The Current Evolution of Ancient Religious Institutions

[The Grand Nudger]

TLDR version, who do we think is better at growing vegetables. People who believe that crop loss is caused by an angry god and excessive homosexuality - or people who've been educated in integrated pest management practices?

[Belacqua]

Can you give any specific examples of this "fairly hostile attitude" dissuading anyone from his research?

You do realize that hostility may be shown in many different ways -- such as rejecting scientific findings because they conflict with church doctrine. Tell us now that that newer happened. There's also the punishment of Galileo as I mentioned earlier. That religious men made scientific discoveries is only natural. The real question is how did the church take to discoveries that contradicted its myth. There's also Bruno:

Ideas could get you burned alive in 16th century Europe. Such was the fate of the Renaissance philosopher, Giordano Bruno. After a heresy trial that lasted eight years, the Roman Inquisition convicted him and burned him at the stake in the middle of the square of Campo de’ Fiori, in Rome in the year 1600. He had no last words because a metal clamp had been fastened to his tongue. He was carried to his killing on a mule; a tradition that probably evolved because many of the condemned could no longer walk after prolonged periods of torture prior to their execution.

After being publicly stripped naked, Bruno was tied up at the center of the cobblestone plaza. The authorities opted to carry out his sentence at dawn – the square, which is today Rome’s marketplace, located just a few blocks from where Julius Caesar was murdered, was not yet teeming with its daily hustle and bustle. Moments before the pyre was set ablaze, a cross was thrust in front of Bruno’s face. He turned his head away from it in defiance, his death imminent. And as the chants of a religious congregation echoed across the execution grounds, the obstinate heretic was devoured by the inferno.

https://historyhub.info/the-forces-behin...ano-bruno/

If science conflicted with their dogma, which was given primacy, do you think?

If it's true that hostility can be shown in many different ways, you should be able to point to many examples. Instead, you point to Galileo and Bruno.

Neither man was punished for doing science. I know that it's popular these days to believe so, but it's a myth. The truth is available in many serious history books, though rarely on TV.

This is from Frances Yates' book on Bruno:

Ever since Domenico Berti2 revived him as the hero who died rather than
renounce his scientific conviction of the truth of the Copernican theory, the
martyr for modern science, the philosopher who broke with medieval
Aristotelianism and ushered in the modern world, Bruno has been in a false
position. The popular view of Bruno is still roughly as just stated. If I have not
finally proved its falsity, I have written this book in vain.

For what is the truth? Bruno was an out-and-out magician, an “Egyptian” and
Hermetist of the deepest dye, for whom the Copernican heliocentricity heralded
the return of magical religion, who in his dispute with the Oxford doctors
associated Copernicanism with the magic of Ficino's De vita coelitus
comparanda, for whom the Copernican diagram was a hieroglyph of the divine,
who defended earth-movement with Hermetic arguments concerning the magical
life in all nature, whose aim was to achieve Hermetic gnosis, to reflect the world
in the mens by magical means, including the stamping of magic images of the
stars on memory, and so to become a great Magus and miracle-working religious
leader. Sweeping away the theological superstructure which the Christian
Hermetists had evolved, using Cabala only as subsidiary to Magia, Bruno is a
pure naturalist whose religion is the natural religion of the pseudo-Egyptian
Hermetic Asclepius. Bruno's world view shows what could be evolved out of an
extension and intensification of the Hermetic impulse towards the world.

Through a Hermetic interpretation of Copernicus and Lucretius, Bruno arrives at
his astonishing vision of an infinite extension of the divine as reflected in nature.
The earth moves because it is alive around a sun of Egyptian magic; the planets
as living stars perform their courses with her; innumerable other worlds, moving
and alive like great animals, people an infinite universe.

Bruno was an early adopter of other people's scientific discoveries, but always said that he was the only one who really understood them, because he was able to plug them into his magical system, derived mostly from forged Egyptian tablets. He had a long and successful career traveling around Europe, and he would have lived to old age if he had not returned to Italy announcing loudly that he had come to overthrow the Catholic Church and replace it with his own system, derived from mysticism and fantasy. He was punished for heresy, not science.

