Professor Sloan’s talk about the trial of Galileo Galilei and whether it may be considered evidence for a conflict between religion and science may not have been the most groundbreaking look at the subject, but it was interesting nonetheless. Providing animations were quite helpful in demonstrating how retrograde movement was key to the debate between the geocentric and heliocentric theories.

But I was was pleasantly surprised to find that his opinions on the supposed religion-science divide mirrored my own. Yes, religion is typically conservative and dogmatic, but it acts more as fuel for the fire of social movements rather than the actual kindling at its heart. Rarely do believers follow all the precepts of a faith in its original form to the letter. Reinterpretation and selective attention are legion. And it is when new eyes look upon old material that a new species of logs are thrown in the hearth. The nature of the fire will be determined by these logs, yet without the lighter fluid of faith, the fire would never burn as passionately, persistently, or fiercely.