PERCEIVED OR REVEALED REALITY

People have difficulty differentiating between perceived reality and revealed reality. Perceived reality differs from revealed reality for a number of reasons. The most obvious is that perceived reality relies on what people say or feel and revealed reality relies on scientific fact. The life of Galileo is a prime case of people selecting a perceived reality over a revealed reality.
In 1609, Galileo heard about the invention of the spyglass, a device which made distant objects appear closer. Galileo used his mathematics knowledge and technical skills to improve upon the spyglass and build a telescope. Later that same year, he became the first person to look at the moon through a telescope and make his first astronomy discovery. He found that the moon was not smooth, but mountainous and pitted. He used his recently invented telescope to discover four of the moons circling Jupiter, to study Saturn, to observe the phases of Venus, and to study sunspots on the Sun.
Galileo's observations strengthened his belief in Copernicus' theory that Earth and all other planets revolve around the sun. Most people in Galileo's time believed that the Earth was the center of the Universe and that the sun and planets revolved around it.
In December of 1613, Galileo received a letter from Father Castelli, a close friend of his and a fellow astronomer. Castelli had recently dined with the royal family of Tuscany, and he reported how the Grand Duchess Christina had criticized the heliocentric theory for its repudiation of Holy Scripture. Galileo fired back a letter to his friend that would later be published, with the author's permission, across Italy. In it, he declared that scriptural literalism had no place in scientific inquiry. "Inasmuch as the Bible calls for an interpretation differing from the immediate sense of the words," he wrote, "it seems to me that as an authority in mathematical controversy it has very little standing... I believe that natural processes which we perceive by careful observation or deduce by cogent demonstration cannot be refuted by passages from the Bible."
The Catholic Church, which was very powerful and influential in Galileo's day, strongly supported the theory of a geocentric, or Earth-centered, Universe. After Galileo began publishing papers about his astronomy discoveries and his belief in a heliocentric, or sun-centered, Universe, he was called to Rome to answer charges brought against him by the Inquisition (the legal body of the Catholic Church). Early in 1616, Galileo was accused of being a heretic, a person who opposed Church teachings. Heresy was a crime for which people were sometimes sentenced to death. Galileo was cleared of charges of heresy, but was told that he should no longer publicly state his belief that the Earth moved around the sun. Galileo continued his study of astronomy and became more and more convinced that all planets revolved around the Sun. In 1632, he published a book that stated, among other things, that the heliocentric theory of Copernicus was correct. Galileo was once again called before the Inquisition and this time was found guilty of heresy. Galileo was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1633. His books, together with those of Copernicus and Kepler, were banned.
People were selecting the idea of a geocentric universe over a heliocentric universe or their perceived reality over Galileo’s revealed reality. They were using their perceived reality which was achieved through their common sense or by becoming aware of, knowing, or identifying by means of the senses. The earth was clearly not moving and daily you could see the sun revolved around the earth. Their interpretation of the Bible also re-enforced their knowledge.
Revealed reality used scientific methods to investigating the phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. It used knowledge based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.
The discussion between perceived reality and revealed reality still occurs everyday regarding some issue.