Originally Posted by
HeavyMetal
Galileo was not imprisoned for his heliocentric proposition (which he had no actual proof of at the time). He continued to make the claim without evidence anyway. It came to him in a dream, btw...not because of some great scientific insight.
Galileo was actually imprisoned for his theology which was at odds with Rome. That's bad on its own merit, but it's got nothing to do with science. At all.
But the guy who actually did prove the Heliocentric universe, Copernicus, was also a deeply religious man, and was even buried in a Cathedral. So was Isaac Newton, the guy who started classical physics and invented calculus. These guys weren't just passively religious. It was what drove them.
So the idea that religious people are somehow incurious is ridiculous. Yes, there are a lot of people who say, "God did it. That's all I need to know". But their non-religious counterparts just say, "I don't know, and I don't care". Their lack of religion doesn't make them one bit more scientifically curious.