[Serious] Giordano Bruno

[brewer]

What I have said is that I don't believe the catholics were honest and truthful for all of their reasons for conviction.

What I have said is that you haven't pointed to any sources to back this up. People who have actually read the prosecutor's reports have told us what the stated motives were. 

You can say over and over that they were hiding something, or that the real motives were different, but without some evidence this is just mind-reading. 
What history shows about how the church operated in those days makes your accusations unreliable. 

There is to much stink from the church over the Bruno being burned at the stake.

Too much stink made by whom? Frances Yates, Ingrid Rowland, other scholars with no connection to the Vatican who have examined the original documents?

There is nothing to read about them having nondisclosed motives. What part of this can't you understand?

I agree there is nothing to read about them having non-disclosed motives. This means that there is no documentation for non-disclosed motives. Which means that we have to find good reasons, other than mind-reading, to conclude that they had non-disclosed motives. 

This requires that we put the whole thing into context. I have mentioned several times now that a Cardinal in good standing with the church, a hundred years before Bruno, suggested a non-geocentric infinite universe with aliens on other planets. Bruno acknowledged that he got the idea from this Cardinal. The Cardinal was never reprimanded. 

So I think we'll need some good reason, argument, or evidence to conclude that you have insight into non-disclosed motives. Other than your a priori assumptions. 

And I read what I considered relevant. I don't have to read a slanted version that you consider relevant. 

This is an excellent way to pre-select sources that won't contradict your pre-judgment. 

You don't know that a source is slanted if you haven't read it. 

In my opinion, Yates and Rowland are not slanted. I have read their books. You haven't. 

Is the Stanford article that you pointed us to slanted? Because it doesn't say that Bruno used "science thought," or was in any way a working competent scientist.

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And were the prosecutors reports independently reviewed and interviewed by an impartial source? What if they were the equivalent of AG Barr? You don't know.

What history says about the catholic church of the 1500's makes my suspicion completely founded.

The stink raised by the church, read.

I base my opinion by the catholic churches actions at the time.

I don't care if you don't accept what I think. You come into every thread with a religious bias.

[Belacqua]

And were the prosecutors reports independently reviewed and interviewed by an impartial source? What if they were the equivalent of AG Barr? You don't know. 

They were independently reviewed by the scholars whom I have named, whom you have chosen not to read.

I agree with you that partial sources should not be trusted without criticism. 

What history says about the catholic church of the 1500's makes my suspicion completely founded. 

For example? Names, dates, sources, please....

The stink raised by the church, read. 

What stink exactly? Names, dates, sources....

I base my opinion by the catholic churches actions at the time. 

For example? Names, dates, sources...

You come into every thread with a religious bias.

Textbook example of the ad hominem logical fallacy. You can't argue your case based on what you imagine I am like. You have to deal with facts. 

Thinking people reach their conclusions based on reasons. Logic, evidence, facts, etc. 

We have these conversations in order to test our reasons, and allow them to be challenged. (At least, that's why I have them.) Automatically filtering out sources which may challenge our reasons is not how thinking people operate. 

You have stated your reasons, but not shown that they are anything more than prejudices. Basically, "religion bad." So I'm asking for something more than assertions without evidence. Names, dates, documents, scholarly sources, etc.

[brewer]

Was Bruno considered a scientist? These people think so:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...xoplanets/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giordano-Bruno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/02/brun-f16.html


You can find others that say no. Not a scientist is a position that you don't win. 

Edit: you really need names, dates, sources? St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of August 1572, the formation of Jesuits (church storm troopers), Stanford link (read it)

I had never heard of Bruno, or cared, until you got your panties in a twist about "not killed because of science". So what, scientist (considered one then and now), killed by catholics. catholics that you for some unknown reason seem to admire because of the claim over dogma, not science. Part of it was catholic supernatural dogma which Bruno spoke out against.

I've previously given sources for the stink, read.

Suck it up, you don't get to win this one.

[Belacqua]

Was Bruno considered a scientist? These people think so:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/obs...xoplanets/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giordano-Bruno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/02/brun-f16.html


You can find others that say no. Not a scientist is a position that you don't win. 

Edit: you really need names, dates, sources? St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of August 1572, the formation of Jesuits (church storm troopers), Stanford link (read it)

I had never heard of Bruno, or cared, until you got your panties in a twist about "not killed because of science". So what, scientist (considered one then and now), killed by catholics. catholics that you for some unknown reason seem to admire because of the claim over dogma, not science. Part of it was catholic supernatural dogma which Bruno spoke out against.

I've previously given sources for the stink, read.

Suck it up, you don't get to win this one.

