In message 20010516162553.68021.qmail@web12206.mail.yahoo.com, Stephen Date stephend999@yahoo.co.uk writes
--- Julia wrote:
Trust an astrophysicist to pick that example:-) It's interesting to see the Church's argument nowadays as to why it was right to treat dissenters as it did...
I think the Pope admitted it had all been a ghastly mistake in 1993. Better late than never !
Even after that, there's a certain amount of wriggling along the lines of "Well, Galileo was technically correct, but it was right to insist that he recant, because he was disturbing simple minds with thoughts they couldn't understand." I can't remember whether I got this in private email or on the newsgroup where we were discussing this - I'll se if I can find the exact argument being put forth, as the priest who explained this was much better at presenting the Church's case fairly than I would be paraphrasing it.
This is drifting off-topic now - if it gets beyond a direct comparison with government control in B7, best take it to the spin-list. I'll leave the follow-up set to the Lyst for the moment, as it might be a fruitful source of further debate on controlling the minds of the general population.