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To: GCC Catholic

Galileo was no pompous ingrate...you must be thinking of Newton. Galileo, naive as he was, went out of his way not to offend. His only crime was standing up for his beliefs...the “truth” as it turned out. He was only affirming his agreement with a predecessor.


48 posted on 11/03/2012 10:05:08 PM PDT by gorush (History repeats itself because human nature is static)
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To: gorush
For all to see: Galileo on Wikipedia

Read it yourself. Galileo had sympathies of Cardinal Barberini (later Urban VIII) and Cardinal Bellarmine. The relevant paragraph:

Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton".[56] This portrayal of Simplicio made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book.[57] However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings. (emphases mine)

To sum up the whole incident:

Galileo was brilliant, and he had work that deserved respect; however, I won't defend the man or his assertion of "truth" that was rooted more in pride of his own correctness than in data.

Actually, in some ways, his lack of docility is similar to the lack of docility that is shown by some of the people mentioned in the original article.

50 posted on 11/03/2012 10:40:38 PM PDT by GCC Catholic (Romney/Ryan 2012)
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To: gorush
Galileo, naive as he was, went out of his way not to offend.

You are an idiot.

56 posted on 11/04/2012 12:08:52 AM PDT by A.A. Cunningham (Barry Soetoro is a Kenyan communist)
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