Outside Reading Post 25

For tonight's outside reading blog, I want to comment on "The Trial of Galileo", by Doug Linder. The account was of how Galileo's belief in a Copernican Universe led to his eventual death by fighting against the Catholic Church. In the early 1620s, Galileo invented the telescope, which he used to confirm the idea of a Copernican Universe, a universe where the sun is the center of the universe, and the planets orbit around it. Everyone else believed in Ptolemaic Universe, where the Earth was in the center and the sun and planets orbited it. Galileo believed that he was right and this cause was worth fighting for. Galileo changed the views of many scholars with his telescope, but he could not alter the views of the cardinals and priests of the Catholic Church. In 1633, Galileo was accused of false injuction, from the reading, "As a salutary penance we impose on you to recite the seven penitential psalms once a week for the next three years. And we reserve to ourselves the power of moderating, commuting, or taking off, the whole or part of the said penalties and penances." I believed that his was way to cruel to sentence to a man who had different beliefs than the rest of us. It seemed both unfair and stupid to do such a thing. I guess the Church had a lot of power back in the days. I'm glad we have freedom of speech.