Examine tradition before trusting it

• read the narration column first
• then do the exercises

J1 Was Galileo’s conflict with tradition a rare case? Can you mension other examples where modern science contradicts the views of ancient traditions?

J2 Do you agree with Galileo’s assessment that sacred scriptures do no teach science but religion? In that light, how do you explain the following ancient texts:

From the Hindu Vedas:

• “It is he (the deity) through whom the heaven is strong and the earth firm; who has steadied the light and the vault of the skies.”
  Rigveda X, 121.5
• “Up rises the beautiful orb (the sun) on the mean margin of the sky, as the divine white coloured horse carries it fast, making it visible to all.”
  Rigveda VII, 66, 14 16

From the Qur’an:

• “Have they not looked at the sky above them? How We (God) made it and adorned it, and there are no flaws in it. And the earth: We spread it out and placed therein firm mountains.”
  Sura 50, 7-8
• “He (God) causes the break of the day. He made the night for rest, and sun and moon for reckoning time.”
  Sura 6,97
• “And when he (Abraham) saw the sun rise with spreading light, he said: ‘This is my Lord, this is the greatest.’ But when it set, he said: ‘Oh my people, surely I am clear of that which you associate with God.
  Sura 6,79 [Abraham understands that the sun cannot be God because it has to go down].

A3. [personal exercise]
What is your own view about cultural traditions? Are you prepared to examine their validity rather than trust them blindly?

narration

4. 1 Conflict with tradition

Galileo Galilei, who born in Pisa, Italy, in the year 1564, became one of Europe’s leading scientists after studying and teaching in Pisa, Padua and Florence.

He was the first scholar to use the newly discovered telescope for the study of the planets. His research confirmed his view that the earth revolves round the Sun, and not the Sun round the earth.

However, this theory contradicted the commonly accepted traditional view of the universe. Tradition firmly asserted that the Sun rises at dawn and sets at dusk, going round the earth.

This is how people saw the world at the time:

Before the 15th century AD people all over the world generally believed that the earth was flat and that the sky was like a huge ceiling, a dome which covered the space above the earth as a roof. This is actually the way the universe looks to us when we look around us without the knowledge of science. It was popularly believed that the sun, moon and stars were balls of fire that moved along the sky from one side of the earth to another. The sun was supposed to rise in the East and travel along the sky during the day then set in the West and travel along the horizon during the night so that it could rise again the next day.

The earth was presumed to be held firm as it rested on pillars. Underneath the earth one thought of a great abyss, a deep ocean in which there was place for lower gods or for the dead (hell).

This traditional view seemed confirmed by passages in the Bible:

• “Lord God, you are very great You have stretched out the heavens like a tent ...... You have set the earth on its foundations so that it could never be shaken ...... You have made the moon to mark the seasons, The sun knows its time for setting .”
  Psalm 103
  “The sun rises, and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises.”
  Kohelet 1,5
  “The sun stood still in the midst of heaven and did not hasten to go down for a full day.”
  Sun miracle, Joshua 10,13

Galileo considered tradition & the scriptural texts. He came to the conclusion that he should trust the evidence of his scientific observation rather than unfounded tradition. Sacred writings are concerned with God and salvation, he said. They do not teach us science.

“With regard to the standing still or the movement of the sun and earth, the inspired scriptures must obviously adapt themselves to the understanding of the people .....Otherwise the people, with their limited imagination, would easily be brought into confusion, and would not be ready to accept those (religious) truths which are far more important as direct object of faith.”
Galileo Galilei

Galileo published his astronomical observations in The Starry Messenger [1610].

K1 As in other spheres of life, so also in religion, traditions can be a real treasure. However, if not properly handled, even religious tradition can constitute a stumbling block in our search for truth. Overestimating tradition leads to a darkening of our powers of thinking. Traditions need not be true, because they are old. Traditions need not provide the best solutions for our own times, even if they provided solutions that proved excellent in the past. What is your view on all this?

