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Church v. Galileo, etal

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AmbiguousGuy

Well-Known Member
Whose side did God take in the conflict between Galileo and the Catholic Church?

I’ve got an answer if anyone wants to discuss it, but I’m curious what others think about it.

This isn’t about guilt or blaming the Church for anything. It is what it is. I’m just wondering whether God’s Interests were best served by Galileo or by the Church.
 
Mister Emu

Mister Emu

Emu Extraordinaire
Staff member
Premium Member
Galileo was put under house arrest more for insulting the Pope(even though it was unintentional) than heliocentricism...
 
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AmbiguousGuy

Well-Known Member
Mister Emu said:
Galileo was put under house arrest more for insulting the Pope(even though it was unintentional) than heliocentricism...
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Hi, Mister Emu. Since we seem to be distracted from the issue by matters of conflicting fact, could we turn it into a hypothetical?

Let's imagine that it happened as Wiki and most history books claim it did -- even if those facts aren't true. Let's pretend that the Church repressed and silenced Galileo for pushing heliocentricism.

Do you have an opinion as to whether Galileo or whether the Church was best fighting for God's best interests?
 
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AmbiguousGuy

Well-Known Member
tumbleweed41 said:
I would assume, If God was interested, that God would side with the truth of his own natural physical laws than with the misconceptions of man.
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Yeah, that's how it seems to me. If God created us, I think He'd object to anything which corrupts our rational thought and prevents us from growing in knowledge. So He'd likely think of Galileo as having been His man on the ground.

I'm still curious how modern Christians might think about the question... now that there's virtually no opposition to heliocentrism.
 
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lunakilo

lunakilo

Well-Known Member
Well, the center of the solar system is just the point in which you choose to put the origin of you coordinate system. If you place the origin in the sun, the movements of the planets become a lot easier to describe, but that doesn't mean that it is wrong to put the origin of the coordinate system in the earth.

The Tychonic system is a geocentric system but with the planets orbiting the sun, and the sun orbiting the earth. I.e. only difference between this an a heliocentric model is the origein of the coordinatesystem.

Why would god get involved in an argument over coordinate systems?
 
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AmbiguousGuy

Well-Known Member
lunakilo said:
The Tychonic system is a geocentric system but with the planets orbiting the sun, and the sun orbiting the earth. I.e. only difference between this an a heliocentric model is the origein of the coordinatesystem. Why would god get involved in an argument over coordinate systems?
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Hi, lunakilo. I've had very little experience with technical matters, so I don't really know what you're talking about. But so far as I know, the Church and Galileo weren't squabbling over coordinate systems. They were arguing whether the sun or the earth should be seen as the 'center' of the solar system -- in a common sense sort of way.

In my theology, God would care very much which one of them prevailed. (If I stretch the heck out of 'care,' I mean.)
 
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AmbiguousGuy

Well-Known Member
smoothcriminal12 said:
Well, since He knew that Galileo was right, He probably took Galileo's side.
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Thanks for the answer. How about Darwin? Do you think that God wanted Darwin to publish his theory and begin the long process of changing Christian minds from 6-day Creation to 2-billion-year Creation?
 
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