Finally! Links to sources! Thank you!

This is from the first one:

Bruno said he inferred the existence of worlds from God’s omnipotence: by having infinite power God made innumerable worlds. Ironically, Bruno’s soaring view of the cosmos—more correct than Copernicus—stemmed from religious beliefs.

I find it odd that the writer calls Bruno a scientist but concludes his post with this. 

If Bruno reached his conclusions through non-scientific methods, why should we say he's a scientist? 

It's been repeatedly pointed out that he accepted some scientific facts -- non-geocentrism, for example -- but not for scientific reasons. 

The writer also doesn't address the fact that previous Catholics had posited many worlds without being reprimanded. 

But again, thank you for making some effort here. I'll look at the other links as time permits.

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Was Bruno considered a scientist? These people think so:


https://www.britannica.com/biography/Giordano-Bruno

 
This source doesn't say that Bruno was considered a scientist. Here is the opening paragraph:

Giordano Bruno, original name Filippo Bruno, byname Il Nolano, (born 1548, Nola, near Naples [Italy]—died February 17, 1600, Rome), Italian philosopher, astronomer, mathematician, and occultist whose theories anticipated modern science. The most notable of these were his theories of the infinite universe and the multiplicity of worlds, in which he rejected the traditional geocentric (Earth-centred) astronomy and intuitively went beyond the Copernican heliocentric (Sun-centred) theory, which still maintained a finite universe with a sphere of fixed . 

It says his theories "anticipated modern science." Not that they were reached through scientific means. "Intuitively" is not the same as "scientifically." 

It doesn't mention the fact that the large majority of his theories did not anticipate modern science. For example, does modern science agree that Hermes Trismegistus told us mystical truths through obscure tablets? This was important for Bruno, but not, I think for modern science. 

The source goes on to give more detail, but doesn't say why they found him guilty in Rome. 

So I don't think this one counts towards your thesis that he was a scientist.

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I had never heard of Bruno, or cared, until you got your panties in a twist

It's interesting that you would say this.

It means that your entire knowledge of his case was gained in the last day or so. And yet you consider yourself a better judge than people who have studied the case for decades. In some cases, people who have researched the case and written books about it. You feel qualified to say that anyone who disagrees with you is "slanted" despite not having read what they wrote. 

Do you see how this makes you look prejudiced?

[Belacqua]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

Did you bother to read this one?

This is from the second paragraph:

After his death, he gained considerable fame, being particularly celebrated by 19th- and early 20th-century commentators who regarded him as a martyr for science,[6] although historians agree that his heresy trial was not a response to his astronomical views but rather a response to his philosophical and religious views.[7][8][9][10][11] Bruno's case is still considered a landmark in the history of free thoughtand the emerging sciences.[12][13]

This agrees with what I've been saying all along. Not a martyr for science. Bad for the church to squelch free thought. 

This is relevant to the discussion, I think:

Few astronomers of Bruno's time accepted Copernicus's heliocentric model. Among those who did were the Germans Michael Maestlin (1550–1631), Christoph Rothmann, Johannes Kepler (1571–1630); the Englishman Thomas Digges, author of A Perfit Description of the Caelestial Orbes; and the Italian  (1564–1642).

When Copernicus first published, serious scientists felt there was so far insufficient evidence to prove his theory. Like all good scientists, they waited for empirical data to be gathered before making up their minds. This included some people in the Vatican who were open-minded and willing to listen. Bruno accepted the model, which turned out to be true, not because of empirical evidence but because it was useful for his wacko mysticism.

This page does cite one recent scholar who agrees with you:

Ingegno writes that Bruno embraced the philosophy of Lucretius, "aimed at liberating man from the fear of death and the gods."[68]Characters in Bruno's Cause, Principle and Unity desire "to improve speculative science and knowledge of natural things," and to achieve a philosophy "which brings about the perfection of the human intellect most easily and eminently, and most closely corresponds to the truth of nature."[69]

But the next paragraph goes on to cite other scholars who disagree with Ingegno. So at best, this shows that people disagree on the subject.

My experience has been that Wikipedia is quite good on non-controversial subjects like names and dates. When there is heated disagreement, its partiality is open to doubt. But the page you link to here shows, at best, that there are people who agree with you. It doesn't settle anything.

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https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/02/brun-f16.html

I'm glad you cite a Socialist web site. I am a passionate left-winger. 

This sentence is a bit misleading, maybe:

To the last, the Church authorities were fearful of the ideas of a man who was known throughout Europe as a bold and brilliant thinker.

