Galileo

[Administrator: from another thread. Galileo is brought up frequently as buttress for the idea that science and religion are at loggerheads.]


WILL
What you are discussing here is the accommodation theory. This originated during the Enlightenment by people who wanted to show the Bible was incorrect. They based this on acceptance of the earth not being considered the center of the universe since Copernicus. They therefore claimed that Christianity accommodated (or changed) Bible belief in an Earth centered universe to the scientific facts.

This is totally false. The belief that the earth was the center of the universe came from Aristilean cosmology (from Aristotle,) not from the Bible. They have even created elaborate myths, such as Galileo being opposed by the church. The truth is half of the church scientists agreed with Galileo and half didn't. This was strictly on scientific basis. Galileo got in trouble for calling the Pope a simpleton, not for his scientific theories. The facts are Copernicus, who died 20 years before Galileo had published that the sun was the center of the universe, 70 years prior to Galileo. The reason the atheists don't use Copernicus is because he died a canon of the church, something that doesn't fit their myth. Galileo was opposed by secular sciencists who had a lifetime invested in Aristilean cosmology, not the church.

How did this Galileo myth arise, in "L'Encyclopedia de Enlightment," in the 1800s. It's been passed down as cold fact, appearing in most grade school textbooks.
That's the history on accommodation theory. Infidels.org is using the same tired arguments. I have proven that this is incorrect (i.e. Augustine, Aquinas much too early for accommodation.)