As for Galileo, he was doing fine until he wrote a book that effectively called the Pope a dummy. At that point his many supporters in the Vatican could do nothing for him. He was punished for heresy, not science. His teacher had been a Benedictine, his greatest backers were in the Vatican, his system had not yet been confirmed by empirical evidence, and he went out of his way to offend people. 

https://www.amazon.com/Galileo-Rome-Rise...355&sr=8-1

[/url]
https://www.amazon.com/Giordano-Bruno-Hermetic-Tradition-Frances/dp/0226950077/ref=sr_1_2?crid=1MFFWQFLA8JSK&keywords=Giordano+Bruno&qid=1700511335&sprefix=giordano+brun%2Caps%2C376&sr=8-2

[url=https://www.amazon.com/Giordano-Bruno-Philosopher-Ingrid-Rowland/dp/0226730247/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1MFFWQFLA8JSK&keywords=Giordano+Bruno&qid=1700511335&sprefix=giordano+brun%2Caps%2C376&sr=8-4]https://www.amazon.com/Giordano-Bruno-Philosopher-Ingrid-Rowland/dp/0226730247/ref=sr_1_4?crid=1MFFWQFLA8JSK&keywords=Giordano+Bruno&qid=1700511335&sprefix=giordano+brun%2Caps%2C376&sr=8-4

Or you can go to the Wikipedia pages and scroll down to the bibliography and further reading. It's best to read books by historians, and ignore the myths spread on TV by science popularizers.

[The Grand Nudger]

As long as it's an offensive scientist, no harm no foul - silly atheists. God knows that the catholic church is slow to take offense. Measured and ethical in their response, as well, particularly with regards to heresy.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Better educated work forces raise everybody up. Keeping them ignorant was to keep them from thinking.

People keep asserting that they were “kept ignorant” but keep failing to provide evidence this was some active policy by … anyone. Can you provide some?

You'll remember that it was against papal law to read the bible unless you were clergy. Or you would if you weren't banned.

[Thumpalumpacus]

If it's true that hostility can be shown in many different ways, you should be able to point to many examples. Instead, you point to Galileo and Bruno.

There's also the hostility to the fact that there is a genetic link implicated in gayness, which the Church emphatically rejects. There's also the fact that it took over a century to acknowledge that your god had misguided them and that Darwin was indeed correct.

There's more, but you get my point.

Neither man was punished for doing science. I know that it's popular these days to believe so, but it's a myth. The truth is available in many serious history books, though rarely on TV.

---

This is from Frances Yates' book on Bruno:

Ever since Domenico Berti2 revived him as the hero who died rather than
renounce his scientific conviction of the truth of the Copernican theory, the
martyr for modern science, the philosopher who broke with medieval
Aristotelianism and ushered in the modern world, Bruno has been in a false
position. The popular view of Bruno is still roughly as just stated. If I have not
finally proved its falsity, I have written this book in vain.

For what is the truth? Bruno was an out-and-out magician, an “Egyptian” and
Hermetist of the deepest dye, for whom the Copernican heliocentricity heralded
the return of magical religion, who in his dispute with the Oxford doctors
associated Copernicanism with the magic of Ficino's De vita coelitus
comparanda, for whom the Copernican diagram was a hieroglyph of the divine,
who defended earth-movement with Hermetic arguments concerning the magical
life in all nature, whose aim was to achieve Hermetic gnosis, to reflect the world
in the mens by magical means, including the stamping of magic images of the
stars on memory, and so to become a great Magus and miracle-working religious
leader. Sweeping away the theological superstructure which the Christian
Hermetists had evolved, using Cabala only as subsidiary to Magia, Bruno is a
pure naturalist whose religion is the natural religion of the pseudo-Egyptian
Hermetic Asclepius. Bruno's world view shows what could be evolved out of an
extension and intensification of the Hermetic impulse towards the world.

Through a Hermetic interpretation of Copernicus and Lucretius, Bruno arrives at
his astonishing vision of an infinite extension of the divine as reflected in nature.
The earth moves because it is alive around a sun of Egyptian magic; the planets
as living stars perform their courses with her; innumerable other worlds, moving
and alive like great animals, people an infinite universe.

---

Bruno was an early adopter of other people's scientific discoveries, but always said that he was the only one who really understood them, because he was able to plug them into his magical system, derived mostly from forged Egyptian tablets. He had a long and successful career traveling around Europe, and he would have lived to old age if he had not returned to Italy announcing loudly that he had come to overthrow the Catholic Church and replace it with his own system, derived from mysticism and fantasy. He was punished for heresy, not science.

[Spoilered by Thump for sake of brevity]

This is a serious misrepresentation which ignores the fact that one of the charges was indeed about Bruno's (eventually proven correct) scientific thinking which probably explains why you chose it for a rebuttal. Bruno was burnt at the stake in part because he posited that the nighttime stars were actually distant suns:

The summary indicates that there were four general subjects of concern on which Bruno refused to budge, specifically his beliefs about (1) the Trinity, divinity, and incarnation, (2) the existence of multiple worlds, (3) the souls of humans and animals, and (4) the art of divination. Bruno's opinions on all these matters, as well as his contention that "the sin of the flesh" was not a mortal sin, seem to have been the central focus of Bellarmine's questioning.

https://www.famous-trials.com/bruno/261-home

[Emphasis added -- Thump]

He wasn't (as your source asserts) burnt for being a "Copernicist", but in part for believing in multiple worlds. I have no doubt that your source omits this uncomfortable fact because it's well, uncomfortable -- and that you chose it precisely for this blatant omission.

