"Galileo Was Wrong": Thoughts on Geocentrism?
"Galileo Was Wrong": Thoughts on Geocentrism?
https://infogalactic.com/info/Geocentrism
Well there's this site
https://galileowaswrong.blogspot.com/p/summary.html
Galileo Was Wrong is a detailed and comprehensive treatment of the scientific evidence supporting Geocentrism, the academic belief that the Earth is immobile in the center of the universe. Garnering scientific information from physics, astrophysics, astronomy and other sciences, Galileo Was Wrong shows that the debate between Galileo and the Catholic Church was much more than a difference of opinion about the interpretation of Scripture.
Scientific evidence available to us within the last 100 years that was not available during Galileo's confrontation shows that the Church's position on the immobility of the Earth is not only scientifically supportable, but it is the most stable model of the universe and the one which best answers all the evidence we see in the cosmos.
But also, as far as I understand it, Galileo was thought to be in the wrong not necessarily for scientific views, but for implied theological arguments based on those views.
For example, scientifically and theologically I thought geocentrism was the prevailing view at that time among scientists (God created the earth as a kind of "moral center" of the universe of God's Creation?); today acentrism (universe has no center) seems to be a prevailing scientific view. So by this logic, Galileo was wrong by modern scientific standards, and theologically some still argue for a kind of geocentrism or other such views (such as "galileowaswrong.com" or other such sites) against Galileo's theological views.
Hence Galileo was rightly criticized for lacking religious caution; his rebellious attitude against religion (again, not necessarily for supporting a speculative scientific view) indeed has caused centuries of harm, pitting science against religion, whereas true science can never contradict religious truth.
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Except true science can and very often does contradict religious belief. What face value reason Galileo was punished for is immaterial to the correctness of his claims. Whether the earth is the “moral center” of the universe is both unprovable and unproven. Maybe there’s another earth out there that is more moral than ours. Maybe the Bible is true, but was planted here by aliens from the true moral center of the universe and all the references in the Bible are about them, not us.
There is no such thing as religious truth. Religion cannot make truth claims about things like morality because there are no truths about morality - it is necessarily subjective.
That website is making a bunch of demonstrably false claims about geocentrism that are not worth the time to debunk. The earth isn’t even the center of the solar system, much less the universe.
true science can and very often does contradict religious belief
It does not, which again is part of the fallout of this conflict Galileo was party to, as he gave the impression that there is a contradiction, where there is not. I guess, do you have examples in mind of where there are apparent contradictions? Galileo comes to mind firstly, and it's pretty easy to see how the scientific findings involved with that are compatible with religion, or how religion has been able to be explained in light of them.
Darwin and evolution come to mind next; some of us simply reject the evolutionary theory of the past, which is not scientific or provable (science is repeatable experiments, and the past is not open for us to experiment with, so while we could model evolutionary processes now, there is no way to prove they were responsible for the creation of the world). Others note that since God is all-powerful, evolutionary theory is not necessary for the creation of the world (a totally powerful God can just create the world "as-is", even looking like it had been evolved, rather than actually evolving it, if that makes sense). The other route is some embrace "theistic evolution" views where evolution has been accepted as having existed in the distant past and yet it is asserted such evolutionary process has been guided by God.
Whether the earth is the “moral center” of the universe is both unprovable and unproven
Well this gets in to religious discussion probably; it may be "heretical" to claim this. Hence you are arguing from a non-Christian perspective perhaps. Your claim would be subject to the same skepticism you assert.
there are no truths about morality
"It is absolutely true there are no truths about morality" is itself a contradictory assertion. Likewise, many people accept things like stealing to be objectively wrong, and not subjective. Subjectivism opens itself up to many logical problems.
There was not a world-wide flood that killed all creatures except a few dozen animals and a couple humans on a boat.
The earth is more than a few thousand years old.
Life as it exists today evolved over billions of years as a result of natural selection. It was not created over the course of a week.
A young man was not resurrected after being crucified.
Angels did not destroy Sodom with fiery meteors from heaven, and no woman was turned into a pillar of salt by an omnipotent (and benevolent!) god.
A young man did not cure leprosy, create bread and wine from nothing or transmute water into wine, walk on water, heal the blind, or otherwise use magic to cure illnesses.
I can go on.
Btw claiming that there are no objective morals is not the same claim as “Christianity objectively determines morality.” My claim is about whether an entire class of things - morals - are objectively determinable. Yours is that they are objectively determined by a specific book.
Probably don’t argue with these folk, especially about the scientific method. They’ll tell you that you can’t definitively prove anything then with the same breath express some belief as fact.
The OP comment may be thought to have done something like this, arguing for subjectivity of claims of truth and yet argued my views of religion were false; I suppose if we allow subjectivity of value to dominate, then we would simply have mutual disagreement
Actually there is evidence for a literal flood
The earth is carbon dated; again it could have been created as such, or the theistic evolutionists are fine with it being old (not reakky proven one way or the other)
"young man not resurrected after being crucified"
again just an assertion with mutual disagreement (not dealing with science)
Indeed Sodom and Gemorrah could have been destroyed by "fiery meteors", again not a conflict with science (surely it's logically understood an all-powerful God can arrange such a thing?)
" young man did not transmite wine"
again nothing to do with science, you simply don't believe supernatural miracles can happen, which is understood.
Yes, the disagreement about the existence of objective morality is different from claiming Christian morals are the "objectively correct" morals.
By definition supernatural miracles cannot be explained by science. That’s like their entire point.
You not understanding the scientific explanations for events and history is not the same as the only explanation for those events being your god.