Pete, when Galileo managed to cobble together a telescope and directly examined some of the "heavenly bodies," what he SAW verified the theory of Copernicus, that the earth revolved around the sun, not the other way around. So the earth could NOT be the center of the universe as was the conventional teaching of the time.

The CHURCH hauled him before the Inquisition and made him say that his observations were in error, under threat of being burned at the stake if he didn't. Galileo, taking the discrete route, allowed as how he might have been in error, thus saving his life—while knowing that sooner or later, scientists to come would verify that he had been right.

But the Church sure put a crimp in Galileo's scientific studies.

Science neither affirms nor denies the existence of God. The problem is narrow minded literalists who can't see the bigger picture, and lack imagination.

God MIGHT be a whole lot more omniscient and omnipotent that most religious people imagine.

Don Firth