RELIGION HINDERS SCIENTIFIC THINKING

Scientific learning requires critical thinking, open-mindedness, and a willingness to change one’s thinking in light of more accurate information. All of these qualities are opposed by the religious ignorance called faith.

Nicolas Copernicus (1473 – 1543) was such a scientist who hesitated presenting his scientific findings for fear that he would be declared by the Church to be a heretic for which he could be killed.


Copernicus lived in Poland during the Dark Ages, a time when the Church ruled Europe with vicious dogmatism. Anyone who said or wrote anything that could be interpreted as disagreeing with Christian dogma could be deemed a heretic and killed.

Copernicus observed the stars and planets from his house. For years he worked on his theory that the planets in our solar system revolved around the sun.

This was a departure from the beliefs that had been accepted by the Church that the universe was a closed system that revolved around the earth.

Afraid to publish his work for fear of being declared a heretic, Copernicus did not publish his work until for more than a decade after had written it. He died just a few weeks after it was published. I don’t know whether he waited until he was about to die before he published it or whether he was killed because he did; however, his book was banned by the Vatican—which means nobody was allowed to read it.

Because Copernicus’ heliocentric theory of the planets defied 1,500 years of tradition, some historians mark the publication date of De revelutionbus as the beginning of the “scientific revolution.”

However, it wasn’t until 1835 that his work was taken of the list of books banned by the Vatican.

Another scientist who got in trouble for believing that the earth moved around the sun was Galileo Galilei.

Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) was an Italian scientist whose work in the 17th century helped unlock many secrets of astronomy and natural motion. Galileo’s achievements include:

• Building the first high-powered astronomical telescope
• Inventing a horse-powered astronomical telescope
• Showing the velocities of falling bodies are not proportional to their weights
• Describing the true parabolic paths of cannonballs and projectiles
• Coming up with the ideas behind Newton's laws of motion
• Confirming the Copernican theory of the solar system

Because he believed (as did Copernicus) that the planets revolve around the sun, and not the Earth, Galileo was denounced as a heretic by the church in Rome. He faced the Inquisition and was forced to renounce those beliefs publicly, though later research, of course, proved his theory (and Copernicus before him) was correct.

Thus, Galileo had to lie in order to save his life; perhaps Copernicus was unwilling to do so. In any case, the fate of these two scientists at the hands of the Church (which viciously sought to determine what the people could believe, think, and learn) should serve as cold, hard facts to show how religion hinders the growth and development of science.