Religion and Science

My personal views set aside, Galileo seems to find that there is a combination of religion and science. It frustrates him more than ever when people quote Scripture as to support scientific ideas, because no one is qualified enough to really interpret the Bible correctly. It is purposefully left open-ended. The Bible “was designed to persuade men of those articles and propositions which,…could not be made credible by science” (183). The Bible and science are two separate things, though religion and science, he feels, are one in the same. In a sense, God is nature because God is everything and everywhere, so nature would be included. The Christian religion does not have scientific flaws in it because God is without imperfection. The Bible, on the other hand, does not talk about science. It speaks only of “essential matters more directly [relating]… to their salvation and to the benefit of the holy Church” (185). Therefore the Bible cannot be held as a scientific source.

Conflict

There is clearly a conflict between science and religion. When Galileo is talking about how the earth rotates around the sun, those who didn’t agree with him had direct support from the Bible. “…In the Bible one may read that the sun moves and the earth stands still.” (181). With support like this, there is obviously a conflict. Religious people believe everything the Bible says and takes everything literally, so any contradiction to the Bible is seen as a huge threat. There can be no reconciling science with religion when science directly opposes the Bible. Galileo takes this a step further when he says “It is obvious that such authors, not having penetrated the true senses of Scripture, would impose upon others an obligation to subscribe to conclusions that are repugnant to manifest reason and sense, if they had any authority to do so.” (190). Galileo is creating enemies of all those in positions of power within the Church, for he is saying that they are misinterpreting the Bible. With this Galileo makes it so that his ideas will probably never be accepted by the Church, simply because he called everyone foolish. With this Galileo has deepened the conflict between science and religion, a conflict that still exists today. While the issues are different, it still boils down to the difference between what the Bible says and what research proves to be true. Religion and science will always be in conflict as long as scientists continue to conduct research that the religious disagree with.

To say the religion and science conflict is an understatement. Each ones stands for what the other dismisses. Religion pushes faith: believing without seeing. Science advocates physical evidence before belief. Some topics bring about more controversy between the two than others. Especially in the matter of less explored practices. Suppose a scientist wanted to prove something wrong that was mutually accepted as true in a religious community. The religious advocates would have, as Galileo puts it, “endeavored to spread the opinion that such propositions in general are contrary to the Bible and are consequently damnable and heretical”(177). It is commonly seen that people damn what they do not understand/believe; A fear of the unknown.

As I was growing up, I went to a catholic school until 8th. Before the time I transferred I can honestly say I was never informed of the theory of evolution. Everything was made in 7 days by God. No questions asked. The teachers seemed to “abandon reason and the evidence of our senses in favor of some biblical passage”(179). I don’t see why it is so hard for them to believe someone could be a Catholic and believe in evolution. Like Galileo points out, even Nicholas Copernicus “was not only a catholic, but a priest and a canon”(178). I think the conflicts are pointless. If something a scientist says doesn’t suite you, then don’t believe in it. People can fight and butt heads all they want, but most scientists aren’t set out to shatter someone’s religious beliefs. They just want to find answers to their questions, just like someone of faith can find answers in God.

I personally believe there are more than one difference between science and religion. The first difference that comes to my mind is abortion. Abortion, according to the Christian religion is strictly prohibited to any of its followers. However, it is quite a popular commodity in modern day science. Another difference that comes to my mind is stem cell research. To people who follow the Christian religion, they believe it is murder as they believe abortion is murder. To scientists and supporters, it is a health survival technique that keeps quality human beings alive and able to keep whatever of their independence is left. Also, in Florida a few years back, there was a woman a few years back by the name of Terry Shivo. Terry Shivo was brain dead, living off a life supporter and had been given no chance of any sort of comeback. All amongst the nation, groups wanted to take her off the life support or opposing groups wanted to keep her on the life support, pleading that it would be murder to take her off of it. This was a difference between science and religion. The science group basically said there was no hope for her and she needed to be taken off the life support while the religious groups said she needs to stay on, citing that it is murder to take her off.
There are more conflicts but these are the two conflicts that are the most popular and are the most modern and contemporary. People fight over these subjects and it has even reached the highest levels of government, being the Supreme Court. Even as time goes on, the fight between religion and science continues.

