Questioning Expertise (moved comments)

[T_aquaticus]

@PDPrice

Place yourself in the position of believing in God and you’ll quickly see that whatever God says takes precedence. Anybody who says they believe in God and then places anything above what God says is clearly not being consistent.

We’ve seen this movie before.

First, . . . to want to affirm that in reality the sun is at the center of the world and only turns on itself without moving from east to west, and the earth . . . revolves with great speed about the sun . . . is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false.
–Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615

All of the experts in the modern day agree that the Earth moves about the Sun at great speed. So do we trust the experts, or do we trust God’s Word?

One aspect of discussion is how science itself works: You don’t have to trust the experts. The evidence and knowledge experts use to reach their conclusions is potentially available to everyone. For obvious reasons, some evidence is difficult to acquire, but the empirical world is available to anyone. Scientific experts are not a priestly sect that withhold evidence from the laity. If you think the experts are wrong, then it is incumbent on the challengers to prove them wrong.

Did Bellarmine prove Galileo wrong by proclaiming the Bible said the Sun moved about the Earth? Are all the experts supporting Heliocentrism wrong because they go against the Bible? Or are the experts right because the evidence points to Heliocentrism?