Must prove why earth is the center of the universe.?

Question

I will be performing a mock trial and I have to give an opening statement saying why Galileo’s heliocentric ideas were wrong. FYI… I am representing the church. Any ideas of what I can say?

First, thanks a bunch for all the help. Second i would like to add that we are reenacting the Galileo's trial and though the church may support scientific views, my job is to disprove his theories, not accept them, even though he was mostly correct.

Answer 1

It would be easiest to use casual observation plus a mindset that centers faith in the Bible.

"It is obvious that the Earth is the center of the universe. We see all the heavenly objects circling it. We do not feel the Earth to move. Scriptures state how things were created. The Earth is obviously the most important thing in existence. The sun is only as big as it appears: 21 meters in diameter."

(Honest, someone in history was quoted as saying exactly that the sun was 21 meters in diameter "as it appeared".)

"If the Earth were flying about in space, spinning as it were, we would feel it assuredly. No we can use our common sense and see the truth for ourselves."

How is that for a start?

Answer 2

Anyone can make their own observations that the earth is the center of the universe. Watch the sun for a day, it goes around the earth. Watch the stars for a night, they go around the earth just like the sun. It does not feel like the earth is moving (except when there is an earthquake but those happen because the gods are angry). No one has ever proven that life exists anywhere else but on earth. The bible story of creation makes it pretty clear that the earth is the center.

Of course you don't want people making too many or too careful observations about the stars cause that is what Galileo did.

You have a rather weak case.

Answer 3

The real trial was not about that. However, that is the 'front' story.

The argument used went like this:

There are 4 elements that make up everything:

Earth, water, air and fire. Each element tries to occupy its natural place, with Earth being a the centre (i.e., down from where we stand), water being next. air above water (as anyone can see) and fire being the lightest, is always seen to rise.

This had been known since Aristotle (almost 2000 years).

The Sun, being made of fire, is obviously lighter than air. Earth is clearly the most massive of elements.
The Earth obviously has more mass than the Sun (made of fire) so it stands to reason that it, and not the Sun, should attract everything else.
(the concept of attraction having been just been added by Galileo and others to explain Kepler's system).

The other concept is that Galileo's "proof" (Jupiter has moons) is certainly not proof that things orbit the Sun. If anything, it proves that obviously not everything orbits the Sun.

At best, one could use it to prove that Jupiter (not Earth) is at the centre of the Universe. With Kepler's law, one finds that Jupiter is five times as far as the Sun. Maybe Jupiter is much bigger than we thought and is, therefore, much more massive than the Sun.

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In his back-and-forth bantering with Church officials, Galileo stated at one point that the truth should be found in the Great Book of Nature (meaning that God's creation should be evaluated from what we can observe, not what the Bible tells us to see). Unfortunately for him, that was one of the major arguments used by a large group in Northern Europe that was Seceding from the Roman Church.

We were not sure (in 1987) if Galileo did this knowingly or if his timing simply sucked big times.

Answer 4

Gary B gave some good answers, but there's another side to the story. Think about what it meant at the time (from a social/religious/political point of view) if Galileo were right.

Many people believe what they want to be true, not what actually appears to be true. The church has always supported "scientific" conclusions that support its positions on other issues.

Answer 5

There were many reasons to reject the Copernican Heliocentric (sun centered) assertion in favor of a Geocentric (Earth centered) universe.
1) No parallax of the stars was measurable.
2) No wind from the Earths motion was measurable
3) A dropped object went straight down, it did not fall back or fly outward as it seemed it should do if the Earth was rotating or orbiting another object.
4) The Planets (Greek meaning "wanderer") showed retrograde motion; sometimes they went backward against the fixed stars. No change of motion was felt on the Earth.
5) Aristotle, the long acknowledged master of wisdom said the universe was Geocentric. The two ultimate authorities of knowledge in historic times were the Bible and Aristotle.
He believed that the visible universe was located on crystal spheres that rotated around the Earth.

Keep in mind that this made perfect sense in those days, before space missions, before telescopes, before Isaac Newton and his teaching of truth by analysis instead of authority. Ptolemy's epicycles, that explained how planets orbited in circles around bigger circles around yet bigger circles worked very well . Predictions of events such as eclipses were completely accurate using it.

Answer 6

create a theory in which Nibiru (planet x) isn't a planet of 3600 year orbit but a timepeice created by God (to tell us that 360° is a full orbit...teaching us math) and to send the messengers (annunaki - aka the fallen angels) to help man improve himself as a human being. The Almighty knew exactly where these sons of god where to go and give humans the knowledge of life (sumarian text in stone) and to worship that knowledge (the Sun as ti feads life)

sorry if this is a bit 'Out There' but i am an agnostic really (with respect for others beliefs)

In conclusion The Almighty (God or Gods) created the Universe and all it holds and we are the starting point and even if Aliens arrived with higher technology this doesn't mean they weren't created by the same God at the same time.. It could be that they are doing a few modifications and repairs if needed from the ORIGINAL DNA of us humans...

God didn't allow this knowledge for nothing

Answer 7

a million. He did not educate it. All he had turned right into some observations mutually with the moons of Jupiter which he got here upon, indicating that the Earth changed into no longer the in difficulty-free words centre of orbits. that is no longer evidence, it isn't even evidence that the Earth isn't orbited by ability of the sunlight. 2. Cardinal Bellarmine wrote that Galileo's sunlight concentrated gadget made "outstanding good experience" yet that Galileo had no evidence. 3. Galileo admitted himself that he had no evidence. absolutely, the calculations he can make from his sunlight concentrated gadget assuming round orbits were no longer as precise as those produced from the former Earth concentrated gadget with its epicycles etc. 4. the significant reason he changed into positioned on trial changed into that he had insulted the Pope in writing and had lengthy gone decrease back on an contract now to not publicise his thoughts. The Pope were a pal of Galileo so changed into understandably extremely aggravated. 5. It changed into no longer until eventually the calculations of Kepler and Copernicus and the records from Tycho Brahe and others were integrated into the concept of gravity developed by ability of Newton that the sunlight concentrated gadget gave better effects than the former Earth concentrated gadget. 6. very last evidence of the sunlight concentrated gadget changed into no longer received until eventually the mid to overdue 18th century by ability of astronomers who corrected observations for temperature and atmospheric stress. 7. The RC Church conditionally withdrew competition to the sunlight concentrated gadget in about 1745 after their mathematicians had checked Newton's artwork very thoroughly. competition changed into finally dropped about 1820, probably depending on the observations on the transit of Venus made in 1769 which gave a scale to the picture voltaic gadget. 8. historic past is mostly a lot messier than you would imagine.

Answer 8

Wow, that's tough..! The Church of course relied heavily on its interpretation of the Bible, but also they reasoned that since everything visible from Earth seemed to move around it, including the sun, then the Earth must be at the center of the universe.