As for Galileo, he was doing fine until he wrote a book that effectively called the Pope a dummy. At that point his many supporters in the Vatican could do nothing for him. He was punished for heresy, not science. His teacher had been a Benedictine, his greatest backers were in the Vatican, his system had not yet been confirmed by empirical evidence, and he went out of his way to offend people. 

It is clear that his heresy was indeed heliocentrism:

The cardinal inquisitors realized that the case against Galileo would be very weak without an admission of guilt, so a plea bargain was arranged. He was told that if he admitted to having gone too far in his treatment of heliocentrism, he would be let off with a light punishment. Galileo agreed and confessed that he had given stronger arguments to the heliocentric proponent in his dialogue than to the geocentric champion. But he insisted that he did not do so because he himself believed in heliocentrism, Kelly said. Rather, he claimed he was simply showing off his debating skills.

After his formal trial, which took place on May 10 of that year, Galileo was convicted of a “strong suspicion of heresy,” a lesser charge than actual heresy.

“In sum, the 1616 event was not the beginning of a 17-year-long trial, as is often said, but a non-trial,” Kelly said. “Galileo’s actual trial lasted for only a fraction of a single day, with no fanfare at all.”

Kelly also noted that by the practice of the time, Galileo’s guilty plea, which denied actual belief in the heresy, triggered an automatic examination of his private beliefs under torture, a new procedure adopted by the church around the turn of the 17th century. Galileo was never tortured, however. The pope decreed that the interrogation should stop short with the mere threat of torture. This was a routine kind of limitation for people of advanced age and ill health like Galileo, and it should not be attributed to the influence of the scientist’s supporters.

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/the-t...l%20heresy.

So you're technically correct that the charge was "suspicion of heresy" -- but you absolutely elide the fact that his "heresy" was in arguing a scientific position -- later shown to be true -- that your Church didn't like.

You're only making my case for me: [i]if your Church can haul someone up on charges and threaten them with torture because the person's scientific argument is contrary to religious doctrine, said church is in fact inimical to science to at least some degree.

Or you can go to the Wikipedia pages and scroll down to the bibliography and further reading. It's best to read books by historians, and ignore the myths spread on TV by science popularizers.

If you think Wiki is a decent source of history, I've got a big orange bridge I'd like to sell you cheap. It's funny you think I get my history from TV; I haven't owned one since 2007 and don't trust any History Channel bullshit anyway -- even as you cite Wikipedia, notorious for its inaccuracies.

I'd suggest you quit trying to elide unpleasant facts and talking down to those who disagree with you. This conversation will go smoother and your knowledge will not only be more complete but less biased.

I'd also suggest that any organization that maintained a list of forbidden books numbering in the thousands banning not only scientific but also philosophical, political, and fictional works is not an organization devoted to intellectual openness in general. Its treatment of dissentient science and scientists is part of a pattern.

[Belacqua]

your god

We've discussed this before.

As for Bruno, I'm not going back and forth about the subject. 

There were lots of people in Bruno's time who thought that heliocentricism was likely, and the only one who got punished for it was the one who wanted to overthrow the church.

[Thumpalumpacus]

your god

We've discussed this before.

Walks like a duck ...

 

As for Bruno, I'm not going back and forth about the subject.

There were lots of people in Bruno's time who thought that heliocentricism was likely, and the only one who got punished for it was the one who wanted to overthrow the church.

Name some of these "lots" of people. Galileo, Copernicus, and ...? Note that Galileo was indeed punished for the heresy of asserting heliocentricity.

I can't blame you for not addressing any of my other points. I wouldn't want to defend such a weak position as yours either.

[Belacqua]

Name some of these "lots" of people.  Galileo, Copernicus, and ...? Note that Galileo was indeed punished for the heresy of asserting heliocentricity.

I have found this book to be most helpful in learning about who learned of Copernicus and when. 

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Link deleted. You man not post links to websites engaging in illegal activity.

There were widespread Humanist circles in Prussia, Cracow, France, Italy, etc. They wrote to each other frequently and shared books. 

Many of these humanists were early adopters of heliocentricism. You can go through the book and pick out their names like raisins. 

I think it's especially good in getting away from the good guys/bad guys view of history.