Galileo vs. the Church

After going to a school where there was no religious affiliation, to a Catholic school where there was no questioning of anything, I understand what Galileo is going through with the church in his Letter to the Grand Duchess. Galileo cites a few examples of where there is conflict between religion and science.

Theoretically, there should be no conflict between these two forms of thinking because they are separate schools of thinking. Yet the church, in Galileo’s time, was thoroughly convinced that he was a heretic. The issue here lies in interpretation. The Bible is a difficult thing to interpret, and easy to interpret in a childish way. From the way Galileo explained it, the church officials interpreted the Bible in an “Amelia Badelia” sort of way: too literally. An example if this is when the church officials say the Bible can never err, and it says the earth is the center of the universe, therefore it must be right. But the issue here is that the Bible never claimed to be infallible on historical or scientific things; only on things of the spirit and with God. For if this claim were correct (that the earth is the center and therefore the Bible is never wrong), snakes would have to be talking creatures and even the officials in Galileo’s time knew snakes do not talk, and never did talk.

The other issue of interpretation lies in the fact that church officials take certain passages out of context for “their deceitful purposes” (Galileo, 179). This just jumbles the Bible up and makes no sense of it. Galileo refers to it as hypocritical and I believe he is right. The Bible is a holy book which is not to be used in vain, yet the very officials who preach that are doing what they preach against. Nowhere in the Bible does God command his people to not use their talents of discovery or experimentation. I believe He actually encourages it. Galileo was not trying to disprove thousands of years of knowledge; he was simply stating a new discovery to be examined. But the church shut down all of this with a simple “No, the Bible says you’re wrong.”