Galileo Galilei was believed to be a heretic for opposing the belief of the Catholic Church, despite him being scientifically correct. With the invention of the telescope, Galileo Galilei had the ability to study the function of the universe and publish his scientific observations, raising the attention of the Catholic Church. Heliocentrism and the Catholic Church Timeline, states “The Catholic Church told Galileo to stop sharing his theory in public in the year of 1615. Along with that, the Catholic Church added Copernicus’s work (and others supporting the heliocentric model to its list of banned books)” (Doc A :Timeline).
Galileo Galilei was an Italian astronomer who disagreed with the Roman Catholic theory of geocentrism. He was not a heretic because he was a Christian and had similar beliefs to the Roman Catholics, but he did not agree with the Church’s theory of the position and movement of Earth in the Solar System. Document A is an excerpt of a letter to Duchess Christina of Tuscany written by Galilei, counter-arguing the heresy claims. In the letter, Galileo wrote, “Can an opinion be heretical and yet have no concern with the salvation of souls?” Although he did not believe in the astronomical theory of the Church, he believed that his scientific thoughts should not interfere with his religious beliefs.
The second was the Ptolemaic or Earth-centered Universe, were the sun orbits the Earth. Galileo faced much opposition from the Catholic Church, and was repeatedly harassed and condemned by his contemporaries. The letter he wrote to Christina was to clearly state his view of mixing science and religion. He projected himself as a man that was only trying to expose the truth, but he was also trying to
Many people fought over the point that the Sun is the center and this caused a conflict between the Church, Copernicus and Galileo. “The picture that Copernicus made showed the solar system, and showed the way the solar system actually looked.” (Document 1) The diagram made the church get angry because the church didn’t want to be wrong and decided to punish Copernicus and Galileo, who also agreed with Copernicus. The church was a powerful authority and if proven wrong people would start to not believe the Pope’s words and would go against the church.
Copernicus’ previous statement is continued with, “...although I know that the meditations of a philosopher are far removed from the judgement of the laity, because his endeavor is to seek out the truth in all things, so far as this is permitted by God to the human reason I still believe that one must avoid theories altogether foreign to orthodoxy.” (Doc 6.) Copernicus did not need validation from the Church for his ideas. He knew his scientific ideas could be proved without religion endorsing them. Another rationalist thinker, Francesco Petrarch, felt as if he should form opinions after looking at things rationally and from different perspectives.
Galileo’s theories portrayed a heliocentric solar system while the Catholic Church had said it was geocentric; as a result, Galileo’s works were put on the Index of Prohibited Books and he was later put under house arrest by the Inquisition. A letter from an Italian monk in Document 3 depicts how religious figures would try to convince him to retract his discovery of the moon having craters in order to avoid confusion and contradiction of the Bible, which portrays how religious figures hindered the progress of the Scientific Revolution because these new ideas challenged the Bible and their old
For most of the Middle Ages the people learned all they knew about the world from the church. Namely the use of a geocentric universe. To be geocentric is to be “earth-centered” meaning the people of the Middle Ages thought that the earth was the center of the universe. But during the Renaissance some people had the courage to go against the beliefs of the church. “The Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus lived from 1473 to 1543.
However, the characters were each supposed to be interpreted as representing a model and the conversations were meant to prove the author’s underlying argument. With this, Galileo was able to put forth his theory, which would change how people viewed the world, without fear of punishment from the Catholic Church. This is because if his objectives were questioned, he could argue that his book had no intent of dissenting from the church and supporting the heliocentric model if he was
Galileo was an Italian scientist that built many theories about astronomy. One of Galileo's theories encourage the belief of the heliocentric theory which states that the earth in the center of the universe. This statement goes against what the Catholic Church had to say. The Church believed in the geocentric theory is the correct way on how the earth was formed. This caused havoc in
By using his eyes, Galileo confirmed the heliocentric theory and created his own in reply: the Copernican theory. His theory stated that the sun was at the center of the universe, with the earth and other planets rotating around it in elliptical paths and at uniform speeds. Copernicus had used Bacon’s implications that “seeing is believing.” He also theorized that the other planets were made of substances similar to those found on earth. These two ideas even furthered the notion that humans were not special to God because they inhabited an earth that looked like all the other planets.
He published these observations in the book Sidereus Nuncius (1610). The Catholic Church had formerly opposed Copernicus already in 1543, and met Galileo with the same opposition. The Church declared any documents on heliocentric theory were to be banned and considered heretical in 1616. That same year, Galileo proposed a new theory regarding tides, and three years later one regarding comets, claiming these as proof of the earth’s motion. Eventually in 1632, Galileo published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which became very popular, much to the alarm of the Catholic Church.
The open-minded Galileo advocated that the earth revolves around the sun, with which few agreed during his lifetime,
Copernicus developed the heliocentric theory which claimed that the earth revolved around the sun. This immediately challenged the authorities who believed the opposite. Galileo furthered Copernicus’ argument and promoted that the Bible, that God
Today virtually every child grows up learning that the Earth orbits the Sun, but four centuries ago the heliocentric solar system, where the Earth orbits the Sun, was so controversial that the Catholic Church classified it as a crime of heresy (UCLA). In the age of early philosophy, Socrates’ is well known. Between the Socratic method and his line of successful students, Socrates’ makes the history books. Galileo Galilei turned astronomers on their heads when he discovered moons around Jupiter. Giordano Bruno didn’t back down from any of his brilliant and different ideas.
Aristotle had said that the earth was the center of the universe, and no one ever questioned him. Aristotle had also made assumptions in the field of physics and Galileo was the first to go against them. Galileo made many discoveries with his telescope that were significant to science during the Renaissance. To view the solar system, Galileo made a telescope on his own. He had heard of the invention from a Dutch eyeglass maker, and improved his design.
