Galileo vs. The Bible
Religion and science have always been conflicting studies. Religion, being based on faith, relies on the supernatural to explain life and being. Science, on the other hand, cannot do this. Scientists need to eliminate the possibility of the unexplainable in order to maintain and control group by which to measure other groups. The unexplainable I refer to are the miracles that are commonplace in all supernatural religions. Galileo lived in a time where church was state. The land was ruled according to the words of the bible, and anyone in opposition would be in contempt. Galileo's scientific findings were therefore strongly shunned by the church. In 1615 Galileo attempted to explain how these findings came to be in contradiction with the teaching to the Church with a letter to Christina, the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Galileo felt there needed to be a line between what philosophical questions should be answered by science, and which scripture should answer. This does not mean that Galileo himself was not religious. Nor did he feel that the Bible was a complete falsity.
In his letter, Galileo states, "… I think in the first place it is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth—whenever its true meaning is understood." This statement is based upon his contradictive thought that the earth revolves around the sun, rather then the earth being the center of the universe. To Galileo, the Bible seems to bend truths, in order to explain things to men of all intelligence. Nature, however, never changes or breaks rules. Nature is all around us, and we can draw our own conclusions from it, and therefore should not be "called in question upon the testimony of bib...
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... unpersuasive to its original audience. For us, it is hard to understand why the clergy, and society quickly shunned an idea that today is widely known and accepted by everyone. Science then is not what science is today. Society studied no more then the Bible, and that was only if they could read. Many of those who couldn't read had the Bible read to them. Government, economy, and basic everyday life were based on this book, and science barely existed. It was only a few years after Galileo's time that the scientific method was developed, and it was not until years later that the scientific method was a recognizable method of study. Had the scientific method been a concept when Galileo's ideas were first brought about, the church may have paid more attention to his scientific ideas, and therefore been more open to the ideas he presents in his letter to the Duchess.
The Bible was one of the most important pieces of text during Galileo’s lifetime. If you went against what the Bible stated then you were considered to be a heretic. The Bible indicated that the earth was in the center of the universe and the sun and the other planets revolve around it. a theory known as the geocentric model. Many scientists argued against this theory by stating that actually the sun was in the center of the universe and the earth and the other planets revolved around the sun, this theory was known as the heliocentric model. Nicolas Copernicus was one of the first out of many scientists who publically shared this theory. Later Giordano Bruno also supported this theory and because of this the Church ordered him to be burned
During the Scientific Revolution, the struggle between faith and reason was exhibited through Galileo and his discoveries. The Catholic Church during the time period of the Scientific Revolution did not approve of any outside scientists who came up with new theories and observations. The Church believed that all information about how the world worked was in the bible and that was the only right source. In an excerpt from “What is Scientific Authority?” written by Galileo in 1615, it states, “Showing a greater fondness for their [Catholic Church’s] own opinions than for truth, they sought to deny & disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them…” Galileo Galilei himself knew that the Church was not willing to approve of new ideas from other scientists, but only from the teachings in the Bible. Later on in the excerpt, Galileo writes, “They [Catholic Church] hurled various charges &…made the grave mistake of sprinkling these with passages taken from places in the Bible which they had failed to understand properl...
Galileo even as a boy seemed destined to challenge the scientific thought of the day. He has often been characterized as a pioneer of rebellion against authority. If that was true then he was only following in his father’s footsteps. His Father, a revolutionary man in the world of music who spoke out against the music theories of his day, was quoted as saying, "It appears to me that those who try to prove an assertion by relying simply on the weight of authority act very absurdly" (White, 196). Galileo continued in his father’s rebellion against contemporary views with his support of a helio-centric-universe, a view previously argued by Copernicus, but for the most part ignored by scientists for its contradiction with the established, church-endorsed system of Ptolemy.
Galileo does not argue that the bible is untrue, he strongly believes in the bible. He does feel that the bible can not be taken as the absolute truth though. He mentions that during the passage the bible speaks untrue but then if looked further into the passage he states that you will find the truth. Galileo wants us to look further into the bible and not just what is written on the page. He thinks we shall look further by using the knowledge and senses God gave us when we where created.
Galileo received harsh criticism for this theory since it went against the church’s beliefs and teachings. In his letter to Madame Cristina de Lorena, Galileo explains he thought the clergymen were “displaying greater affection for their own opinions than for true ones” meaning that they too intolerant to accept the truth found in science. Instead of embracing theories developed through experimentation, Galileo claimed the priests hid behind the Scripture without providing proof of its claims. Religious figureheads believed that since the bible said that the Earth revolves around the Sun, Galileo was going against the bible and God. However, Galileo maintained that the bible should be read symbolically since its claims are clearly not scientifically true. Galileo insisted that the bible was written in such a way so that everyone would be able to understand it through figurative lessons and explanations and thus should not be interpreted
In his Letter to The Grand Duchess Christina, Galileo challenged the widely accepted religious beliefs of the time, claiming that the conflict lies in their interpretation, not the context. In Galileo’s eyes science was an extremely useful tool that could and should have been used in interpreting the Scriptures. He argued that “the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven not how heaven goes” (Grand Duchess). The purpose of science was not to counter what the bible teaches; rather its purpose was to help explain the teachings of the scriptures. Furthermore, it was “prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth-whenever its true meaning is understood” (Grand Duchess). However, because of the terminology in which the bible was presented the perception of what the Scripture defined as truth was skewed. The Bible was written so that the common man could understand it and follow its commandments. The people also showed a greater inte...
