Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acqq | Hacker News Reader

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No.

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-...

The text of the decision is relatively irrelevant. GP argues that the charge of heliocentrism was merely a pretext, and that the real reason was political, and that Galileo's heresy would have been overlooked if it wasn't for that.

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.

The text of the sentence is still very clear: heliocentric belief was officially and undeniably a heresy, the sentence banned Galileo's book and the heliocentric books, including the older one by Copernicus, remained officially banned by the Church for centuries afterwards:

"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've not questioned that. All I pointed out was that the text of the sentence is wholly irrelevant to the comment you replied to, as it was not trying to make the case that this was not banned or not what was officially used.

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.

> All I pointed out was that the text of the sentence is wholly irrelevant to the comment you replied to, as it was not trying to make the case that this was not banned or not what was officially used.

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".

> 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.

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.

> Merely that the text of the decision had no relevance to the original comment, and that stands.

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'.

> Wrong. The original comment claimed "for promoting heliocentrism. That is not why he was locked up."

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.

The person in question obviously never saw neither the text of the sentence nor heard about the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. And it seems that these that argue "that is not why" have the interest not to mention either of those.

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.

> The person in question obviously never saw neither the text of the sentence nor heard about the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. And it seems that these that argue "that is not why" have the interest not to mention either of those.

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.

Not taking sides in this particular dispute, but it's generally naive and incorrect historiography to take source documents at face value like this.

Sure, that's why you can check how long the heliocentric books (both Galileo's and of Copernicus too!) remained banned by the Church as heretical (until 1835, so Galileo's was banned for 202 years after the sentence), in spite of effectively everybody knowing that the heliocentric view is right: Newton's Principia was published in ‎1687 (completely protected from the Catholic influence), just 52 years after the sentence and almost 150 years before the Church's ban was lifted, and the Principia was giving the formulas to calculate how the planets, including Earth, exactly circle the Sun (more exactly, the center of the mass, determined by the much bigger mass of the Sun). The discovery of which had immense influence in the whole Europe, and even the formation of the US (by removing the religion from the Constitution of the state in 1789, also more decades before the Church ban was lifted. And some decades before the Constitution some America's non-Catholic priest claimed that Ben Franklin, by inventing the lighting rod, causes the God to make the bigger earthquakes instead of punishing the sinners with "just" the lightning strikes. That's how backwards were these who opposed the science, but they were very real. Almost like now).

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