Collaboration is key

Religion and science are commonly at odds in more respects than one. In a farfetched form of science, there is the science of performing an abortion and the confrontation that religion brings to that science. Religion feels it is wrong to perform such acts, which science feels it is an important stride that is necessary to be made.
However, in terms on Galileo, his confrontation of science and religion is that of the motion of the Earth and sun. While the Bible states that the sun revolves around the Earth, Galileo uncovered the truth that the Earth actually revolves around the sun. He faced much opposition due to the fact that it is said in the bible otherwise, yet he is able to face his challengers in debate. “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes,” (Galileo 186). Many felt that whatever the Bible said was the absolute truth and should not be refuted, but Galileo knew in his heart that through his research and careful experimentation that the Bible was actually incorrect in regard to the motion of the planets.
Religion and science also butt heads in the area of experimentation. Experimentation on humans or animals alike is frowned upon by religion, however in science it is thought to be the only way for us to grow and learn. The two may never come together, but they must learn to collaborate.

The disciplines of science and religion have always been at odds, as evidenced by Galileo’s letter to Her Grand Duchess Christina, and continue to be at odds today. During Galileo’s time, there were many aspects of the world yet to be understood and explored. For example, the rotation of the Earth and the alignment of the universe were very controversial topics during Galileo’s time, especially taking into consideration the conflict with other texts within the Bible. Here lies some of the initial conflict between science and religion. One of Galileo’s arguments against strict adherents to the Bible is, “I do not feel obligated to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended to forgo their use and by some other means to give us the knowledge which we can attain by them” (183). Or, rather, why would God give us the faculties to observe and learn, but then provide us with all the answers without giving us the opportunities to utilize those faculties? In present day the debate between science and religion is still obvious. Controversial topics including abortion, stem cell research, and human experimentation all color the ethics argument, and how far science can go without crossing the moral boundaries dictated by religion. And, though progress has been made, the debate between science and religion does not appear to lessen in the future any more than it had in the past.

Science and religion are two completely different concepts that cause conflicts in theories and ideas. However, the conflicts between religious theories and scientific theories do not occur as much as they did in Galileo’s time. In Galileo’s time, the world was extremely religious, and scientific theories were just starting to be proven. Any idea or theory that differed from the Bible was shunned, causing numerous conflicts between religion and science.
This can be seen from a passage in Galileo’s Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. He stated, “The reason produced for condemning the opinion that the earth moves and the sun stands still is that in many places in the Bible one may read that the sun moves and the earth stands still. Since the Bible cannot err, it follows as a necessary consequence that anyone takes an erroneous and heretical position who maintains that the sun in inherently motionless and the earth moveable.”
Today, this is no longer a problem. All scientific theories have been proven, and even the Catholic church has admitted that the earth is not the center of the universe. The only conflict that remains is if you choose to believe what science has proven or what the Bible says. It was only a larger conflict back in Galileo’s time because the Bible was the supreme rule, and you were considered un-religious if you strayed from what the Bible stated.

Science's Restraining Order

Science and religion will always clash as they are conflicting philosophies, at least if one takes religion seriously enough. When I think of this argument it reminds me of Santa Claus. On one end you have the advocates that say there is a slightly obese man with hundreds of elvish slaves who makes toys and delivers them to every child in the world on a single night. On the other side you have the people who say "Grow up, your parents put the toys under the tree." Guess which side is religion. While the Santa Claus myth is fine for a little child who needs something magical and fun to believe in, a 36 year old man who believes in Santa is just creepy. The same goes for religion. Using God and all his powers was well and good for early humanity to answer the difficult questions like why is the sky blue or why does it thunder, but we have progressed as a people to an advancement in thought and technology to where we can discover why the sky is REALLY blue. In essence, we are now mature enough to understand that our parents put the presents under the tree. But a conflict remains as there are still the full grown adults who believe in Santa spreading their opinion. This is the conflict we find ourselves in today. Religion thought to explain the entire world and every aspect of it a long time ago and is now being proven wrong at every turn. This makes it defensive and conflict oriented when dealing with science. Because if the Bible is wrong about the Earth being the center of the universe, perhaps it is wrong about this God character. There have been attempts made to tie science and religion together and I believe this is perfectly feesible, as long as either side is open minded. This is the dilemma Galileo presented and why he was placed under house arrest (and why he founded the Illumnati, but that is a different story), because religion was afraid and still is to this day. It took the Catholic church until the 1990's to admit the earth is not the center of the universe. Overall, it is the conflict of understanding based on human development and the loverly defensive nature of religion that brings this conflict about and I fear it will remain unsolved until one of the subjects is done away with.

