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Umm. Not exactly. It was common knowledge that the earth was round at the time (and had been since biblical times). Galileo's findings supported Copernicanism - which was that all objects in our system revolved around the sun, not 1) the earth or 2) some earth, some sun.
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Actually the Greeks calculated the circumfrence of the earth with about a ten percent degree of accuracy. So they knew that the earth was round well before "Biblical" times. There is some evidence that the aztecs and the sumerians may have had a notion that earth was round.
The real problem here the that the institution of the church decided to ignore most of the wisdom of the ancient greeks, relying only on what fit the doctrine of the time.
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"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church."
Ferdinand Magellan
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I think Magellan's unintended point is a good one. The blind faith that we sometimes put in institutions (Science, The Church, The Government, etc.) can often lead us astray. There are those who have faith in God like Yorick and Cerek [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] and those who have faith in ourselves or in what we percive to be facts [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] . Like Magellan we see the divine in the world at large instead of seeing it in a building or a cultural edifice. If too much faith is put into these institutions then you could easily make a case for science being a religion or even government being a religion.
Lady Blue: While Galileo didn't prove the earth was round his publication was what got the theory widely accepted.... You were almost right. And that's pretty darn good. Even in science.
DeSoya