put him at odds with the Christian church.

During the inquisition Church officials set no limits upon themselves regarding the tactics they would stoop to employ against those who were found guilty of any action or statement contradictory to "Holy Writ" or church dogma. As scripture attests on multiple occasions that the earth is still and the "sun moves across the sky", it was considered heresy to suggest otherwise - death could have easily been the result of such audacity by Galileo.

The account that follows provides a few short lines of insight into one instance of what happens when Christianity meets science. Sometimes it is easy to forget how far we have come as an intellectually advanced society and the efforts that were made to get us here. It is very easy to simply take all that we know know for granted. Someone dared to think beyond what was allowed. Cherish your right to think before you believe.

With All My Love,

Pappy 

The most eminent men of science and philosophy of the day did not escape the watchful eye of this cruel despotism. Galileo, the chief astronomer and mathematician of his age, was the first who used the telescope successfully in solving the movements of the heavenly bodies. He discovered that the sun is the center of motion around which the earth and various planets revolve. For making this great discovery Galileo was brought before the Inquisition, and for a while was in great danger of being put to death.

After a long and bitter review of Galileo's writings, in which many of his most important discoveries were condemned as errors, the charge of the inquisitors went on to declare, "That you, Galileo, have upon account of those things which you have written and confessed, subjected yourself to a strong suspicion of heresy in this Holy Office, by believing, and holding to be true, a doctrine which is false, and contrary to the sacred and divine Scripture- viz., that the sun is the center of the orb of the earth, and does not move from the east to the west; and that the earth moves, and is not the center of the world."

In order to save his life. Galileo admitted that he was wrong in thinking that the earth revolved around the sun, and swore that-"For the future, I will never more say, or assert, either by word or writing, anything that shall give occasion for a like suspicion." But immediately after taking this forced oath he is said to have whispered to a friend standing near, "The earth moves, for all that."