[Serious] Giordano Bruno

[brewer]

The website I posted states that archives indicate that he was being questioned (and responding) with regards to science.

Well, he was questioned about his mystical belief in heliocentrism, but that had little do to with science. Bruno was not a scientist, rejected scientific analysis as too limiting compared to his mystical intuitions, scorned actual scientists as mere "geometers" and was regarded as a kook and a "monster" by actual scientists like Galileo and Kepler. He accepted heliocentrism because it fitted his mystical cosmology of boundless uncentred spave based on "sacred geometry" and inhabited by planets and stars which were sentient spiritual beings. He didn't actually understand the science behind Copernicanism and in the one place where he tries to give a simple summary of the reasoning behind it he gets some very simple stuff completely wrong. Bruno used actual science the way Deepak Chopra does - to give his mystical woo some credibility. When it doesn't suit him, he rejects it.

So of course they questioned him about his mystical acceptance of heliocentrism. They questioned him about a lot of things. They questioned him about what clothes he was wearing on certain occasions but that doesn't mean he was executed because of his fashion choices. We know that heliocentrism was not among the reasons he was executed for the reasons I've explained.

I don't think I care about early modern catholic jurisprudence, but I do care about bias.

So do I. But where exactly is the "bias" in Mayer's excellent, scholarly and highly-regarded book? If Mayer was "biased" in some way, why didn't his peer reviewers notice? Why did his academic colleagues not point out the flaws in what he said? Early modern Catholic jurisprudence is relevant here because it tells us that if Bruno had been condemned for his heliocentric beliefs in 1599, we would find references  to this in the 1616 inquiry into Galileo. We don't. There was no ruling on heliocentrism by the Inquisition until 1616 and that was the first time any such ruling had been made.

So tell us exactly what he was condemned for.

I did that at some length and in quite a bit of detail in the long article on the subject linked to at the beginning of this thread.

All bet it included some positions against the supernatural claims of the church.

It did. What it didn't include was anything scientific.

As far as I'm concerned, that in itself (the supernatural) is antiscience.

Okay. That doesn't mean that the mystical kooky stuff that Bruno believed in (magic, planets with souls, sacred geometry) was therefore scientific. The dispute between Bruno and the Church was the clash of one set of mystical kooks with another mystical kook over whose mystical kookery was right. No science there.

I really don't about all of this. You seem to like talking down to atheists about getting facts wrong (in your opinion).

I like helping people to understand history properly. And no - it's not just my "opinion" that some atheists get these things wrong. I'm simply presenting what historians agree is right and showing why. The only people I may "talk down to" are boneheads who can't actually counter what I say, so resort to childish screaming and pathetic smear campaigns. I make no apologies about regarding them with open contempt. Idiots are one thing. Fanatical and hypocritical idiots are another.

 All religion is based on a falsehood. Any acts done in the name of religion should also be considered in that light.

Okay.

Like I indicated in an earlier post, the catholic position is that they didn't kill anyone for heresy, the killing was all done by "others".

No, that's not the "Catholic position". It's the position of one Catholic apologist website. And it's a dumb and sophistic argument.

Last-first, "we turned him over to a civil power": https://famous-trials.com/bruno/265-letter So much for dumb. And it's not the only time I've see the "other" killed, not us position. Regrettable, but still not us.

You might be presenting what historians have said, but they are repeating what catholics have said. catholics are not very forthcoming and truthful when it does not serve their purpose. Because they didn't write it down it was not also a motive/reason, paaalease.

And the "kooky" Bruno is a position. I'll take what I get from Stanford: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bruno/  Not in all ways kooky, includes science, at the least science thought.

It's interesting that the catholics initially denied the execution, then threw a fit at having a statue erected. Hmmm...... something stinks here. Are there records of catholics throwing hissy fits over the execution of other kooks?

BTW, I'm not going to read your "long articles". I find you/your writings quite off putting. But I read that the religious love them.