Influenced by the Church

With the Trial of Galileo we see a prime example of the Church pressing their influence in the arena of science. Galileo and his teaching were glowing examples of free thinking and discovery. Today it is proven that the Earth moves around the Sun. However at the time of Galileo his teaching were considered heresy because the did not agree with the Bible. When Galileo was placed on trial it was not the people who tried him but the Church and his sentence was handed down by clergy. Galileo was forced to deny the teaching he believed in. He spent his whole life focused on science and yet in the end the Church won, If only he had lived to see his theories proven. Galileo was a thinking and he was many years ahead of his time. I remember as a child my dad taking me to the planetarium and we saw a wonderful presentation based on Galileo. As I got older my father encouraged me to seek out science and I have always had a wonderful love of the stars and astronomy. My love of these things came from that day in the planetarium and seeing what one man went through for his beliefs. Today If the Church were to press a scientist or a philosopher to deny his teaching the said person would just walk away from the Church. Yet for Galileo the Church was the final say in all matters. I can even see that in his Abjuration that he states his denial just as the sentence reads it should be stated and I can even see in my mind him feeling it was better to Abjure his teaching then to fight, after all he was an old man and probably fairly exhausted.