Science and Religion Paper

Upon reading the documents On The movement of the Earth by Nicolaus Copernicus, Science and the Bible: "They Would Have Us Abandon Reason" by Galileo Galilei, one can see that the relationship between the Church and the scientific community had to be adversarial. Based on Copernicus conclusions about the Sun and moon, Galileo's beliefs about the bible it is easy to see how the Church and the scientific community couldn't be as one. Each of these two men believed in what they discovered and there was no compromising just like the church wasn't willing to compromise.

It's easy for one to see how Nicolaus Copernicus thought that the Church and the scientific community had to be so adversarial. In the beginning of his letter to the Holy Father he talks about how the people will not like what he has to say and will try and get him to stop saying what he is saying. Copernicus first talks about how mathematics are so unsure of the movement of the sun and moon that they can't explain the seasonal year. Next, he talks about how neither the same hypotheses nor principles were used in determining the motion of the planets. For a long time the Catholic church had accepted the geocentric model of the earth. It's when Copernicus set out to fix the mathematical issues that people started getting worried. The church didn't like this because if astronomers and mathematicians could prove that the earth wasn't geocentric; who's to say someone wouldn't question the authenticity of the bible. Copernicus just wanted to prove that the mathematical findings of Ptolemy were wrong, and that there was more out there then meets the eye.

During the 17th century, the Catholic Church found itself dealing with events and people that threatened its established authority. The attacks on the church were now about the new scientific theories that challenged Catholic Church doctrines. The leader at the head of this was Galileo Galilei. Galileo's biggest issue seems to be that "they sought to deny and disprove the new things which, if they had cared to look for themselves, their own senses would have demonstrated to them. To this end they hurled various charges and published numerous writings filled with vain arguments, and they made the grave mistake if sprinkling these with passages taken from the Bible which they had failed to understand properly, and which were ill suited to their purposes..."