-Perhaps I should clarify--you keep saying "used force." I see force as being torture, death, etc. He was not forced in that sense. You must see that the Protestant Reformation drastically changed things, and that he COULD have left the Church, and the Church WOULDN'T have been able to try him. I brought up Luther because he managed to dissent from the Church (he and countless others) and the Church did what? Sure there were religious wars from both sides. How can the Church arrest and jail someone for heresy if that person is not Catholic? They can call them heretics all they want--where is the force? What happened to Luther--shouts of heresy and...? He could easily have gone to a symapthetic Protestant country, but he still would have had the academics and scientists to contend with.
-He had EVIDENCE but not PROOF. He couldn't PROVE that the evidence showed he was right. And don't get into the "theory isn't fact" argument (particularly on this thread). that is a whole other can of worms. The FACT is he couldn't PROVE he was right--there's lots of evidence for evolution, that doesn't make it a FACT. There's lots of evidence against evolution, doesn't make it fact (or not a fact, as it were)...
-Ah, so the Church had supreme temporal power in the AREA, not on the Continent as you first asserted (I'm reading into what you said--you never said continent, you just said "law of the land" or somesuch). Fact remains it was in power. Was it right? Nope--the Sun is the center of our solar system. Was it within its rights at that time? Yep. Was it a mistake--depends on how you look at it. It was right to not want to take 1500 years of scientific and religious teachings and toss them out because of the (unproven) writings of one man. You also keep forgetting that professors, scientists, and religious alike opposed Galileo. Professors and scientists had professional power over him, the Church had temporal. And, tying in with another point, the Church was a patron (no, not THE patron, A patron) of science and as such had every right to say what its money paid for--Galileo was teaching AS FACT something he could not PROVE and which was contrary to the Church's teaching. It's not only about money, but you are questioning their "right" to put him on trial. And what you seem to miss is that he was put ON TRIAL. If it was half as oppressive and angry as you make it out to be, he'd have been locked away and burned at the stake...
-Given the history, it's fair to assume that Protestants would've reacted the same way, as would've Muslims (well, maybe not Muslims...) If he was Protestant and in England, he likely would've felt the same fury as he felt in Italy. The Church was not alone in its opposition to his assertions!!! He was teaching as fact that which was not clearly proven as such--NO ONE accepted it. Copernicus' work was well know, and the Church had not problem with it being taught or written about as long as it was presented as hypothesis, that which needs to be proven, not FACT.
The rest of your post is hardly worth response--I am not a theocrat. I am just able to recognize circumstances as they applied at that time. You apply our conception of the world, of mankind, to a world vastly different and hundreds of years old. The biggest problem I have with the "Galileo Affair" is people who use it as PROOF that the Church is hostile to science (who, when pressed, can only come up with Galileo as the PROOF that the Church is hostile to science...) We can apply whatever norms or beliefs we want to their action, but they will be inaccurate if they are not compatible with the age. We can speak with moral indignation about all sorts of things but have to look at how people of the day viewed them as well. Was the Church wrong? Of course. Should it have more speedily accepted Copernicus' theory and Galileo's work? Yep. Did it have the right to defend its teachings? Yep. Was it alone in its criticism of Galileo? Nope.
PleasepleasepleasepleasePLEASE go to this site:
http://www.catholicleague.org/research/galileo.html
It mentions that "The Hammer" Bellarmine said himself that if Galileo was right then interpretation of Scripture was wrong. But it had to be PROVEN that Galileo was right, something Galileo was unable to do.
I am of the same mine--the Bible is a blueprint for morality, not science. They misinterpreted it and acted on the faulty interpretation. The Church was not alone in that, but is also not innocent. But, again, if we take the worldview of the day, the Church was suffering from the schism of Protestantism, the 30 Years' War, and the various challenges to its authority, so it is understandable that they were...hyper...in their defense of their teachings. Does that make the Galileo trial right? Nope. But it is understandable. THAT is all I am after--recognition that it was a different age in every way conceivable.
Singling out the Church is anti-Catholic--who cares if your family's Catholic. EVERYONE, religious and secular alike, who dealt with this issue opposed Galileo. The Church was not alone, so cannot, therefore, be singled out. They merely acted on the matter within their realm of power.
