APRIL 12th - Forgiven for Being Right



On this day in 1633, the Catholic Church began the inquisition of Galileo because of his belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun and was not the center of the universe. He was convicted of heresy later in June and lived the rest of his life under house arrest. That’s bad enough considering he was right. But how about the fact that it took the Church 300 years to admit homeboy was right and clear his name of heresy. Really? 300 years? So the Church finally came around to recognizing the Earth revolved around the Sun in 1933? This is basically the equivalent of those jackasses that tweet about the Earth still being flat. Looking at you B.o.B. The ignorance isn’t that big a deal. I’m ignorant of all kinds of things. Like for instance, I don’t particularly understand all of the intricacies in the thought experiment of Schrodinger’s Cat. I get that the cat is both dead and alive and that raises some questions of Copenhagen’s model quantum mechanics, but I couldn’t tell you much more than that. But I feel like if I had 300 hundred years to study it, I’d eventually comprehend the thing. The Church is basically that guy who got into a drunken argument and was proven wrong, definitively wrong, and refused to acknowledge it. I will acknowledge that the Catholic Church has gotten better. It took decidedly less than 300 years for them to allow for evolution. And while they may take no official position on evolution, the Pope has stated his support for the idea. Because he understands that you can’t ignore science because it wasn’t included in a book 2,000 years ago. It’s not like God told Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John about the advent of the interwebs. If He had, Al Gore would be such a bigger deal. So why would he detail the scientific evidence of how man came to be, instead of giving a metaphorical story that offers insight into how man should behave. As I've stated before, truth doesn't just come from facts. So it’s nice to see that religious leaders can put aside ancient beliefs and accept sound science. There is progress. Not that it helps Galileo, but at least he was eventually forgiven. For being right.

This Day has been Marked.

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