A new book on Renaissance mathematics makes a bold case
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The claim makes a ‘category error’, supposing that science and religion are trying to answer the same questions. This is not necessarily the case for all faith systems.
For example, I think it was Oxford mathematician John Lennox who said that he didn’t believe in a “God of the gaps” but a “God of the whole thing” - that he expects anything (within the limits of scientific explanation) can be explained by science and mathematics, but simultaneously believes the whole system was authored and is continually sustained by God.
For Christians and Jews at least, I wouldn’t expect that many people ever believed in God just because science couldn’t explain things (in comparison, I think a lot of polytheistic belief systems came out of trying to explain physical phenomena). It’s more the idea of revelation (through prophets etc.) and later the historical person of Jesus that would be the basis.
It stands to reason that a being that created order from chaos and gave form to the unformed would plausibly enjoy creating a universe that was internally consistent.
I don't understand why the universe needs to be mysterious or inconsistent to be created. I don't understand why it can't be (or at least seem to be) billion of years old for that matter.
That being said, I think God has to be a programmer - it’s the most efficient way to create something huge (the universe), while being predictable, and therefore knowing “everything”. The universe is just a huge - ok, really, really huge - state machine. And the programmer who wrote it can predict it’s state at any point of time.
This is the case now, precisely because any testable claim made by religion that conflicts with the evidence is eventually discarded. No amount of faith will let a demonstrably false claim stand indefinitely.
Sources: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_Galilei#Controversy_ov... [2] http://www.trutv.com/shows/adam-ruins-everything/blog/adams-...
Copernicus died 60 years before Galileo started promoting heliocentrism. Political organizations like the Catholic Church can change quite a bit in 60 years, so I don't think their approval of Copernicus is necessarily relevant to Galileo.
For a modern example of how far political organizations can change in 60 years, just look at the Republican Party in the United States. The 1956 Republican Party platform promoted • federal assistance to low income communities, • extending social security to 10 million more people and raising benefits to over 6 million people, • providing asylum for refugees, • raising the minimum wage and extending it to cover "as many more workers as is possible", • expanding the unemployment insurance system, • protecting the right of workers to organize into unions and collectively bargain, • and fighting for equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.
(I believe that Democrats have underwent changes as big over the last 60 years, too, but my Googling happened to find details for Republicans first so I went with them for the example).
http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-great-ptolemaic-smac...
"the reaction at the time was "WTF? Which heresy are you talking about here?"
But the exact heresy was explicitly and very clearly stated both in the sentence by the Inquisition:
"the above-mentioned Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you as above, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture."
And in Galileo's Abjuration:
"after having been judicially instructed with injunction by the Holy Office to abandon completely the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and does not move and the earth is not the center of the world and moves, and not to hold defend, or teach this false doctrine in any way whatever, orally or in writing; and after having been notified that this doctrine is contrary to Holy Scripture; I wrote and published a book in which I treat of this already condemned doctrine and adduce very effective reasons in its favor, without refuting them in any way"
The premise of the whole series by that author is also wrong, approximately, that because the parallax wasn't observed until around 1750 Galileo couldn't prove in 1633 that the Earth is not standing still, therefore the Church was right and it wasn't a matter of faith but a personal thing. It's obviously a completely invalid argument.
Your just saying if he would have kept enough political clout he could have got a pardon? Because the axe was falling once they felt he 'advocated'.
No, he would never have had anything to be pardoned from; he was largely protected by the Pope until the Pope was personally offended by the manner in which the Pope’s own argument was presented in one of Galileo’s works.
While heliocentrism was the superficial issue, Galileo’s punishment was in many ways about the failure to manage personal relations in a system that was not one governed by impersonal law (religious or otherwise) but by personal privilege and patronage.
"The decree of the Congregation of the Index banned Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and other heliocentric works until correction. Bellarmine's instructions did not prohibit Galileo from discussing heliocentrism as a mathematical and philosophic idea, so long as he did not advocate for its physical truth."
