[JesikaFlpk]

Originally posted by David Floyd
You're right, but the Church did. He contradicted Aristotle and Ptolemy because they were WRONG. Instead of listening to him and being open to science, the Church persecuted him. Largely because he was an idiot and mocked the Pope in writing, but I guess that's beside the point. Not many people were open to science in those days. The church was the authority figure at the time, but do you believe that if for some reason the late medieval/renaissance world were run by secular academics who believed in heliocentrism, worshiped the ground the ancient thinkers walked on (as most of Western Europe did in those days), and had power comparable to the Pope's, things would have gone totally differently? I don't.

Yeah, but it will solve the current problems with Iran. Are you saying that we should never confront aggressive regimes, ever, because it won't matter in the long run? Actually, I doubt it would in Iran's specific case. Whatever regime replaced it would no doubt be just as radical, anti-Western and anti-Israel, and in the meantime you'd have lots of nuclear material unaccounted for in the chaos. But that too is beside the point, it's just a result of the Middle East being FUBAR. I'm certainly not suggesting that we should knuckle under to any aggression. I'm saying that blaming religion is the easy way out and more often than not doesn't reflect reality. Reality is a bit more complicated.