False Doctrine Quotes
The Irish monks were loyal to the pope and were outraged when he was displaced by King Henry VIII. They were seen as a hotbed of disloyalty and therefore ordered to close. This is one of the many examples where an established government church dictated not only how people should worship but also prohibit other religions from functioning. These examples were well known to the American Founding Fathers and much of educated American opinion which was one of the drivers of the First Amendment and the separation of church and state.
Galileo was forced, under the threat of torture, imprisonment and death, to recant his scientific observations and conclusions. This historical quotation is extremely important for two reasons. First, it demonstrates the terrible effect that ideologically, rigid, religious institutions can have by corrupting scientific thinking and modernization. Second, this particular confession, and the circumstances surrounding it, were well known to the American Founding Fathers, and was one of the motivations to create the first Amendment and prevent any church’s ability to exercise this kind of tyranny over the minds of Americans. Ironically, in modern times it served as an example for the Roman Catholic Church of what to avoid in a world of constant scientific discovery, and this church has been particularly open to new science and has found very creative ways of avoiding doctrinal conflicts with modern science.
