Missing the point of Giordano Bruno - PZ Myers

[Rob H.]

I'm posting this as a response to the question in That Other Forum™, did Giordano Bruno really say "your God is too small"? Asking that question is a pitiful attempt at deflection and misses the point by a country mile.

Missing the point of Giordano Bruno
PZ Myers
March 15, 2014

...

I don’t think it odd at all that the series brought Giordano Bruno to the fore. This is not at all a show for scientists, but to bring a little bit of the awe and wonder of science to everyone. I think it was a good idea to use a non-scientist as an example of how dogma oppresses and harms everyone. Bruno was an idealist, a mystic, an annoying weirdo, a heretic, and for that, the Catholic Church set him on fire.

Do I need to repeat that? Bruno was tortured to an agonizing death for his beliefs. Full stop. Don’t even try to rationalize that.

...

The Church maintained an Inquisition to torture people who didn’t follow Catholic dogma in thought. Let’s not hide that fact. Let’s not pretend it was OK because it was 400 years ago. Let’s not say it was irrelevant because many of their victims, like Bruno, were not scientists. I think it’s a rather important point that the progress of science requires that we not set people who disagree with us on fire. (Emphasis mine--Rob)

...

You know, I’d heard this vague euphemism that the church “immobilized his tongue” to prevent Bruno from speaking heresy on the way to the stake, but I didn’t know how. The answer was provided in the comments:

(on the way to the stake, Feb 19, 1600) As the parade moved on, Bruno became animated and excited. He reacted to the mocking crowds, responding to their yells with quotes from his books and the sayings of the ancients. His comforters, the Brotherhood of St. John, tried to quiet the exchange, to protect Bruno from yet further pain and indignity, but he ignored them. And so after a few minutes the procession was halted by the Servants of Justice. A jailer was brought forward and another two held Bruno’s head rigid. A long metal spike was thrust through Bruno’s left cheek, pinning his tongue and emerging through the right cheek. Then another spike was rammed vertically through his lips. Together, the spikes formed a cross. Great sprays of blood erupted onto his gown and splashed the faces of the brotherhood close by. Bruno spoke no more. … as the fire began to grip, the Brothers of Pity of St. John the Beheaded tried one last time to save the man’s soul. Risking the flames, one of them leaned into the fire with a crucifix, but Bruno merely turned his head away. Seconds later, the fire caught his robe and seared his body, and above the hissing and crackling of the flames could be heard the man’s muffled agony.

[Callmecrazy]

1. The Catholics didn't burn him...

The Romans did. The Church handed him over to Rome to deal with. Just like the Jews did to Jesus.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. A distinction without a difference.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. Missing the point

in That Other Forum™......what else is new.

Although I totally understand why you posted this here instead of there, I think that there are plenty of people in That Other Forum™ who might learn something from this piece as well.

[rexcat]

3. Since it is posted here...

they will read this thread. The only thing some of them can't do is post to this thread!

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Good grief.

I read that they 'bound his head with wood' and hung him upside down over the fire.

Somehow, the spike thing... is worse.

[Callmecrazy]

8. I think the spike thing is bullshit...

The Christians considered it punishment, not torture, and no blood could be shed. To cause any blood flow was not allowed. Which makes me think that the last paragraph might be made up by someone (not necessarily the poster).

[Rob H.]

11. That last bit is PZ quoting a comment on his blog

According to the poster who posted it there, it's from the book The Pope & the Heretic: The True Story of Giordano Bruno, the Man Who Dared to Defy the Roman Inquisition by Michael White.

[Act_of_Reparation]

6. This has been a topic of some debate in that other forum

wherein one of the regularly-featured rogues maintains Bruno was burned at the stake for being an asshole, not because he vocally opposed church doctrine.

[onager]

9. Well, that explains everything...

And I don't need psychic powers to know who made that argument.

Then there was that other asshole, Dr. Michael Servetus. Had the nerve to discover and describe pulmonary circulation. The Calvinists burnt him at the stake for his unorthodox religious beliefs. But only because the Catholics didn't get to him first. He was an equal opportunity annoyance and pissed off both the Protestant and Catholic hierarchies.

And let's not forget that asshole Jan Huss. Disagreed with the Catholic Church a century before Luther. Granted written safe passage by the Pope and invited to a debate in Rome. Waylaid by the Pope's henchmen and burned at the stake.

In Prague's Old Town Square there stands a big statue of Huss. When the Nazis took over Prague, they hid it behind swastika banners. When the Communists took over, they covered it in black cloth. Totalitarian regimes don't like to be reminded of troublemakers who stand up and say "I disagree." Including totalitarian regimes operated in the name of Baby Jesus. But you knew that...

[skepticscott]

12. A few over there had their knickers

so knotted up that they couldn't fathom the real and deeper lesson to be learned from the Bruno story: That in a proper intellectual world, there should be NO sacred ideas (god-based or otherwise) and thus, NO heresy (certainly not any kind that gets you persecuted, tortured and horribly killed). There are only claims, notions, ideas, hypotheses and theories with varying amounts of evidence for or against them, and a process for sorting them out. ANY idea and any claim should be open to challenge, given sufficient evidence to justify it.

[Act_of_Reparation]

13. But...but...but...

...if Bruno had just recanted, as was asked of him, he wouldn't have been burned alive like fucking kindling! Obviously, he had it coming.

[LiberalAndProud]

7. As an unbeliever, it's impossible to reconcile.

The reason I was born into a Christian family is directly due to the inhuman persecution of unbelievers. When I did believe, I had to pass this sad truth over, because I could not reconcile it with my belief in a loving God. I knew the history, but believing made it have to be okay somehow.

Simply impossible now to comprehend how I did that.

[trotsky]

10. Great piece as usual by PZ.

So sad to come to a progressive website and see apologetics for the horrible actions of the church.