This was a political move, with heliocentrism being the vechicle.
I'm not sure of the answer to that, but if he wouldn't have, then it's more than reasonable to say that he was locked up because of the heliocentrism, and that there were broader reasons for their crackdown on things like heliocentrism.
An analogy: if we imagined, for the sake of the argument, that in the modern world, there are political motivations for cracking down on certain drugs. A person gets jailed for possession of one of these drugs. It's fair to say that possession of the drug was the reason they were jailed, and that the law behind it was politically motivated.
One famous weed smoker is protected by the police chief personally for some years... until he loses that protection. The actual parts of Galileo's sentence by the Inquisition:
"because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you as above, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. Consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated by the sacred canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents."
"so that this serious and pernicious error and transgression of yours does not remain completely unpunished, and so that you will be more cautious in the future and an example for others to abstain from similar crimes, we order that the book Dialogue by Galileo Galilei be prohibited by public edict."
"We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure."
The rest of the sentence is equally very clear. See my other post or Wikipedia for the link. Pope John Paul II, 1992: "The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture"
I mean: it was not a problem with heliocentrism (the jesuit scientists supported it), it was a problem of politics.
You can be right but do not expect the other party to absolve you if you insult it.
It surely was. Copernicus' book remained also banned by the Church for 202 years more after Galileo's sentence. That very sentence by the Inquisition directly banned Galileo's book and sentenced him to lifetime (house) imprisonment. It was so light because Galileo "abjured, cursed, and detested" his errors ("false opinion that the sun is the center"), and his Abjuration is also preserved (I quote parts of it):
"I, Galileo, son of the late Vincenzio Galilei of Florence, seventy years of age, arraigned personally for judgment, kneeling before you Most Eminent and Most Reverend Cardinals Inquisitors-General against heretical depravity in all of Christendom, having before my eyes and touching with my hands the Holy Gospels, swear that I have always believed, I believe now, and with God's help I will believe in the future all that the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church holds, preaches, and teaches. However, whereas, after having been judicially instructed with injunction by the Holy Office to abandon completely the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and does not move and the earth is not the center of the world and moves, and not to hold defend, or teach this false doctrine in any way whatever, orally or in writing; and after having been notified that this doctrine is contrary to Holy Scripture; I wrote and published a book in which I treat of this already condemned doctrine and adduce very effective reasons in its favor, without refuting them in any way; therefore, I have been judged vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed that the sun is the center of the world and motionless and the earth is not the center and moves.
Therefore, desiring to removed from the minds of Your Eminences and every faithful Christian this vehement suspicion, rightly conceived against me, with a sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the above-mentioned errors and heresies, and in general each and every other error, heresy, and sect contrary to the Holy Church"
Taking this from another angle, you say "He was given the way out of stating it as a Hypothesis." A "way out" implies there was something wrong done -- presenting a heliocentric view -- that you can get out of being punished for.
They favoured the Tychonic model, which was geocentric.
He could havo got away with everything just saying “if this is true then...” But he did not.
And turns out it was not because of “honesty”...
Not that the other party was quite honest anyway.
The very Wikipedia article that you linked to clearly does not support your claim (1).
More important, the very text of the 1633 sentence by the Inquisition is available online, the link is in the Wikipedia article, so everyone can check the original 1633 text (translated by Maurice A. Finocchiaro)! (2)
In short (summarizing the Wikipedia article):
- In February 1616, an Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism heresy
- in February 1633 [Galileo] was brought before inquisitor Vincenzo Maculani to be charged for his acts he committed since then.
- "Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", namely of having held the opinions that the Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe, that the Earth is not at its centre and moves, and that one may hold and defend an opinion as probable after it has been declared contrary to Holy Scripture. He was required to "abjure, curse and detest" those opinions"
- "He was sentenced to formal imprisonment at the pleasure of the Inquisition."
