When you look back into the past there are countless examples of philosophers having to

question the ethics of their ideas and whether or not they should present their ideas to the world.
One example of this is Galileo and his attempt to reintroduce the idea of heliocentrism to the
Catholic Church. In Galileos time it was widely accepted that the Earth was the centre of the
universe because that was how the bible seemed to portray the universe. Galileo knew his ideas
would be questioned by the Church and that he could be charged with heresy. Being charged
with heresy meant that he could be tortured, imprisoned, or even burnt at the stake. At this point
in time the Catholic Church was struggling with the Protestant Reformation and as a result the
Church was in a very defensive and conservative state. In this time the Catholic Church believed
that no Christian should interpret scripture differently than the early fathers of the Church, the
Pope or bishops. The Catholic Church interpreted Ecclesiastes from the geocentric point of view
and was not willing to change their view on scripture when Galileo brought up his views on
heliocentrism. The Catholic Church was losing control of many Churches in northern Europe and
felt that if they were to question the bible they would lose even more people and that the bible
would lose its legitimacy. Without the Reformation Galileo would have had a much easier time
presenting his ideas and would not have faced nearly as much scrutiny. Galileo was willing to
risk his life for his beliefs because he did not want the world to continue believing a lie and he
was confident in his idea of heliocentrism. Galileo was eventually trialed at Inquisition
headquarters in Rome and was considered guilty of committing heresy. As a consequence Galileo
was forced to reject his ideas on heliocentrism and was put under house arrest for the remainder
of his life.
If we look into the importance of this event we can see that the world and religion are not
always open to science and the ideas that may seem contrary to the bible and other religious

texts. This conflict is just one of the many conflicts the bible has with science. Therefore it
should be used as an example to show how science should not be rejected because of religious
views and how religion does not need to rely on the basis of science. Religion and science should
be kept separate due to the fact that they are striving for different goals and are not meant to
conflict with each other. Another conflict science has with the bible occurs in Psalms when God
states When the earth and all its people quake, it is I who hold its pillars firm (Psalm 75:3 New
International Version). If you look at this with a literal view you will see that clearly the bible is
wrong here as the Earth is clearly not held up by pillars. However the bible is addressed to the
people in the time period in which this passage was written and therefore you must look into the
views of the people in that time period. When this passage was written it was believed that the
Earth and the sky were flat and held up by a set of pillars. It is for that reason the bible seems to
contradict science however this is not the case. The bible is not meant to be read literally but it is
meant to be interpreted and understood based on who the bible was addressing and what the goal
of the passage was at the time. Had God chosen to write the bible and make it scientifically
accurate it would not be understood by the people he was addressing and it would only defeat the
purpose of it. Therefore when God wrote scripture he decided against revealing the complex
theories of science and in doing so made the bible such an influential and powerful book as it
still remains relevant and applicable in modern times.
Through the rejection of Galileos idea of heliocentrism we can learn that we do not need
to fear whether or not modern science will have a conflict with religion. We should seek to learn
the absolute truths of science while keeping in mind that nothing discovered in science can fully
disprove religion. Therefore the Catholic Church and other religions should be more open to
science and should be more open to accepting the modern ideas of science.