Was Galileo persecuted for his discoveries? And if so then why?

Answer 1

We find the idea abhorrent nowadays, that science should be censored and fettered in irs development by organised religion, but 400 years ago, people were still being burned at the stake for heresy. It was only 100 years after the Spanish Inquisition and the infamous Torquemada and Galileo's contemporary Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Italy in 1600 for heresy (suggesting the existence of extra-solar planets around other stars and the possibility of extra-terrestrial life).

This provides the backdrop to understanding Galileo's recantation of his theories.

Galileo's conflict with the Roman Catholic Church is taken as a major early example of the conflict of authority and freedom of thought, particularly with science, in Western society, A similar furore was to greet Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution based on his work The Origin of Species. It too challenged fundamental teachings of the Church.

Copernicus (1) (who was born in Prussia) who first proposed the idea of a heliocentric Solar System (which postulated that the planets and the earth revolved around the Sun) and Kepler (2) (who worked in Prague) who worked out the laws of planetary motion with this conceptual model in mind, both lived some distance from Rome, but Galileo (3) was in Italy where the influence of the Catholic church was much greater.

Newton, who developed the law of gravity, 50 years later, lived in England, which was Protestant, after Henry VIII broke with Rome and created the Church of England, was not restrained by the influence of Catholicism in the way Gelileo was.

The Church regarded the earth as being the centre of the universe as a matter of faith, which supposedly demonstrated that God was in his Heaven and keeping a fatherly eye on the people of the earth who were important to him.

If it was just a lump of rock hurtling through soace around a minor star on the edge of one of many millions of galaxies, as we now kmow to be the case, then this would (it was believed) somehow diminish Man and God and the Church, as a consequence,

BRECHT'S LIFE OF GALILEO

Bertolt Brecht who died 50 years ago this year wrote a play called Life of Galileo about these events. He portrays Galileo as tactically intelligent. thinking it important that he survive, under house arrest if needs ne, so that he could finish his work. Being a martyr would not advance science, and so if he had to recant his theories to be able to advance science, that is what he had to do,m even though it galled him to do so.

This theme of survival to be able to fight another day runs throughout Brecht;s work eg in his play Schweyk in the Second World War.

There are a couple of well-written scenes in the play, One is a long monologue by a character called The Little Monk, who shares Galileo's scientific curiosity but worries about the effect of his discoveries on ordinary people and their faith and starts to doubt the wisdom of publishing his results. This speech encapsulates the dilemma for religion when science challenges its precepts.

The other scene to which I would draw your attention is one in which the Pope who had befriended Galileo when he was a Cardinal and was an intelligent man, open to new ideas, is being dressed in his ceremonial robes by a Catholic bureaucrat and adviser, getting him ready to say Mass. As the scene proceeds, they debate what is to be done about Galileo's heresies.

At the start of the scene the Pope argues for Galileo's right to do his work unhindered. But as each further layer of robes is added and the incense ceremonially and ritualistically swung in front of him and catechisms are uttered, he starts to change position. It is clear the adviser wants Draconian action taken against Galileo and the Pope's resistance to these non-stop suggestions is visibly crumbling.

What Brecht is saying is that the role of Pope as head of a rich and powerful institution takes over and the man beneath the robes can no longer think for himself and is submerged by what he is urged to see and comes to see as the duties of his job,

At the end of the scene the now fully-robed Pope decides that Galileo should be shown the instruments of torture, but no more than that. That wasn't what he was saying, ten minutes before.

The scene explores how weak people in authority baulk at doing the right thing when faced with a crisis and end up doing something they don't believe in and rationalising their decisions so they can live with themselves.

The play is published by Methuen,

Answer 2

Religious apologists who claim that Galileo was punished for being an "arrogant bastard" should keep in mind that the punishment if he did not recant this "crime" was physical torture.

No matter how you try to bend the facts, physical torture on the basis of attitude, scientific research, the expression of one's ideas, or any other reason is barbaric, cruel, inhuman, and absolutely nothing that Jesus would endorse. This is why the church finally caved in and "exonerated" Galileo, hundreds of years too late to let him live the last 10 years of his life in freedom.

Too bad Mel Gibson didn't make a movie entitled "The Passion of Giordano Bruno." Turns out all the hype about Galileo overshadows what the church did to Bruno. They burned him at the stake because he wouldn't recant his beliefs, then mounted a spin campaign which suggested that he was a "heretic" and into "occult sciences." One of those "occult sciences" included the belief that the stars are other suns which might also have planets where intelligent beings lived.

Yeah, "He's a witch!!! Burn 'im!!!"

Bruno was just as much a martyr to science as Jesus was to humanity. Too bad the church in those days ignored both teachers.

Answer 3

Not for his discoveries per se, but for his enthusiastic championing of the then-new Copernican theory that the Earth and all the planets revolve around the Sun.

The Church at that time has decided that Copernicanism was heretical, and told Galileo he could not teach it as truth. Galileo then published what he claimed was an objective discussion of the issue of Copernicanism, "Dialogue Concerning Two Sciences". The Church did not see this work as particularly objective, given that the proponent of geocentrism in this dialogue was named Simplicio.

Galileo was forced to recant under threat of torture, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

Answer 4

The Church had him under house arrest for I believe 10 years, the last 10 years of his life. This is because his discoveries directly contradicted the teachings of the church, which was that everything revolved around Earth which was the center of the universe.

Answer 5

For saying Earth is not the center of the Universe, which is contrary to the Church's teachings.

Answer 6

Yeah, I think he was threatened with excommunication, which made forced him to renounce his discoveries.

Answer 7

Not so much, more like being an arrogant bastard, and making fun of the pope, read more!

http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/1999/9911fea4.asp

Answer 8

yea because back then they were so set on one way of thinking that any new ideas scared them