SUMMARY POINTS
*The trial of Galileo in 1633 has been an anti-Catholic bludgeon aimed at the Church. Galileo has become an all-encompassing trump card, played whether the discussion is over science, abortion, gay rights, legalized pornography, or simply as a legitimate reason for anti-Catholicism itself.
*The myth of Galileo is more important than the actual events that surrounded him. Galileo represents the myth of the Church at war with science and enlightened thought.
*Most of the early scientific progress in astronomy was rooted in the Church. Galileo would attempt to prove the theories of a Catholic priest who had died 20 years before Galileo was born, Nicholas Copernicus. Copernicus argued for an earth that orbited the sun, rather than a fixed earth at the center of the cosmos.
*Copernicus died in 1543 and the Church raised no objections to his revolutionary hypothesis as long as it was presented as theory. The difficulty that both the Church – and the leading Protestant reformers – had with the theory is that it was perceived as not only contradicting common sense, but Scripture as well.
*The myth we have of Galileo is that of a renegade who scoffed at the Bible and drew fire from a Church blind to reason. In fact, he remained a good Catholic who believed in the power of prayer and endeavored always to conform his duty as a scientist with the destiny of his soul.
*In 1615, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine noted that if the Copernican theory was ever proven then it would be necessary to re-think the interpretation of certain Scriptural passages.
*In February 1616, a council of theological advisors to the pope ruled that it was bad science and quite likely contrary to faith to teach as fact that the sun was at the center of the universe, that the earth is not at the center of the world, and that it moves. *Galileo’s name or his works were never mentioned in the edict, nor was the word "heresy" ever employed. This led Galileo to believe that he could still consider the Copernican theory as hypothesis.
*Galileo met with Pope Urban VIII and believed he had permission to re-visit the Copernican debate.
*In 1632, Galileo published the Dialogue. The Dialogue could be read as a direct challenge to the 1616 edict, as it forcefully argued the truth of the Copernican system. It was greeted with skepticism from the Church and the scientific community of the day.
*In his trial in 1633, Galileo was found "vehemently suspected of heresy" in teaching as truth that the earth moves and is not the center of the world. He was found guilty in persisting in such teaching when he had been formally warned not to do so in 1616. His book was prohibited, he was ordered confined to formal imprisonment, to publicly renounce his beliefs, and to perform proper penance.
*The finding against Galileo was hardly infallible. The condemnation had little to do with defining doctrine. It was the finding of one canonical office, not a determination by the Church, that set out a clear doctrinal interpretation.
*While Galileo would continue to conduct important scientific studies – and publish books on those studies – the fact remains that his condemnation was unjust. The theologians who interrogated him acted outside their competence and confused the literary nature of Scripture with its theological intent.
*Galileo died in 1642. In the 19th century, "scientism" became its own religion. In an era where intellectuals viewed science and scientific method as the only means to attain truth, Galileo was resurrected and canonized a martyr.
*The trial of Galileo is most often portrayed in terms that it clearly was not: Galileo the scientist arguing the supremacy of reason and science over faith; the tribunal judges demanding that reason abjure to faith. The trial was neither. Galileo and the tribunal judges shared the view that science and the Bible could not stand in contradiction.
*The mistakes that were made in the trial came from Galileo’s own personality and acerbic style, the personal umbrage of Pope Urban VIII who believed Galileo had duped him, jealous competitive scientists, and tribunal judges who erroneously believed that the universe revolved around a motionless earth and that the Bible confirmed such a belief.
*Galileo had not succeeded in proving the double motion of the Earth. More than 150 years still had to pass before such proofs were scientifically established.
*"Theologians…failed to grasp the profound, non-literal meaning of the Scriptures when they describe the physical structure of the created universe. This led them unduly to transpose a question of factual observation into the realm of faith." (Cardinal Paul Poupard in his presentation to Pope John Paul II on the results of the papal-requested Pontifical Academy study of the Galileo trial.)
*If there is a war between science and religion, it is not a battle based on any denial from the Church of the need for scientific progress. Rather, it is from certain segments of the scientific community that have adopted a religion of science that scornfully disregards religious faith. It is far more common today for certain scientists to declare war on faith, than faith to object to science and its search for truth.