Note: I do not mean to offend any religious advocates with this post, I merely state the nature of conflict in my humble opinion

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.”

Blog Assn #21: Galileo, Science and Religion

Please post on the following by 8 PM Thursday night.

With Galileo pp. 173-197 in mind, write about what -- if any -- conflicts there are between science and religion.

Cassie hit me last night

In Galileo's Dialogue, Galileo is trying to prove to eveyone that the sun does not revolve around the earth, but that the earth revolves around the sun. He tires to show that it is hard to break a common understood theory. It seems that it takes even more information than just the right theory to get people to start believing the theory. No one likes to think that they have been wrong or have been lied to and so it is hard to start to make people believe in something even if they don't want to. Even if it is the right theory. The Dialogue itself is just another way to put his theory in a less obvious way. He tries to make it suttle in the way that other authors that wrote Cannibals tried to do. It is a way to get people to understand what he is saying but not trying to bash previous views.

Galileo

I believe that the point that Galileo is trying to make in his dialogue is very similar to the Socratic method of thinking. Galileo, just like Socrates, does not want us to just accept one way of thinking. We cannot accept what the majority of society thinks. Just because there is a majority does not make it right. There needs to be room for new ideas and people need to be look beyond the majority view. People need to be willing to question everything that this thrown their way, rather than simply accepting everything as fact. If we can get more people to think outside of the box then there are so many more things that we can discover. Back in Galileo’s time, some of the greatest thinkers were seen as weird or outcasts because they went against what everyone else saw as fact. These days there are too many people who accept everything as fact and don’t really search to find their own truths. Galileo is trying to get people to ask themselves how they really know things are true. There are so many things in our world that can seem like they are one way but are actually another, and if we just question things sometimes we can find what is really true, rather than following everyone else’s ways of thinking.

In his Dialogue, Galileo is trying to prove the same point he wrote about in Assayer. He wants people to stop and take a second look at the theories currently being used to explain phenomena. By posing a hypothetical argument, Galileo brings in strong arguments against his cause and proceeds to refute them. Just in the first day, he has the one character bring up both arguments for the Earth being the center of the universe with the sun revolving around it and vice versa. While this may not seem like a good idea, providing instant answers to strong questions prevents more people from attacking his theories without first thinking through their arguments. Galileo’s goal in the Dialogue was essentially two fold then. First, he wants people to consider his theory as plausible. Even if the best evidence is not there yet, he wants people to consider what he is proposing and not to instantly shut down and call God as their evidence for their arguments. Second, Galileo wants people to consider their arguments more carefully. By having the men pose trying questions of one another’s theories in the piece, Galileo is pointing out to the reader that he will most likely be able to refute most of their first claims to the contrary. Even if they do not agree with him, Galileo wants the people to provide proper arguments when they confront him and to make their decisions based on well thought-out ideas.

In Galileo’s “Dialogue” he is trying to prove two things. The first is that he is trying to prove his theory that was brought up in the Assayer. Galileo is attempting to have the reader understand his theory and what makes it correct. However, that is not the only thing Galileo is up to in the “Dialogue.” I agree with Josh Henry in the belief that Galileo was trying to get people to realize that you cannot just accept a fact, but instead question it and discover your own answer and conclusion to the question. This is exemplified by what Sagredo said about Aristotle’s text that nerves originate from the heart. “You have made me see this matter so plainly and palpably that if Aristotle’s text were not contrary to it, stating clearly that the nerves originate to the heart, I should be forced to admit it to be true,” (2). Sagredo is saying that Aristotle gave such valid arguments and proof that no person ever tried to find the truth for themselves, they believed his findings that were incorrect.