K2 What is your comment on the following quotes regarding ‘traditionalism’ [blind adherence to tradition]?

• “The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a a nightmare on the brain of the living.”
  Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• “All traditionalism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you don’t. If you leave a thing alone, you leave it to a torrent of change.”
  Gilbert Chesterton (1874-1936)

K3 Religious authorities can be useful guides at times, but are they entitled to suppress our freedom of thought and expression? Do you agree with the following two quotations? Why, or why not?

• “What are among the moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous and semi-barbarous people? They are the convictions: that authority is the soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to readiness to believe; that the doubting disposition is a bad one, and scepticism a sin; that when good authority has pronounced what is to be believed, and faith has accepted it, reason has no further duty. The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to accept such authority. For him scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin.”
  Thomas Huxley (biologist, 1825-1895)
• "“t is better that mankind should become atheist through following reason, than blindly believe in two hundred million gods on the authority of anybody . . . If a religion is destroyed by rational thinking, it was not a religion at all, but a superstition.”
  Swami Vivekananda (guru, 1863-1902)

K4. [personal exercise]
What is your own attitude to religious leaders and religious authority?

4. 2 Conflict with religious authorities

The fourth Sunday of Advent 1614 was a black day in the life of Galileo Galilei. In the chapel of Christina of Lotheringia, the Grand Duchess of Pisa, he was publicly decried as an unbeliever and a heretic because his scientific research seemed to contradict the Bible.

The religious authorities of his day, the Pope and the chief theologians, stuck to a literal understanding of the Bible and refused to accept the evidence that Galileo had collected through his scientific observations. As a result, his views were condemned and he was treated as an unbeliever.

On February 24, 1616 Galileo’s scientific views were condemned by a special commission of theologians at Rome, the centre of the Roman Catholic Church. He was forbidden to “hold, teach or defend his opinion in any way, either verbally or in writing.”

On February 24, 1633 Galileo was again summoned to an ecclesiastical court, He was found guilty of ‘heresy’. He was made to kneel down and abjure his opinion. Until his death, in 1642, he was kept under house arrest . ...

“The statement that the earth is not the centre of the world; that the earth is not immovable, but that it moves, and also with the movement of a full day, is absurd, false philosophically, and, theologically considered, erroneous in faith.”
Condemnation by the Holy Office, 13 Febr. 1663

Galileo’s conflict became the best known example of the clash between scientific research and religious authoprity.

If our discoveries by science contradict what the sacred scriptures or religious authority seem to say, what should be our attitude?

Should the work of human science, the research of scholars or the reflections of our own mind, be rejected outright because they seem to oppose or contradict religious beliefs? Is it not a conflict between fidelity to one’s own intellectual honesty and religious authority?

Galileo asserted that the problem should not be solved at the expense of free human thinking and research:

“It is not in the power of any creature, not even of the highest religious authority, to make statements true or false, otherwise than if of their own nature and in actual fact they are true or false . . .
It is surely harmful to the religious good of people if the authorities make it a heresy to believe what has been proved to be a fact.”
Galileo Galilei in The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical controversies

Writings of Galileo:

• Starry Messenger (on Jupiter, 1610)
• Letters on Sunspots (1613)
• Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1613)
• The One who Tests (1623)
• Dialogue on the Two World Systems (1632)
• Discourses concerning Two Sciences (1636)

Galileo’s Discoveries:

1. the law of the pendulum (clocks are based on this)
2. the hydrostatic balance (weighing under water to determine specific weight of objects)
3. the law of the velocity of fall (both heavy and light objects fall with the same speed)
4. the sector, a kind of compass, to aid draftsmen
5. the thermometer (to measure temperature)
6. an improved telescope that could magnify objects 1,000 times
7. the four moons of Jupiter; the Milky Way; the libration (wobbling) of the Moon
8. new method of scientific observation and of formulating physical laws.

Galilei Galileo was kept under house arrest until his death in 1642.