389 years ago today Galileo was forced to recant his Copernican views that the Earth orbits the Sun by the Pope. It took the Catholic church 359 years to admit it was wrong. The arc of justice bends slowly but this is ridiculous.
Conservatives. Always getting in the way.
Galileo's championing of Copernican heliocentrism (Earth rotating daily and revolving around the sun) was met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from some astronomers. The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture.[10][11][12]
Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (1632), which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated both the Pope and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.[10] He was tried by the Inquisition, found "vehemently suspect of heresy", and forced to recant. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest.[13][14] During this time, he wrote Two New Sciences (1638), primarily concerning kinematics and the strength of materials, summarizing work he had done around forty years earlier.[15]
Maybe 400 years from now, in the reign of Donald LVI, people will finally realize we were right.
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I’m at Mom’s house in North Carolina so I may not be in for commenting.