- "His offending [book] Dialogue was banned"
The whole text of the 1633 sentence is available online (see the Wikipedia article for the link)! Some crucial parts of it, quoted:
- "We say, pronounce, sentence, and declare that you, the above-mentioned Galileo, because of the things deduced in the trial and confessed by you as above, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspected of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine which is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: that the sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and the earth moves and is not the center of the world, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. Consequently you have incurred all the censures and penalties imposed and promulgated by the sacred canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents."
- "We condemn you to formal imprisonment in this Holy Office at our pleasure"
---
1) your claim, quoting: "Galileo being locked up for promoting heliocentrism. That is not why he was locked up." The very sentence by the Inquisition is explicitly the opposite of that claim of yours.
2) Just in case, here is an alternative link to the full 1633 sentence: http://www.creatinghistory.com/galileo-galileis-sentence-22-...
I don't know if that's correct or not, but it's not like they would admit in the decision that the choice to prosecute was because he'd said mean things about the pope.
"Copernicus's De Revolutionibus and Galileo's Dialogue were then subsequently omitted from the next edition of the Index [of the prohibited books by the Catholic church] when it appeared in 1835." It's 202 years after the sentence.
Read also Galileo's Abjuration, dated 22 June 1633, which I quote in my other message here, which allowed him to get only house arrest. Also read the details, the book Galileo published actually initially passed the official Church censorship and got banned only afterwards, he managed that far as he hasn't too directly advocated the heliocentric view, had followed the required form, revised his work to meet censors' objections, and obtained a license. It was not enough. The sentence wasn't that he was proven a heretic, but that he "showed" the heretical beliefs "as probable" and that he did it as an offender under previous injunction, which he failed to mention:
"the said certificate you produced in your defense aggravates your case further since, while it says that the said opinion is contrary to Holy Scripture, yet you dared to treat of it, defend it, and show it as probable; nor are you helped by the license your artfully and cunningly extorted since you did not mention the injunction you were under."
I also made no claim whatsoever about whether or not the original comment you replied to was correct, so I'm not sure why you're trying to continue to discuss that with me.
And your point is still wrong, as the original comment mentioned Copernicus as somehow not problematic for the Church, and Galileo being sentenced only because he was annoying or something.
The actual fact is that not only Galileo's but the Copernicus' book remained banned by he Church for the next 200 years after the sentence, in spite of the scientific discoveries in these 200 years.
Also, the "comment" I "replied to" claimed explicitly that it is "a false story about Galileo being locked up for promoting heliocentrism. That is not why he was locked up." Which is provably wrong by reading the sentence. It is completely relevant, as is the status of the sentence in the Church in the next almost four centuries: Heliocentric just means "the sun in the center". There is surely a broader background behind, but Galileo was explicitly and provably sentenced by the Inquisition for, in the very words of the sentence:
"vehemently suspected of heresy" "that the sun is the center of the world"
Note, he was explicitly sentenced for being "vehemently suspected of heresy" which was for the Church at that time significant, being "vehemently suspected" was one of the different levels of punishable acts. The Christianity has traditionally the concept of mere thoughts being a direct punishable sin:
From the Christ's words from "Sermon on the Mount": "but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28) And adultery is the sin from the 10 commandments. The direct words of both the Father and the Son.
Which heresy it was, was in the sentence explicitly stated: "that the sun is the center of the world" (i.e. heliocentric world).
It was explicitly not just "because he was pretty antagonizing to the pope of the time" as the ban of Galileo's book in the very sentence, and the ban of Copernicus' book, both of which lasted for the 200 years after the sentence, are an obvious proof, and also that the Church kept that sentence valid for centuries:
Only in 1990ies, 350 years later, 25 years after the first Moon landing, the Church only a bit distanced itself from the sentence of Galileo, through the words of Pope John Paul II, who admitted that "the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth" (i.e were against the heliocentric view) made an "error".
