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The Catholic Church has always been open to science.
Few lies so excite secular souls as the Galileo Incident. But the historical reality of the situation is so completely different than the popular version of the story as to make one think we were discussing two different Galileos. Instead of proof the Church is anti-science, it serves to prove the opposite and shows that the Church supports science when it’s governed by true scholarship, logical standards and scientific methodologies.
Atheists must harp on about the Galileo Incident because there are no other examples of the Church supposedly putting itself up in opposition to science. There are, however, plenty of examples of atheists putting themselves against science and reality, including Albert Einstein and Fred Hoyle, who both attacked Father Georges Lemaître’s Big Bang theory. Which is worse? Atheists decrying science or the Catholic Church asking Galileo to amend his reports?
In his book God Is Not Great, Chris Hitchens writes, “The attitude of religion to medicine, like the attitude of religion to science, is always problematic and very often necessarily hostile.” He adds that medical research only began to flourish once “the priests had been elbowed aside.” This is a blatant demagogic lie meant to rally passions rather than teaching truth. Hitchens was a brilliant writer but he just simply never understood anything about the subjects of which he wrote, relying upon his feelings and manipulating those of others rather than actually researching his facts. Hitchens’ nonsense has more in common with Catholic comedian Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness” than it has with actual truth.
Rather than being an obstacle to science, the Catholic Church created the only cultural environment in human history in which science could take root. Sociologist Rodney Stark explained this clearly in his For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts and the End of Slavery. In his book, Stark describes the “still-born” science in the great civilizations of the ancient and medieval world — except, of course, in Christian civilization, where science began to grow and thrive. History proves this. Empirical science and the scientific method were developed in Christian Europe and not in medieval or ancient China, India, Mesoamerica, Arabia, Japan, Greece or Rome. All of the sciences owe a great deal to the contributions of the Catholic Church and its faithful. J.L. Heilbron of the University of California-Berkeley admits this, specifically discussing astronomy:
Continued below.
14 Errors Revolving Around Galileo, and How to Clear Them Up
Few lies so excite secular souls as the Galileo Incident. But the historical reality of the situation is so completely different than the popular version of the story as to make one think we were discussing two different Galileos. Instead of proof the Church is anti-science, it serves to prove the opposite and shows that the Church supports science when it’s governed by true scholarship, logical standards and scientific methodologies.
Atheists must harp on about the Galileo Incident because there are no other examples of the Church supposedly putting itself up in opposition to science. There are, however, plenty of examples of atheists putting themselves against science and reality, including Albert Einstein and Fred Hoyle, who both attacked Father Georges Lemaître’s Big Bang theory. Which is worse? Atheists decrying science or the Catholic Church asking Galileo to amend his reports?
In his book God Is Not Great, Chris Hitchens writes, “The attitude of religion to medicine, like the attitude of religion to science, is always problematic and very often necessarily hostile.” He adds that medical research only began to flourish once “the priests had been elbowed aside.” This is a blatant demagogic lie meant to rally passions rather than teaching truth. Hitchens was a brilliant writer but he just simply never understood anything about the subjects of which he wrote, relying upon his feelings and manipulating those of others rather than actually researching his facts. Hitchens’ nonsense has more in common with Catholic comedian Stephen Colbert’s “truthiness” than it has with actual truth.
Rather than being an obstacle to science, the Catholic Church created the only cultural environment in human history in which science could take root. Sociologist Rodney Stark explained this clearly in his For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts and the End of Slavery. In his book, Stark describes the “still-born” science in the great civilizations of the ancient and medieval world — except, of course, in Christian civilization, where science began to grow and thrive. History proves this. Empirical science and the scientific method were developed in Christian Europe and not in medieval or ancient China, India, Mesoamerica, Arabia, Japan, Greece or Rome. All of the sciences owe a great deal to the contributions of the Catholic Church and its faithful. J.L. Heilbron of the University of California-Berkeley admits this, specifically discussing astronomy:
Continued below.
14 Errors Revolving Around Galileo, and How to Clear Them Up
