I didn't read the previous thread, so disregard this post if it is just rehashing ideas already presented. Heliocentrism is not just a small blip in biblical historicity. The Israelites were unable to defeat the Canaanites at Jericho. So god stopped the sun in its course across the sky to give the Israelites more daylight and more time to complete their conquest. If we accept heliocentricity, then the Israelites didn't conquer Jericho. They didn't displace the Canaanites from Palestine. They never established the kingdom of Israel. Geocentrism is essential to all the Judaic-Christian history that follows. Pope Asshole VIII understood this well enough to threaten a sick old man with having the skin and flesh seared off his bones, To confine him to his small quarters for the remainder of his life, to restrict him from ever seeing his friends and supporters. and to forbid his writing about his favorite subject, which was his bread and butter. (Interestingly, my spell checker wants to replace geocentrism with egocentrism.)
While not disastrous to religion, it has been argued that the anti-scientific stance of the church contributed greatly to the decline of the papacy and the emergence of protestantism. The problem was that Galileo's proof of heliocentism relied on his use of optical telescopes, which the pope declared must therefore be instruments of the devil. The problem with that is that such optical instruments were essential for long range accurate navigation. So, while spain, portugal, england, and just about everyone else were exploring the world and gaining fabulous wealth, the papal states and italy were almost singularly (for european states) absent from the trough. We can anticipate that the same will happen to any country that abstains from the current revolution taking place in biology, the central tenet of which is evolutionary theory. That countries religion will not suffer in that it will not go away. But that country will find itself declining in wealth and influence. This might have the ironic impact of enhencing the strenght of that counties churches.
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