“The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent — slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.”
H. L. Mencken
“To command the professors of astronomy to confute their own observations is to enjoin an impossibility, for it is to command them to not see what they do see, and not to understand what they do understand, and to find what they do not discover.”Galileo Galilei, The Authority of Scripture in Philosophical Controversies
As a bonus, here’s a quote attributed to Ferdinand Magellan which is falsely attributed. He DIDN’T say this, and it seems out of character anyway:
“The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.”
NOT by Ferdinand Magellan. Incorrectly attributed to him by Robert Green Ingersoll in his essay “Individuality” (1873)