On this date in 1633, Galileo was forced by the Roman Catholic Inquisition to recant his scientific discovery that the earth spins on its axis and revolves around the sun, which remains fixed. As Ronald Bruce Meyer writes at freethoughtalmanac.com:
What seems obvious to us today was unscriptural, and therefore by definition untrue, in Galileo’s day. The ecclesiastical notion that the earth was the center of the universe was supported by passages from Joshua, Psalms and Ecclesiastes. Galileo was supported only by his observations and calculations...
He remained under clerical supervision the rest of his life. It wasn’t so much that Galileo sought confrontation with the doctrines of the Church; instead, he discovered facts which contradicted what the Church taught. What to do? Profess to believe what he no longer could? The one thing Galileo chose not to do was to stay silent – and to allow truth to approach superstition on its knees – until he was forced to profess what he did not believe. Galileo’s recantation on this date in 1633, if it demonstrates anything, demonstrates that you cannot choose what you believe, or be compelled to believe. You can be compelled to lie, to everyone but yourself, but the story of Galileo shows that you can believe only what you must.
It is well for us to remember this date because it brings to mind the need of adhering to the truth as reason and experience reveals it to us, and not to depend on or bow before the "revealed" truths of organized religion. There are still those in this modern age who would try to force everyone to live by the superstitions of revealed religion, using any and all means to do so. They must be confronted and their views called out at every opportunity. Galileo remains one of the icons in this ongoing struggle for freedom of thought and his story worth remembering.
btw: it took the Catholic Church 500 years to admit it was wrong.
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