Mitchell no longer sounds like death!

Galileo makes several interesting points in terms of science and religion in his letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. Within the first two paragraphs, Galileo writes that scientists have no right quoting the Bible, especially if they are going to misquote and not-understand the Bible. However, as his arguments progress, he cedes that the Bible may be quoted as long as the user fully understands the meaning of what he or she means to say using the quote. In fact, Galileo uses a quote from the Bible early on in his argument to the Grand Duchess. He says, "...we ought not to believe anything inadvisedly on a dubious point, lest in favor to our error we conceive a prejudice against something that truth hereafter may reveal to be not contrary in any way..." (173). Galileo manages to use a Bible quote correctly to further his logical argument, while the others attempt to just beat him over the head with the Bible. Further into his letter to the Grand Duchess, Galileo’s argument gets more heated. He claims that priests and people of the church would have followers abandon their views just to test to see if they’d follow, even if it is a misinterpretation. Looking at the way his argument is constructed, this is probably not far from the truth. Galileo claims that, “they would have us altogether abandon reason and the evidence of our sense in favor of some biblical passage, though under the surface meaning of its words this passage may contain a different sense” (179). An interesting example of this is the not-so-recent chalkings at Ursinus. I have heard many groups complain that the Leviticus quotes are not so much offensive as they are misquoting the Bible’s true meaning in the phrase. Galileo is making the same argument here as he tries to separate the poor religious arguments from true scientific arguments.