That statement made by Sagredo is what Galileo wanted people to realize about his theory. Galileo wanted people to realize that even though his theory on the earth revolving around the sun is not the popular view, it can very much be true. He wanted people to try and discover their own conclusion on his theory to try and add validity to it. Galileo was basically trying to say, you cannot say a theory is wrong just because of known fact, you can only say a theory is wrong if you tested it and proved it incorrect.

Don't be a follower, be a leader

In today's society, people are told things and told not to question them. With a lot of the facts of today, this is an easy way for people to learn and absorb information. This was the same back in Galileo's time except the facts were a lot more controversial. The people of that time were told that certain theories were correct. In Galileo's "Dialogue", Galileo tries to get people to understand the concept that they should not just accept the answers that they are given at face value. They should question the answer and then should look deeper into the situation and reach the conclusion by themselves. In the "Dialogue", Sagredo explains a situation of a philosopher and nerves. “You have made me see this matter so plainly and palpably that if Aristotle’s text …I should be forced to admit it to be true” (2). Then Galileo questions Simplicio until he admits that he has never tested any of the theories that he has been told but believes them because he was told that they were fact. By forcing Simplicio to admit that he blindly accepted what he was told, Galileo proved his point that people just accept what they are told and don't seek truth for themselves. Galileo portrayed his point in what seemed to be a calm manner which would express his overall mastery and belief in his position. It also would allow him to look like the "bigger man" in his discussions which often leads more people to believe what he said. Ironically this would be against what his point was trying to make. Therefore while some people would actually get the point and search for truth, others would simply think exactly what Galileo was saying and not search for their own truth.

I truly believe that in, “The Dialogue”, Galileo is trying to portray the truth and distribute the truth to its rightful owner. I also believe that he is trying to simplify things. The way I interpreted it, in the beginning of the dialogue, it seems there is some sort of argument or disagreement over the truth and who came up with the truth. On the second page, the characters seem to disagree with the claims of Aristotle. While, Simplicio is praising the works of Aristotle-Sagredo and Salviatui are questioning his works, saying that he will praise Virgil and Ovid while he does not really acknowledge the great works of Aristotle and also saying that Aristotle is getting undeserved desire for his authority. Also, I believe Galileo is trying to persuade the reader that is not particularly difficult to understand how the universe and all of the stars, etcetera work. Also, to prove my point about distributing the truth to its rightful owner, Simplcio seems to just strip Aristotle of the guide of Philosophy and force a new owner to the guide of philosophy. I think one cannot just have the guide of philosophy be one person one minute, and then just proclaim another guide of philosophy.
I cannot say Galileo completely succeeded despite his best efforts. I would say he did not succeed because I classify myself and I still do not completely understand the universe. Also, I do not believe Galileo succeeded in distributing the truth to its rightful owner because I believe there was some uncertainty and confusion about who was the guide for philosophy.

Teaching in a normal way

In “the Dialogue” by Galileo, Galileo was attempting to explain his recent findings, in a manner that could be understood by the common people of the time. His findings were unheard of and never even thought of before he announced his ideas to the world. He was obviously a very intelligent man having developed the ideas of the earth being in motion and since he was an intelligent man he was smart enough to realize not everyone would be able to understand the science behind it. Not only not everyone but a majority of people would have great difficulty understanding his findings in other forms of presentation such as lecture or paper.
Galileo knew his findings were mind boggling and deeply troublesome to understand yet he wanted to spread his knowledge to the world. His idea was one that he knew was extremely likely to get rebuttal as well so his form of handling his was to put possible rebuttals and explanations for why they don’t work in a dialogue form which yet again is easier to understand.
Another easy way to display why Galileo chose to explain his new discovery in a dialogue manner is with teaching styles. Many students complain when their teachers simply lecture for an entire period and do not include them in discussion. Interaction while learning helps to make it less stressful and easier to comprehend due to the more normal, familiar setting, and Galileo wanted his students to learn the best way possible.