There is an interesting article I read today (here) on evangelical scholars publicly stating their belief that Adam and Eve were not historical people. As one can imagine this topic quickly involves the evolution verse creation debate, with the usual suspects lining up on their respective sides of the battle: those who think Adam and Eve were historical figures on the creation side, those who do not on the evolution side. The author also gives (from my perspective) a somewhat one sided opinion about scholars being dismissed from Christian Universities for disagreeing with the statement of faith of that particular university (as if it were the institution had no right to say "this is what we believe" - but that is a different topic for a different day).
The part I found most interesting, however, was the author's use of Galileo. I found it interesting because this argument seems to be popping up everywhere these days. Anytime anyone, on the grounds of faith, disagrees with a scientist, or anyone for that matter on the topic of science, Galileo seems to get tossed out rather quickly. For those not up to speed on history, Galileo was an Italian scientist in the late 1500 and early 1600's. He has been referred to as the father of modern science, the father of modern physics, and is a hero to anyone who likes to look at stars through a telescope. Galileo was charged and convicted of heresy for supporting a round earth theory rather than the official Catholic church stance of a flat earth. The common argument today, as made in the article above, is that Christians better get on board with science or they will end up looking like idiots just like the Catholic church did with Galileo. I have three main problems with this logic.
First, the church, in the Galileo incident, is often portrayed as always having adopted a flat earth theory. This is not true. In fact, for most of history, the church was either indifferent or actually supported a round earth. However, with the rise of the renaissance, and a new emphasis on man centered philosophy, science, and religion, the Aristotle (classical Greek) theory of an earth-centered universe was widely accepted due to its inherent man-centeredness. Thus, the flat earth theory was not always held by the church and was held in error by the church at the time of Galileo. This does not exonerate the Church, but it does provide some perspective into the conflict.
Second, the flat earth theory was originally Greek, not Christian. How the Christian church got blamed for this fallacy is beyond me because it came from Greece originally. Yes, the Catholic church held this view for a time, but anyone who blames the Church for the theory is either very jaded in their approach or just not a student of history.
Finally, and this is on a much broader scope, Galileo gets used as a trump card, as if science has never gotten anything wrong. I mean a hundred years ago most scientists, although they knew about DNA, thought proteins were the key to your specific features. No one thought anything, including tools for surgery, needed to be disinfected until the late 1800's. At the time of Galileo scientists thought the liver, not the heart, circulated the blood through the body. The point is, science itself is often wrong. Just because Galileo got it right doesn't mean science always gets it right. I am amazed sometimes at the hubris of modern man to think that in just the past 10 or 20 years we have somehow figured everything out and unlocked the secrets of the universe. Give it a few hundred years and I'm sure, if Jesus has not come back, our descendants will be looking back on us as if we were absolute idiots about most things. Case in point right here (if you don't want to read it: scientists are now postulating that if we don't curb greenhouse gases, aliens will destroy us so we don't threaten the rest of the galaxy with our self-destructive habits).....
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