I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” – Galileo Galilei

A lot of people assume, and probably because they are incorrectly taught this, that Galileo had this tremendous battle with the Church.  What is more correct to say is that parts of the Church were on his side and others were not.  If you actually read up on the trial of Galileo, you find he was prosecuted for other reasons.

He was not prosecuted for his premises and observations.  He got himself in trouble by not keeping his word on certain things and in that day and age it was seen as blasphemy to stand up the Pope.  What else is not much known these days is that the Pope actually agreed with Galileo and they had considered themselves friends until Galileo betrayed his ‘friend’ on other subjects.

In essence, though I admire Galileo greatly his character wasn’t the best… and once again, we have taught wrongly about the nature of the conflict and what actually transpired.

All of this aside, never, ever avoid using your reason, good sense and intellect.  God created us with all of this for His purpose.  As the Bible admonishes us, we are to love and honor God with all our hearts and bodies.  To this, I think it’s safe to say that God wants us to love Him with all of our good mental faculties as well.  Don’t you?

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