Dear Readers,
Atheists, communists, and secular humanists like to make the
Catholic Church look as bad as possible.
One of their favorite ways to do this is by bringing up the trial of
Galileo. The communist playwright
Bertolt Brecht, for example, wrote a play called Life of Galileo which focused
heavily on the trial.
The short version of the story goes something like this:
During medieval times in Europe, The Catholic Church ruled
church and state and school and science and everything. That was bad. The Pope and cardinals and priests and all the rest of
the piou-faced theocrats agreed in a geocentric universe- that the earth was
at the center of the universe and everything revolved around it. Then some scientists came along with
telescopes. These scientists were based
in reason and rationality. They used
the scientific method as their guide, not the out-dated dogma of the
Church.
The scientists saw some things in the sky that made them
think that the earth, in fact, revolved around the sun. Well, that made the Catholic Church
mad. They went on a witch-hunt to
punish all the heretics. Galileo said,
“Oh, please don’t hurt me, priests.
I'm just a scientist. I come with a message of truth. Look, see, I brought my telescope.
Why don’t you look through it and see what you think?”
Well, the priests wouldn’t look through the telescope. Remember, they were bad, and they hated
science. Some of them wouldn’t even
touch the telescope because they were scared of it. So the Catholic Church put Galileo on house arrest and
burned all his books.
End of story.
But the spirit of Galileo lives in us all now, don't you see? We can all be martyrs for science! We all can help move the good work of Galileo along by abandoning religious traditions, mocking anyone who claims to have authority from God, denying revelation, and instead look to science, reason and secularism for guidance. And one day we'll reach the grand Utopia where Science is enthroned at last.
What’s missing in this slanted story? One
simple, essential fact:
Galileo was Catholic.
Galileo came from a Catholic background, a Catholic world, and
a Catholic culture. His quest for
discovery of the natural world and the physics that make it all work was
motivated by a belief in God. His
curiosity was inspired by God. God
worked through the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to establish relative peace
and prosperity, an environment in which a man like Galileo could do his work and make his
discoveries. Galileo’s disciplined work of making observations of the heavens
with his telescope and writing them down and sorting out theories and
consulting with other Catholic scientists was the result of a Catholic culture.
Is it just a coincidence that many of the great artists and
inventors came from a Catholic background?
Is it just a coincidence that Leonardo Da Vinci was Catholic, and
Michelangelo was Catholic, and Gutenberg was Catholic? These men and their ideas and their works of
art and their inventions didn’t come from a secular humanist culture. They came from an intensely religious
culture.
Look, I value the art and inventions and scientific contributions of Africa, Asia and indigenous people of wherever, but all the really great stuff came from Western Civilization. And where did Western Civilization come from? Where did modern Europe and modern America with its wonderful prosperity, literacy, freedom, social mobility, sanitation, arts, sciences, and symphonies come from? They came from the cultural foundations laid painstakingly, generation after generation, by Jews and Christians. They came from God.
Another interesting person who just happened to be Catholic: Martin Luther. Luther, though he rebelled against the Pope and the practice of indulgences and etc., will be forever indebted to the Catholic Church. Luther received his education and character primarily in a Catholic family and in a Catholic monastery.
I could have written another blog post called “Joan of Arc
was Catholic.” In that hypothetical
post, I would have made the same argument.
Anti-Catholics love to point out that the Catholic Church was so bad and
so mean and so wrong for burning Joan of Arc.
But what these critics fail to realize is that Joan of Arc herself was
Catholic. She was raised in a Catholic
culture. She was taught to believe in
God, to pray, to respect elders and traditions. Other cultures just don't produce as many Joan of Arcs.
Show me a great artist or inventor who came from an atheist
family and an atheist culture. Sure,
many successful artists and scientists today are atheists or secular humanists,
but I dare say that these folks are riding on the coattails of the religious people
who were the pioneers in their fields.
Stephen Hawking is riding on the coattails of Galileo. They are also riding on the coattails of those religious people (George
Washington, the Pope, etc.) who established the culture in which their art and
science could flourish. They are also riding on the coattails of the religious people who founded Universities.
What’s interesting is that even the communist playwright Brecht came
from a religious culture. According to
Wikipedia, he had “a devout Protestant mother.” Freud also came from a religious culture. And so did Woody Allen. And so did Christopher Hitchens.
Maybe the best atheists were once Christians (Christopher Hitchens, Marilyn Manson), and
maybe the best Christians were once atheists (C.S. Lewis, Peter Hitchens, Saul/Paul).
I think what we ought to do now is embrace Christianity.
I had another daughter last Tuesday. Now I have two children. They are both going to be Mormon. They are both going to be Christian. Isn’t that wonderful?
Sincerely,
Telemoonfa
