[MD] Galileo and the church

[John Carl]

Belated greetings, Arlo,

[Arlo]
> Nowhere in the Inquisition against Gallileo do I see any mention of a
> non-academic wing of the religious factions that opposed the Inquisition.
>

John:

Right!  That is what I consider the "telling clue".  Those in pedagogical
control of history get to transfer their version of events.  Is it any
surprise then that the "official version of what happened" should totally
support the academic-dogmatic side of any conflict?

I suggest you "obtain a telescope of your own".

Arlo:

>
> You are right in that the Church controlled the Academy during these years,
> and
> from the records of the Inquisition it is clear that the Church outright
> condemned any authority into describing the world other than its own.
>
>
John:

Here, I'll quote verbatim from Wallace's book, the paragraph which portrays
the issue a bit differently:

"When Galileo first presented his discoveries through his telescope as
supporting evidence for the Copernican therory... it was not the Church that
attacked him.  In fact, Jesuit and Dominican priests and bishops delighted
in the new vistas the telesope opened up, and they threw luxuriant parties
for Galileo in Rome to celebrate his new discoveries.  Father Clavius, who
was the undisputed leader of Jesuit astronomy, at first had a hard time
accepting these findings.  But once he and his colleagues had obtained
telescopes of their own, they corroborated all of Galileo's observations.
What eventually drew the Church into conflict with Galileo were its lay
academic advisors, who insisted that Rome had a duty to stop Galileo, for if
he were left unchecked, he would destroy the entire university system by
undermining the Aristotelian beliefs on which it was based.  These
scholastic philosophers refused to even look through a telescope, for they
adamantly insisted that whatever was seen through the lenses that
contradicted their beliefs, had to be optical illusions."

B. Alan Wallace, Mind in Balance, pg 18, hardcover edition.

What fascinates me, Arlo, is the observation of repeating social patterns.
What it looks like to me is that when the church policy falls into the hands
of the lawyers, we're just as screwed as when the academy falls into the
hands of politics (labor unions).  Here's a case where it's a lower form
devouring a higher - self-interested politics is worshiped as highest
value.  The proper values of the academy is THE TRUTH, regardless of
consequence. THE GOOD is investigated by the religious.  Usually, that's the
way it's been.  Admittedly, we live in strange times and both religion and
the academy are so far out of whack together, that I couldn't pick between
'em.  They both seem to be aspects of the giant, these days.

Arlo:


> But rather than boringly pandering to anti-intellectual revisionism in
> modern
> culture, its clear that those holding an "esoteric" view of religion (the
> gnostics, the mystics, the mythologists, The Bible is A STORY), these
> people
> were the ones not threatened by Galielo, while those adhering to an
> "exoteric"
> view of religion (the fundamentalists, the literalists, the dogmatists, The
> Bible is THE WORD), these were the ones who were threatened.
>
>
John:

The ones who are always threatened, are the ones on top.

They were the same ones threatened by Christ, in his day, Socrates in his.
The elite.  The powers-that-be.  Those who have the most to lose when the
corrupt social structures fall, because they have the most to leach off and
gain from the whole edifice, as they are the guys on top.  Its a recurring
wave throughout recorded history, easy to recognise when it forms.



Arlo:


> To suggest that were it not for "academics", the Church would have
> otherwise
> embraced Galileo is nonsense. However, were it not for fundamentalists and
> literalists, it very well may have.
>
>
John:

Well then, you should probably take up that with Wallace, for he plainly is
making a different case from yours.  I'm willing to  side with Jesus and
Shakespeare and blame it on the lawyers, in the interest of peace,  but lets
face it, it was the academics who trained the lawyers... so ...


Arlo:




> THAT is the divide that is critical here.
>
> The exact same divide that has fundamentalists claiming the earth is only
> 6000
> years old, dinosaurs rode on a big boat to survive a flood, and everyone
> who
> does not call god by a certain name is going to hell. THESE are the people
> threatened by advances in understanding made through observation.
>
> This whole "big bad academics" nonsense is really getting sad.
>
>
>
John:  Yeah, just about as trite and sad as "them thar hayseed stoopid
goober fundamentalistic anti-interlectualls" that you see in your
nightmares.  Hayseed strawman, I call him.  A myth passed from plate to
plate in faculty luncheons, with plenty of fodder for stories throughout the
land, I admit.  But if you think that's the whole story to this, Arlo, you
really do need to polish up your own telescope.

Umm... perhaps I should put that a different way.   :-)

John