Quote Originally Posted by ajaxfetish
There may be an element of arrogance common among scientists, or even intellectuals in general, but Galileo had plenty of contemporary colleagues, some of whom were also heliocentrists, who managed to stay well within the church's good graces.

Ajax
Most of them were members of the church themselves. No one argued Galileo was wrong (everyone important was basically unofficially convinced then anyway), just he broke some church rules and some older papal orders.

As soon as you have a telescope it's painfully obvious to even the most fanatical observer that everything orbits the sun. Just when god's representative on Earth said that was wrong a few years earlier it's issuesome.