The first argument Galileo made was that while the Bible could never be wrong, the implications of its words could be misunderstood. He maintained that the Holy Scriptures are “often very abstruse” and that interpreting them verbatim could cause one to “fall into error”. Galileo supported this claim by stating that all theologians seemed to agree with this notion. Moreover, he argued that if his belief were not true, then the interpreters of the Bible should have never disagree...
The Scientific Revolution, during the 16th and 18th centuries, was a time of conflict. It was not a hand-to-hand martial conflict. It was a conflict of advancement, similar to the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union. However, it was between the thinkers of the Scientific Revolution, such as Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, and the Roman Catholic Church. At the time, the Catholic Church was the most powerful religious body in Europe. It controlled everything from education to faith to finances. Thinkers like Galileo took the risk and went against the church. This is shown through the documents below. Those documents tell the story of Galileo and how he was forced to revoke his support of heliocentrism by the church. The documents below also show the struggle between faith and reason that existed during this era of advancement by hindering the flourishment of the sciences by stating that it did not agree with the Bible and naming these early scientists as heretics.
Galileo Galilei was an Italian philosopher born in 1564. As an adult, he didn’t believe the universal geocentric theory of the planets and heavens which was established by the Catholic Church. The church taught that the Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around our planet. Another theory that the Church supported was that the Earth stood still while the sun rose and set every day. Society in the 1500’s believed that the Pope spoke for God through a divine connection and to against the church was to go against God. To speak out against the church in this time was strictly taboo. If one was to speak against the church was considered to be heresy, which is exactly what happened to Galileo. Galileo invented the telescope and began studying the heavens above and noticed that changes within the stars and planets. He noticed that the “stars” that surrounded Jupiter moved. He came to the conclusion through rational thinking, that the Copernicus’ heliocentric theory was correct. Copernicus was a scientist and philosopher whose theory proposed that the sun was stationary and the heavens orbit around the sun. Galileo tried to convince the church not to aboli...
Galileo’s struggle, and the struggle of his period in history, is with the challenge of truth. Rather, it is the challenfe of whether to accept the world as it has been portrayed for him or to attempt to understand the world around him in order to determine his own truth. How does Brect portray this challenge? The answer is quite emphatically one-sided. As galieo states, “The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom,but to set a limit to infinite error.”¹ Within this simple statement Brecht highlights the very nature of both sides of the struggle. Here Brecht recognizes two absolutely imperative themes. First science, and free thought by extension, cannot and will not immediately grant a total understanding of the world. Furthermore, the scientific process is a process ...
Why the Bible Conflicts with Science "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details." Albert Einstein Mr. Einstein was not the only one to wonder about such things.
The Bible and the written laws of nature are like two different books. These books are written and read in completely different languages. The Bible was written in the view of people of that time; whereas, science laws are constantly written and changed for modern world. Therefore, there always will be some controversy between two thoughts. There are still many unknown things in the world that science is yet to find out. Christianity on the other hand accepts extraordinary occurrences and prevents science from explaining things that it cannot. Christianity is needed to explain unbelievable phenomena that are part of our daily life.
The modern science view as well as the Scientific Revolution can be argued that it began with Copernicus’ heliocentric theory; his staunch questioning of the prior geocentric worldview led to the proposal of a new idea that the Earth is not in fact the center of the solar system, but simply revolving around the Sun. Although this is accepted as common sense today, the period in which Copernicus proposed this idea was ground-breaking, controversial, and frankly, world-changing. The Church had an immense amount of power, and was a force to be reckoned with; in the beginning of the Scientific Revolution, new scientific proposals and ideas were discouraged in many cases by the Church. A quote from Galileo’s Children does an excellent job summing up the conflict: “The struggle of Galileo against Church dogma concerning the nature of the cosmos epitomized the great, inevitable and continuing clash between religion and reason.” If evidence goes against scripture, the scientist is considered a heretic and is, like in Galileo’s case, forbidden to discuss the ideas any further. Galileo Galilei, who proposed solid evidence and theory supporting the heliocentric model, was forced to go back on his beliefs in front of several high officials, and distance himself from the Copernican model. This, luckily, allowed him to not be killed as a heretic, which was the next level of punishment for the crimes he was charged with, had he not went back on his beliefs. Incredible support was given through the young developing academies with a sense of community for scientists and academics; “Renaissance science academies represent a late manifestation of the humanist academy movement.” Since the Church was grounded traditionally evidence that went agains...
believes that Galileo is a heretic because he violates doctrines. In that century Catholic leaders
Before this revolution, the Roman Catholic church held a monopoly on most scientific research. The majority of scientists were monks or members of universities where a study of the natural world was viewed through the lens of Scripture. Even Copernicus 's studies of the rotation of the planets and his original heliocentric model of the universe were created to help the papacy build a better calender so that it could properly celebrate Easter. However, during and after the Scientific Revolution, philosophers and scientists began moving toward a belief that the spiritual world was outside of the physical world, and that religious beliefs should be considered separate from scientific study. This turn in thinking is seem in Galileo 's attempt to reinterpret the Bible to fit the new research being done. Despite the Church 's attempts to crack down on theories that contradicted its own beliefs, these new ideas permeated the society. After the Revolution, society had mostly turned to a belief that the Church and science were separate entities, and that religion was not over study of the natural