Cutting the head off Medusa

[FallentoReason]

Then I guess the story about him being put under house arrest was not true? If he was, what were the beliefs of his jailers?

To be honest I don't know the full details, but this is Augustine's take:

In 1614, Galileo felt compelled to answer the charge that this "new science" was contrary to certain Scripture passages. His opponents pointed to Bible passages with statements like, "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed . . ." (Josh. 10:13). This is not an isolated occurrence. Psalms 93 and 104 and Ecclesiastes 1:5 also speak of celestial motion and terrestrial stability. A literalistic reading of these passages would have to be abandoned if the heliocentric theory were adopted. Yet this should not have posed a problem. As Augustine put it, "One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: ‘I will send you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon.’ For he willed to make them Christians, not mathematicians." Following Augustine’s example, Galileo urged caution in not interpreting these biblical statements too literally.

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-galileo-controversy

So clearly the Church was on his side, but I'm assuming they put him under house arrest so that they wouldn't lose popularity amongst the secular people.

And still wouldn't matter, at that time the popular belief was that the sun rotated around the earth. Even if he was jailed by people who believed in pink unicorns, he STILL was facing that society with facts they did not want to face.

THE POINT IS that you don't progress by simply accepting whatever claim comes down the pike because it is a popular belief. It is the surest way to lead lemmings off of a cliff.

Agreed. I just don't agree with your methods, because if you truly believe that the facts will speak for themselves, then let them. There's no need to weigh down your arguments with excess baggage such as name calling or expecting the opponent to be quiet and reflect on their faith everytime you finish talking, because you're drawing them away from the facts and making them suspect you have an agenda of some sort. Then accepting anything infront of you just isn't going to happen.