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Comment by huffmsa | Hacker News Reader

Why wouldn't they be? The Church has always been interested in being correct more than being dogmatically rigid. Took a lot to switch, but they had to change with the times somewhat lest people stop believing.

Can't remember the source, but the Vatican basically told Galileo that they were pretty convinced of heliocentrism, but if he could please stop shooting his mouth off until they got a transition plan in place, that'd be great.

He didn't, so they put him on lifetime house arrest to try to mitigate the damage he could do.

So he didn't get heresy'd for opposing the Church's position, but for undermining it's ability to assert influence and control.

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> The Church has always been interested in being correct more than being dogmatically rigid

The Church has always been a community of individuals who publicly confess the same beliefs, while privately holding on to their own motivations.

Correct.

Now, replace "the church" with any centralized apparatus of power and you've described government.

Now, replace "government" with "human social organization," and you're more correct.

In government and business you can implement policy even if it doesn't align with your personal beliefs, it's called chain of command. No one cares if you're a true believer as long as the work gets done. How many churches will admit to functioning like that.

The Catholic Church from the year 0 to 1800 did lots of that. They had meetings to draft the Bible. What should be included. What should be excluded.

The cool Pope we have now is rolling back tons of rules because it's necessary for the survival of the institution, not because he necessarily thinks they're just. His opinion doesn't matter, only God's.

So like any community, family, couple, etc?

As we see from the parent here, plenty of other scientists were starting to come to the same opinion, many of them with patronage from the Church, but they had the sense about them to realize that they needed to be 100% certain before the Church would be okay with changing doctrine. And they weren't 100% certain yet.

High switching costs that Galileo couldn't fathom. A stereotypical head in the clouds scientist.

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