[MD] Galileo and the church

[rapsncows at fastmail.fm]

John
(Arlo, Marsha, Mark and Platt,)


>[John] First off, Mark hit the nail on the head with his assessment of "the
> academy" as an arm of the church in those days,

[Tim]
(walks like) politics...


> 
> [John] It was the entrenched bureaucratic  factions in the
> academic arm of the church which opposed Galileo because his ideas
> overthrew the existing power structures.

[Tim]
(quacks like) politics



> [John] These intellectuals, because they stand at the pinnacle of a
> social hierarchy, are always the most opposed to dynamic change, even
> when it runs plainly counter to empirical evidence.

[Tim]
must be politics, right?



> 
> [John] Now, that this happened in the past is one interesting fact, but the
> more interesting fact to my mind, is that the characterization of
> Galileo's opposition has been portrayed as coming from the religious,
> rather than the academic arms of the church then and that this
> characterization has been perpetrated  by the modern academic arm in
> such a plainly self-serving manner, in what is obviously a very old
pattern of conflict.

[Tim]
shouldn't we then agree that it isn't so much the 'modern academic arm'
as it is a very old patter of *political* conflict?

Tim
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