It is as direct and explicit as it can be. And it was obvious for 350 years, definitely not only to "the pope of the time".
You keep belaboring things I have not argued against at all. I very specifically pointed out I took no stance on whether or not the claims were correct. Merely that the text of the decision had no relevance to the original comment, and that stands.
No amount of arguing against the rest of that persons original argument makes my point wrong. It may make that persons argument wrong, but take that that up with them, not me.
Wrong. The original comment claimed "for promoting heliocentrism. That is not why he was locked up."
The text of the sentence with which Galileo was "locked up" contains specifically the "crime" for which he was sentenced:
"vehemently suspected of heresy" "that the sun is the center of the world"
Moreover, heliocentric just means "the Sun is the center."
This is in any imaginable case "relevant" for the starting claim. And I have already explained the details that prove not only that it's "relevant" but that it remained of highest relevance for the Church (which made that sentence) for centuries that followed.
Not only is that "why" Galileo "was locked up" it's why his book remained on the index of the books banned by the Church for the following 200 years, together with Copernicus'.
That's only wrong if you accept that the text of the decision is the true reason he was locked up. The person in question did not accept that, hence quoting the decision remains irrelevant.
And even if we assume that the given "person didn't accept" something so blatant, that fact is definitely not enough to allow anybody (including you) to claim that the text of the sentence is actually irrelevant. Being in denial doesn't make your argument more valid, quite the opposite.
So argue that with them, not with me, as I've not argued "that is not why" at any point.
> And even if we assume that the given "person didn't accept" something so blatant, that fact is definitely not enough to allow anybody (including you) to claim that the text of the sentence is actually irrelevant.
I didn't claim it is "actually irrelevant". I very narrowly claimed it is irrelevant to the argument put forward in the comment you originally replied to.
To try one last time to make this clear to you:
The original comment implies that the real reason is different from that stated in the verdict. The text of the verdict can not be authoritative on that, because the implied claim is that the reason given in the verdict was an excuse.
You may very well have good arguments for why the verdict was the real reason, but I did not at any point question whether or not the verdict was the real reason.
I only pointed out that if someone questions whether or not the crime stated in the verdict was the real reason for prosecuting him, the text of the verdict itself is not relevant as a counter-argument, because what they are questioning is not addressed by the verdict at all. He can be 100% guilty in line with the verdict, and the original argument could still be true (again: I'm not arguing it is), so to counter the original argument, quoting the verdict is irrelevant.
Nothing you say can change that - it's not a matter of opinion.
> Being in denial doesn't make your argument more valid, quite the opposite.
Failing to understand the argument you're responding to doesn't make your argument more valid either.
This is my final word on it, as we're going in circles as long as you keep failing to understand the argument.
“Laplace went in state to Napoleon to accept a copy of his work, and the following account of the interview is well authenticated, and so characteristic of all the parties concerned that I quote it in full. Someone had told Napoleon that the book contained no mention of the name of God; Napoleon, who was fond of putting embarrassing questions, received it with the remark, ‘M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.’ Laplace, who, though the most supple of politicians, was as stiff as a martyr on every point of his philosophy, drew himself up and answered bluntly, ‘Je n’avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là.’ ['I had no need of that hypothesis.'] Napoleon, greatly amused, told this reply to Lagrange, who exclaimed, ‘Ah! c’est une belle hypothèse; ça explique beaucoup de choses.’ ['Ah, it is a fine hypothesis; it explains so many things.']”
What’s more, I believe I’ve read that most of the “conflict” between religion and science has been overblown. The environment of opposition we sometimes see today didn’t really begin to manifest itself until the 19th and 20th centuries.
Calculus shows you that complex outcomes can result from quite simple causes.
Just because I rolled a ball downhill, doesn't mean I was solely responsible for starting it, but worked in tandem with the laws of nature that exists. Nor am I the god of the effects, just because I was an instigator.