细说地心天动的始末：别过度简化历史
地心天动与天心地动说的史实，绝不像我们所受教育那样，可以被“基督教压迫科学、圣经反科学”这几句口号说明。相反地，如果我们仔细读历史，您可能会得到恰恰相反的结论。以下所摘是伽利略的信。
从这些事情所能得到的一个必然结论，就是：既然圣灵从未打算要教导我们天体是运动或静止，形状为球形或像一个铁饼，或在一个平面上伸展，地球是位于它的中心，或偏于一隅，就更不会要为我们其他的类似看法下定论。这与我们对地球和太阳或运动或静止的看法是密切相关的，前者无定论，则后者谁是谁非也无法肯定。因此，如果圣灵刻意忽略了教导这些与最高目的（即我们的救赎）不相干的看法，那何人能断定接受某一种看法是义不容辞的，是维持信仰所必需的，而另一方却是错误的呢？与灵魂得救毫无关系的一种看法可以被定为宗教异端吗？难道圣灵会去教导我们跟我们的救恩无关的事吗？我想引用听到来自教会一位杰出人士的话："圣灵的意思是教导一个人如何去天堂。而不是天体如何运行" 。
摘自伽利略1615年致大公爵夫人柯理斯蒂娜的信
From these things it follows as a necessary consequence that, since the Holy Ghost did not
intend to teach us whether heaven moves or stands still, whether its shape is spherical or like a
discus or extended in a plane, nor whether the earth is located at its center or off to one side,
then so much the less was it intended to settle for us any other conclusion of the same kind. And
the motion or rest of the earth and the sun is so closely linked with the things just named, that
without a determination of the one, neither side can be taken in the other matters. Now if the
Holy Spirit has purposely neglected to teach us propositions of this sort as irrelevant to the
highest goal (that is, to our salvation), how can anyone affirm that it is obligatory to take sides
on them, that one belief is required by faith, while the other side is erroneous? Can an opinion be
heretical and yet have no concern with the salvation of souls? Can the Holy Ghost be asserted
not to have intended teaching us something that does concern our salvation? I would say here
something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: "That the intention of
the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven. not how heaven goes."
Excerpt from Galileo's letter to Grand Duchess Christina of 1615
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