I Do Not Feel Obliged To

Galileo Galilei wrote this in his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany in 1615, one of his most important defenses of the Copernican heliocentric model against theological objections. He argued that Scripture was written to reach ordinary people on matters of salvation, not to provide astronomical instruction, and that its language should be interpreted metaphorically when it conflicts with demonstrated natural fact. The letter was not published in his lifetime and circulated in manuscript copies.