Galileo Comes to Mind

Creationism reminds me of the Catholic church’s dealings with Galileo in the 1600’s. Galileo was imprisoned by the Vatican for saying the earth revolved around the sun as opposed to the other way around. They gave him warning, but he knew the truth, he’d figured out the math. Lots of math. Huge new concepts. Saw how things behaved in the sky and figured a lot out. Scared the crap out of the Catholic church. Funny thing about religion. It always seems terrified that science will chase it off. It wasn’t until I was in college that I learned about Galileo’s imprisonment, which later turned into house arrest. I did go to a Catholic school. They were more than happy to teach me Galileo’s theories, but maybe the nuns were a little embarrassed about the church’s history with a man who is often called the father of physics, the father of modern observational astronomy and the father of science. He scared them, his concepts, just like those of evolution, seemed way too big. It was easier to stick their heads in the sand. And to try and make the big scary thoughts go away, they imprisoned a brilliant man. But the joke was on the church. Galileo did spend the rest of life under house arrest, but he spent that time summarizing what he discovered during his lifetime. The book was called Two New Sciences. That book is considered to be his life’s greatest work and it received high praise from both Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. If people truly have faith, they have no reason to fear science. Be careful with what your religious figures tell you about science. They are not always on the side of truth.