"Science is a splendid thing,
if you tell it where to go."
--G.K. Chesterton
But the only thing that can put science in its place is religion. Only the supernatural can give the proper context for the natural.
They will say that "... religion will persecute science or inhibit scientific progress! After all, look at how the church persecuted Galileo!"
Chesterton says that the name "Galileo" has become "imbedded in journalese and preserved there like a fossil." You cannot read an article on science and religion without seeing the name "Galileo". Chesterton suggested a tax be put on the word "Galileo", which would force journalists to come up with some other example of a scientist who has been persecuted by the Church. It would force them to do some research and perhaps learn something about history. They might even learn that Galileo's "persecution" was pretty minor, if you can even call it persecution.
"Every leader-writer who thunders 'Galileo' at us assumes that we know even less about Galileo than he does." --Chesterton
And, of course, Galileo's idea about the earth going around the sun was not Galileo's idea. It was first suggested by a Catholic priest from Poland named Copernicus, who was never persecuted for his idea but was always held in the greatest esteem by the Church.
The heliocentric theory is called the Copernican Revolution and not the Galilean Revolution.
As for the tired argument about Galileo, the questions need to be updated:
- Is the Church obstructing science?
- Or is science obstructing the Church?
- Who is being persecuted now?
- Whose creed is taught in the schools, fully underwritten by the government?
- Who's creed is silenced under penalty of law?
We need to put science back in its place.
One of the best ways to make that happen would be for everyone to read G.K. Chesterton.
Common Sense 101, Dale Alquist
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