Galileo Galelei was born in 1564, the son of a musician. He entered the University of Pisa in 1581 in order to study medicine. While there in the cathedral, he noticed a lamp swinging, and noted that it took the same amount of time for the lamp to complete its swing, regardless of the distance of the swing. This led him to believe that a pendulum could be constructed to tell time, a discovery that he promoted later in life. He was rapidly drawn into mathematics, accepting the position of Chair of Mathematics at the University of Padua in 1592, a position he held for 18 years. His observations on the uniformly accelerated motion of falling bodies and the parabolic curve of thrown bodies were later used by Newton to formulate the Laws of Motion. Upon learning of the invention of the telescope, he rapidly modified it to increase the power of magnification from a factor of 2 to a factor of 32. With this telescope, he discovered that the Milky Way consisted of multitudes of stars, that Jupiter had moons, the sun had spots, discovered the phases of Venus and the Rings of Saturn. His observations led him to support the Copernican theory that the Earth was not the center of the universe, but was instead a planet revolving around the sun. He was the father of scientific measurement and the scientific experiment.
The factual observations of Galileo were not well accepted at his time, however. The Papal authorities took great umbrage at this pronouncement that the Earth was not the center of the universe. The ecclesiastical authorities demanded that Galileo denounce the theories of Copernicus, and sentenced him to house arrest for the next 7 years. They could not tolerate the thought that any scientific theory conflicted with their interpretation of the Bible, which placed them at the center of the universe and in command of the universe. This was heresy, which had to be squashed. The official decree banned Galileo from any further publication of observations or mathematical calculations. He was awarded a brief reprieve for two years, during which time he published a book comparing the Ptolemaic and Copernican theories of planetary motion.
Because he did not clearly denounce the Copernican theory in this book, he was again scathingly condemned, placed in house arrest, and spent the last 8 years of his life confined to his home. Fortunately he was able to communicate with other scientists and his students, and continued to produce brilliant scientific discoveries up to the time of his death in1642.
It is not exactly clear why we are so adverse to accepting the facts of non-judgmental observation. Human nature appears to resist anything that challenges our previously held beliefs and comfort zones. Even worse, we rationalize everything in order to make us feel good about ourselves and our actions. Unjustified war, executions, killing, bombing, beheading, rape and torture are justified because “It is God’s command,” or “We have to do this to protect ourselves.” We perform abominable acts on each other, then tell ourselves that this callous cruelty is justified because we are good people following a noble cause. We lie to ourselves then convince ourselves that our lies are the truth. We summarily reject the simplest and most glaringly obvious of truths because they conflict with fabricated walls of comfort that we have built around ourselves. We are indeed opinionated and bigoted humans, constantly inventing false reasons to justify every mistake, every lazy indifference, every act of cruelty, greed or jealousy that we commit.
There is no better false pretense for human cruelty and no more powerful resistance to enlightenment than is found in those religions said to stem from the descendants of Abraham: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each shows disdain or rabid intolerance for all other humans that do not share their beliefs. Each says that those who do not share their myths are going to burn in Hell forever. Each uses the substrate of their religion to wage war on the rest of the world, either in business or military terms. None of these religions limits themselves to proselytizing by example. Each is committed to eliminating or converting all other humans who do not share their psychotic beliefs. Each foments conservative literalists in their religion, who believe that any challenge to their myth system is heresy, which deserves all the hatred they can muster. Even though the facts of natural evolution of the species leave no room for doubt, and even though all the evidence we have indicates a gradual evolution of the Earth over the last 4 billion years, they insist that the Earth and all life, all matter on it, was created just as it exists now, some 4000 years ago. Even though we have not a shred of evidence to indicate that there is a Supreme Manipulator in the sky who micromanages every facet of our lives, this is their cherished belief. The concept that this Supreme Being looks just like them, and created the universe just for them, is a monstrous absurdity, yet dear to their hearts.
It appears that it is time to break free from these chains, break free from this slavery, and leave behind these false religious myths, which lead us to hatred of other life and destruction of our home, planet Earth. It is time we are honest with ourselves. We are all in this together, all humans, all of life, trying to carve out an existence against a universe which will, in due time, destroy us all. There is no personal God who will take care of things for us. It is up to us to create a better world. We can only do so if we honestly accept our insignificance in this universe, and show compassion for all other life.