Opposition to Galileo was scientific, not just religious
To be fair, the Church&#x27;s influence in what we would call science back then was incredibly powerful. I think its unrealistic to see 17th century science as this secular institution like we have today. Of course the &#x27;scientists&#x27; of the age followed a church friendly narrative. It was in their interests to do so. I think we will never really understand the chill on speech and research the Church had during the medieval and later periods. I would say its significant considering that the ancient Greeks (Aristarchus of Samos) were able to figure out the heliocentric model, arguably because they didn&#x27;t have a large Christian Church structure working against them.<p>I find that modern revisionism to make religion seem less villainous is fairly common nowadays. I don&#x27;t know where this is coming from or why its on social media so frequently, but its concerning. I think splitting hairs to make the Church look good is a questionable narrative and a form of feel good politics for certain religious people and certain types of habitual contrarians the internet is so fond of. I imagine we&#x27;re witnessesing a pendulum shift towards more religiosity considering how the west has swung the other way for so long.<p>Regardless, its still wrong and the hundreds years of fighting to secularize science and to progress past religiously acceptable models wasn&#x27;t done because Locher was a bad guy, but because the Pope and and the religious establishment was, regardless of the individual merits of the many monks and priests, who ultimately had to tow the party line regardless of their own findings, mathematical skills, or opinions. Blasphemy was certainly a serious charge back then. The wonderful thing about secular science is that there&#x27;s no serious punishment for being wrong or going against the grain, flawed as it may be. The worst you can expect is being punched by Buzz Aldrin and even then you really have to earn that.