It's true that Church authorities didn't trust him all along. It's NOT true that everyone else in Europe considered him brilliant. There are numerous examples of people finding him arrogant and careless, a plagiarist and mystic who embraced fake artifacts and oddball superstitions. 

The article is careful not to say that he was killed for science:

His life stands as a testimony to the drive for knowledge and truth that marked the astonishing period of history known as the Renaissance—from which so much in modern art, thought and science derives.

Again, he may be useful as a martyr for free speech. It would be nice if a martyr for free speech hadn't also been a mystic with wild Hermetic beliefs, but I guess we take who we can get. 

Bruno has long been revered as a martyr to scientific truth.

I have acknowledged that this is true. I have argued that he does not deserve this role. Trump is revered as a great president by some. Jesus is revered as the son of God. That doesn't make it true.

Here is an excellent quote from Bruno himself:

“He who desires to philosophise must first of all doubt all things. He must not assume a position in a debate before he has listened to the various opinions, and considered and compared the reasons for and against. "

I think he is criticizing you here, brewer. 

The rest of the article works hard to associate Bruno with Copernicus, but says nothing at all about the majority of his system. It doesn't mention Hermes Trismegistus, Hermeticism, the Smaragdine Tablet, or any of the other wild stuff that, if he were to post about it on this forum, you would ridicule him for talking about. (Had you ever heard of Hermes Trismegistus before today?)

So I think in the four sources you link us to, Wikipedia has given one name of one scholar who agrees with you that Bruno was a scientist. The first blog post you link to argues that the infinite worlds theory was more important in the heresy trial than previously thought, but concludes by saying that Bruno didn't use the scientific method at all. 

I think your declaration of victory on this subject was not warranted. 

[brewer]

I didn't declare victory, I said you didn't get to.

Time for you to run off and get your panties in a twist over something else that, in the grand scheme of things, does not matter.

[Belacqua]

I didn't declare victory, I said you didn't get to.

Time for you to run off and get your panties in a twist over something else that, in the grand scheme of things, does not matter.

It's kind of you to be concerned about the state of my underwear. I can assure you they're in reasonably good condition. (Cotton boxers from Uniqlo, 3 for 1000 yen!)

At this point I'm curious about why you were so sure earlier that Bruno was a martyr for science. Especially because, as you say, it doesn't affect the grand scheme of things. 

It looks as though FakeMessiah said Bruno was a martyr for science, and then I said he wasn't, and this prompted you to decide that I was wrong, despite the fact that you had never heard of Bruno before. In an honest disagreement about historical facts, we could decide the truth with reasonable confidence if we refer to the relevant documents. But you had made up your mind completely before you knew anything at all about the case. 

I find this way of deciding issues of fact to be strange.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Too bad that isn't how things happened

[brewer]

It's kind of you to be concerned about the state of my underwear. I can assure you they're in reasonably good condition. (Cotton boxers from Uniqlo, 3 for 1000 yen!)

At this point I'm curious about why you were so sure earlier that Bruno was a martyr for science. Especially because, as you say, it doesn't affect the grand scheme of things. 

It looks as though FakeMessiah said Bruno was a martyr for science, and then I said he wasn't, and this prompted you to decide that I was wrong, despite the fact that you had never heard of Bruno before. In an honest disagreement about historical facts, we could decide the truth with reasonable confidence if we refer to the relevant documents. But you had made up your mind completely before you knew anything at all about the case. 

I find this way of deciding issues of fact to be strange.

I had made up my mind about you more than anything, and the OP is where you started. And I read little of what FM posts (sorry FM).

You seem more incensed that people are misstating that Bruno was killed because of science than the fact that he was killed quite horribly by the church for not towing the dogma line. And if he was as big a kook as you insist, then I see no reason to fear one man who probably had a very small following, if any at all. 

But off you go, claiming science to be an invalid reason. Which makes it sound like the church had valid reasons for killing. And you have stated very very little about how heinous a crime his burning actually was. If fact, you seem to voice little to no opinions regarding any atrocities (and they extend beyond killing) committed by the church or any of there followers.

I think your zeal for the perceived virtues and accomplishments of religion make your thinking misguided. Atrocities committed by any religions far outweigh any benefits. Benefits that humans were/are capable of generating without religion (because religion at it's very base is false). And that's the "issue of fact" that you should be incensed about, not that they got the science thing wrong.

So frankly, I find your ability to decide what is really important strange. After a few posts Tim got it, you didn't.

BTW, he was a scientist that the catholics killed. The End.

[Belacqua]

Which makes it sound like the church had valid reasons for killing.

I have stated over and over that it was bad for the church to kill him.

BTW, he was a scientist that the catholics killed. The End.

You have entirely failed to show that this is true.