You are a little too quick to paint an almost caricatural image there, perhaps informed by more recent religious developments, such as the literalist interpretations (mostly, but not exclusively, an american phenomenon).
The reality is that the people who shaped the debates within the Catholic church back then tended to be well educated, and possessing all the attributes of one raising through a hierarchy - above average intelligence, determination, and skill. It is pretty extreme to describe them all as narrow-minded fundamentalists.
Before telescopes, Plato and Aristotle were state of the art knowledge in cosmology (inasmuch as this field even could be said to exist back then). An educated person, including top theologians back then, would have been well acquainted with their views. It is also the case that the Catholic church has been historically more open to scientifically-backed knowledge than most people give it credit for - look at all the Jesuits who had successful careers as scientists, while also remaining men of faith.
Please be aware that observing the (mostly american) present-day religious phenomena does not provide you a good basis for judging religious thinking in the past, especially that related to the non-protestant churches.
> Before telescopes, Plato and Aristotle were state of the art knowledge in cosmology
No, they were not. They were just popular but not state of the art, as neither from them actually preformed astronomical observations or did the calculations. There are people before and after these two who did much more. Because they actually did some real science.
"Repeating Eratosthenes' calculation with more accurate data, the result is 40,074 km, which is 66 km different (0.16%) from the currently accepted polar circumference of the Earth."
Archimedes then estimated an upper bound for the number of grains of sand required to fill the Universe. To do this, he used the heliocentric model of Aristarchus of Samos."
Everything before that year that that carpenter was born, and before his followers continued to depend on older or plainly less informed texts.
Again, that was a fairly quick but narrow reaction.
I did not say "astronomy". I said "cosmology". The choice was conscious. The one is the more practical study of celestial phenomena, and you are correct that neither Plato nor Aristotle were astronomers. The other concerns itself with the large-scale structures and phenomena, both in time and space. Astronomy studies what is going on out there. Cosmology tries to figure out how it all works together.
Astronomy was not an immediate concern to theologians. But they obviously were interested in what was then a proto-cosmology, intertwined with philosophy. If you were an educated person back then, and you were interested in an overall synthesis of how the universe works, Aristotle had it, and you were sure to read his books.
Also be aware that back then nobody had proof positive that Aristarchus (who was much closer to the current definition of an astronomer) was right. Just like today, there were many competing ideas. With the benefit of hindsight, we know that he was on to something. But really it took the invention of the telescope, and the scientific revolution after 1600 to definitely tip the balance.
It is good that you fight narrow-mindedness, but be aware that its antidote is having a broad understanding of these issues. Spend some time thinking about that, okay?
No again. In order to be the "state of the art" in cosmology (as you define it that "concerns itself with the large-scale structures and phenomena") you should know what the "large-scale" actually is. That is what I quoted that these other Greeks actually calculated. The orders of magnitude.
And no, this is also not true: "really it took the invention of the telescope"
You are equating knowledge with mere numerical literacy, e.g., you are imagining that knowledge is a set of fundamental constants to be measured, and that he who knows the constants to the highest precision is the greatest.
In fact knowledge is the thing that allows you to choose which constants to calculate at all. It is not intuitive why a light in the sky should have a size. What is the size of a sunset? What is the size of a rainbow? What is the size of an eclipse?
Knowledge is not the mere accumulation of measurement. It is the organizational structure that allows you to separate between what we can and cannot measure, what we have measured before and have not measured yet. It is what tells us whether "the" sun is a singleton or that "a" rainbow today is not the same today as tomorrow.
> who don't know history
I think you would benefit from reading up on the current consensus among historians on the Conflict Thesis before presenting it to those of us who have caught up on our Ferngren, Barker, etc.
Read my links. Those Greeks were much more right than Plato or Aristotle. We know that today. The first one didn't measure anything. The second one was the teacher of Alexander the Great, but also not particularly good scientist, compared to these other Greeks. We know because we have even better tools today, and we compared. They were better scientists.
Conflict Thesis has nothing to do with the facts I've presented. I haven't invented any. Where have you found any error in these?
The reality is that the people who shaped the debates within the Catholic church back then tended to be well educated, and possessing all the attributes of one raising through a hierarchy - above average intelligence, determination, and skill. It is pretty extreme to describe them all as narrow-minded fundamentalists.
Before telescopes, Plato and Aristotle were state of the art knowledge in cosmology (inasmuch as this field even could be said to exist back then). An educated person, including top theologians back then, would have been well acquainted with their views. It is also the case that the Catholic church has been historically more open to scientifically-backed knowledge than most people give it credit for - look at all the Jesuits who had successful careers as scientists, while also remaining men of faith.
Please be aware that observing the (mostly american) present-day religious phenomena does not provide you a good basis for judging religious thinking in the past, especially that related to the non-protestant churches.