Reddit reviews Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion

Galileo had a theory about the movement of the planets. He argued for his theory, the church scientists at the time said that if his theory were true, we'd be able to see parallax, but the instruments were not good enough for it. They also pointed out that if it were true, we'd have to reinterpret certain lines of scripture.

Then Galileo began arguing that Scripture showed his theory was true, and the church told him not to do that.

>Following this up, the Consultor of the Holy Office and Master of Controversial Questions (a Title which the existence of alone makes me proud of my religion) Cardinal Robert Bellarmine told Galileo it was perfectly acceptable to maintain Copernicanism as a working hypothesis, and if there were “real proof” that the earth circles around the sun, “then we should have to proceed with great circumspection in explaining passages of Scripture which appear to teach the contrary…” Basically, until you have proof, stop trying to interpret Scripture. Galileo ignored this, continued campaigning, and was then brought to the Inquisition, and put under house-arrest, where he died a mass-going, daily-prayer Catholic.

More details can be found here or here.

>imprisoned him and suppressed his works

Close - sentenced him to house arrest and forbid one of his books. He was technically sentenced to go to prison but they never went through with it and instead he had to stay at his house during his last years.

personally i recommend this one :o)

> His physics have been proven pretty wrong as well

Would you be able to show me what specifically has been disproved in Aristotle's physics/metaphysics that Aquinas specifically uses in his Five Ways?

Aquinas' Five Ways: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1002.htm#article3

> [Aristotle's cosmology] was the reason that Galilleo was condemned

This is a myth. In the case of Gaileo, the Inquisition went after him because he used heliocentrism to interpret Scripture, which the Church was not happy about. Moreover, when the Pope asked him to write a book about the strengths and weaknesses of the Copernican Heliocentric model vs the Ptolmeaic Geocentric model (The Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems), he did so in a way that hugely downplayed the flaws of the Copernican model, and he quoted the Pope in a character called "Simplicio", which means "The Idiot". These reasons led the Inquisition to sentence Galileo to house arrest in his Florentine villa (roughly 2500 square feet / 230 square metres in size).

Sources:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-misunderstood-historical-event/answer/Tim-ONeill-1

https://www.quora.com/Why-were-Galileos-ideas-censored/answer/Tim-ONeill-1

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

https://np.reddit.com/r/badhistory/comments/3a9sdq/the_long_awaited_galileo_challenge/

http://www.amazon.com/Galileo-Other-Myths-Science-Religion/dp/0674033272/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252071550&sr=8-1

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/09/the-myth-of-galileo-a-story-with-a-mostly-valuable-lesson-for-today/

http://www.scientus.org/Galileo-Battle-for-Heavens.html

The 'better' interpretation is found in historical books and journals, but since I'm going to have to do your work for you:
You could start with Clarke's [Civilisation series](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilisation_(TV_series), James Hannan wrote a reasonable book outlining the course of science over the mediaeval period, and you should read Ronald Numbers to finish off an overview.

But go ahead and downvote, because as everyone knows, uninformed comments are far more popular than facts.