Statue of Galileo Planned for Vatican 333
Reservoir Hill writes "Four hundred years after it put Galileo on trial for heresy the Vatican is to complete its rehabilitation of the scientist by erecting a statue of him inside Vatican walls. The planned statue is to stand in the Vatican gardens near the apartment in which Galileo was incarcerated. He was held there while awaiting trial in 1633 for advocating heliocentrism, the Copernican doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The move coincides with a series of celebrations in the run-up to next year's 400th anniversary of Galileo's development of the telescope. In January Pope Benedict XVI called off a visit to Sapienza University, Rome, after staff and students accused him of defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo. The Vatican said that the Pope had been misquoted and since the episode, several of the professors have retracted their protest."
cool (Score:5, Insightful)
They've got to be kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
They could also get rid of child molesters and stop paying (lots of) money to keep things under wraps, which obviously is not the best way to solve the problem.
These kind of news really pisses me off. A statue to Galileo 400 years late? WTF?
I'm a little bothered (Score:5, Insightful)
Vatican, Church.... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Gods on the Discworld exist as long as people believe in them and their power grows as their followers increase. This is a philosophy echoing the real-world politics of the power of religion and is most detailed in the novel Small Gods. If people should cease believing in a particular god (say, if the religion becomes more important than faith) the god begins to fade and, eventually, will "die", becoming little more than a faded wispy echo."
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
The church IS a dictatorship (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm a little bothered (Score:5, Insightful)
He was a personal friend of the then Pope, and got prosecuted not because he divulged Heliocentrism itself. Other Heliocentrists at the time didn't have any problem with the Church, and in fact some of them were funded by the Church itself. He was prosecuted:
a) Because he insisted that all the details of his theory, such as that, despite Kepler, whose works he read but dismissed, planetary orbits are perfectly circular since circles are "perfect" and ellipses aren't, were absolute certainties, even though he couldn't prove any of them (the first actual proof of any version of Heliocentrism appeared only in the 19th century, 200+ years after Galileo's time);
b) Because he thought that everyone should accept his hypothesis just because, no matter the lack of proofs;
c) And because he did make the point clear by adding a character to his book, named "Simpleton", who "defended" Geocentrism by mocking actual speeches of his friend the Pope, what Galileo cluelessly hoped he would find funny, not offensive. Obviously, it didn't happen.
Considering that at the time people were tortured and burned for doing much less, being held in his own house was a very soft punishment. The Church really wasn't harsh on him. It's only by comparing what Galileo was subjected to with 20th century style freedom of speech that one finds it "evil". But comparing it to what was the standard practices in the 17th century puts things in a very different light.
Re:cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Vatican, Church.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And the universe in Animal Farm was fictional, and therefore had nothing of value to say.
Re:Vatican, Church.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:They've got to be kidding (Score:-1, Insightful)
It's better to be molested by one and not the other?
We're talking about priests fucking little boys and girls, you gibbering twat. It sounds like you're defending these priests. "ooh, at least they raped less kids than the teachers did..."
You don't seriously believe anything more than 10% of molestation cases by priests get reported, do you. Go have a gander at public records concerning rape/molestation/sexual assault and see what the official estimate is of cases which are *not* reported.
Re:Today Galileo, Tomorrow Condoms? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe I am too sleepy to get the sarcasm.
Re:They've got to be kidding (Score:3, Insightful)
It ain't perfect, ain't ever gonna be, was never and won't happen. It's chocked-full of bad history, yet it's done tons of good. Calvin put it best (not "and Hobbs" dude), "The church spans all time from the first man until now, has no walls, cannot be put in a building..." etc. The church is like your family. Can't stand 'em, can't get rid of 'em, gotta have 'em. I think "Little Miss Sunshine" best illustrates this when the kid finds out he's color blind and can't become a fighter pilot as he dreamed. He yells at his family: "I hate you people! You're all losers!" Then he reluctantly gets up and continues on the journey with them. I think this applies to anyone who finds themselves a member of anything important to them whether family, marriage, church, etc....
They could also get rid of child molesters and stop paying (lots of) money to keep things under wraps, which obviously is not the best way to solve the problem.
This was actually one of Martin Luther's points in his 99 thesis. He felt priests should be married. Obviously, celibacy hasn't boded very well for the church....
These kind of news really pisses me off. A statue to Galileo 400 years late? WTF?
Ironically, Christ made the same point to the religious leaders of his day, "Your fathers killed the prophets, and now you make monuments to these same prophets affirming the deeds!" Or something to that affect....
Re:Breath of fresh air - addemdum (Score:2, Insightful)
For those that I've offended: s/the only major Christian church/a Christian church/.
Thanks for pointing out other (mostly European?) churches that consolidate instead of bending science. Forgive my ignorance. Since I live north of what seems to be the biggest hive of creationism fundamentalist, it sometimes sound like every religion is science bashing. Usually, their statements are hilarious but I absolutely abhor the tone of the fundamentalist bible-blabber.
For anybody that cares, I'm curious to hear what other churches/religions have a position similar to the Vatican on science.
Re:cool (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:cool (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They've got to be kidding (Score:2, Insightful)
Point acknowledged but there's often a big difference between the official and actual reason things are done.
Re:I'm a little bothered (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, the standard Geocentric system of Ptolemy with its many epicycles, which Galileo adapted in an Heliocentric fashion, already had the planets doing crazily convoluted orbits around orbits around orbits around empty points in the sky which themselves orbited around the Earth. Satellites of satellites would at worst add one more epicycle to the system. Nothing special about it.
Re:cool (Score:3, Insightful)
IIRC the Discovery Institute has, like, 2 biologists on staff, one of whom deliberately went into the field of biology in order to challenge evolution. The other had an interesting write up in the NYTimes, I think, where he said that his biology education forced him to have a crisis of faith - everything he was learning as a scientist was contradicting his faith, and in the end he decided to ditch his belief in science and evidence to keep to his faith beliefs. Contrawise, there are numerous examples of biologists who had similar crisis's of faith and came down on the side of a less fundamentalist belief.
Being a "scientist" isn't enough to weigh in to the scientific debate - your field of research must be relevant.
Re:It's even funnier than that (Score:3, Insightful)
This is not in line with modern science, this is in line with modern "teach the controversy" creationist shenanigans.
Re:Vatican, Church.... (Score:3, Insightful)