Consider the relationship between organized religious authorities (especially the Catholic Church) and the ideas/thinkers of the Scientific...

The
relationship between science and established religious authority during the so-called
"Scientific Revolution" was a difficult one. Galileo, often seen as the father of
experimental science, was condemned and imprisoned (under House arrest) by the Church for his
assertion that the earth revolved around the sun. Copernicus's De
Revolutionibus, in which he argued for a heliocentric universe, was banned by the
Church several decades after the author's death. Generally speaking, the Church supported
scientific inquiry to the point when the findings of scientists conflicted with Church
positions. Astronomy, because it directly called the Biblical conception of the Earth's place in
the universe into question, was a particularly high-profile target for the Church. The Catholic
Church actually actively supported scientific inquiry in other fields (as in fact it did for
astronomy as well). From the seventeenth to the eighteenth centuries, many prominent scientists,
including Blaise Pascal, Rene Descartes, and the Comte de Buffon were either Catholic clergymen
themselves, received their education from Jesuits or other clergy, or were patrons of the
Church. But the works of both Pascal and Descartes, as well as Francis Bacon, another father of
scientific inquiry, were eventually prohibited by the Church. Over time, the Church became less
strident in its stance against the findings of various scientists, while still maintaining its
authority to rule on matters related to the natural world. In Protestant countries, the works of
Isaac Newton (himself a devoutly religious man) John Locke, and others were criticized, but not
banned, by religious authorities, who often had little authority to do so in any case. So it is
too simplistic to say that science and religion were always in conflict, but for most of the
period in question, established churches took a dim view of scientific findings that
contradicted their orthodoxies.

href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-revolutions/">https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-revolutions/
href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-convicted-of-heresy">https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-co...