Galileo, like Copernicus, believed the planets revolved around the sun. He was confirmed in his belief that the planets orbited the sun when his telescope revealed that the moons of Jupiter went around that planet. “From one night to the next, I can actually see the moons of Jupiter moving around the planet. It is a miniature version of the planets going around the sun.” he concluded.
He tried to explain the process to others. They would not listen to his arguments, so he would challenge them: “Just come over to my house and look through the telescope. You can see, as I have, that the moons of Jupiter are orbiting around it. They move the same way that we revolve around the sun.”
Those with whom he argued would not look through his telescope. Again and again, they would refuse to look.
They would rarely say “No.” Instead, they always said, “I’d like to, but I’m too busy, just now. Maybe, next week.”
Like Galileo, Catholic Fundamentalists see that there is a remarkable tendency for each of us to stay with beliefs with which we are comfortable, rather than see for ourselves if they are right or wrong.
That is the most revealing thing that Galileo saw through his telescope.
