On Neil Degrasse's "Cosmos" Remake

[Kbertsche]

Bruno is going to become the next Alexandria Library myth, mark my words.

Peter Hess, a Catholic theologian on staff with the NCSE (and a personal friend of mine) has a good blog post on this issue:
http://ncse.com/blog/2014/03/burning...aggage-0015452

[shunyadragon]

You're own source actually confirms what I said, that they didn't kill everyone in the city.

My source basically confirms the slaughter. Your playing the three stooges; Duck, Bob and Weave.

[TimelessTheist]

My source basically confirms the slaughter. Your playing the three stooges; Duck, Bob and Weave.

No. It said many of them were killed, which is true. It also says that there were many Jews and Muslims left there after the sacking. Sorry, bud. You're fresh out of lies, and fresh out of luck.

[shunyadragon]

Damn Vatican.

Careful that remark can make things kind of warm for you. I smell burning flesh in your future if you do not repent.

[TimelessTheist]

Careful that remark can make things kind of warm for you. I smell burning flesh in your future if you do not repent.

I seriously doubt the Inquisition would even pursue someone who made a small remark like that, much less allow the local government to put him to death.

[shunyadragon]

I seriously doubt the Inquisition would even pursue someone who made a small remark like that, much less allow the local government to put him to death.

The sarcasm needle pegged and went over your head.

[shunyadragon]

No. It said many of them were killed, which is true. It also says that there were many Jews and Muslims left there after the sacking. Sorry, bud. You're fresh out of lies, and fresh out of luck.

Try again . . .

"After resting and reorganizing for six months, the crusaders set off for their ultimate goal, Jerusalem. Their numbers were now reduced to some 1,200 cavalry and 12,000 foot soldiers. On June 7, 1099, the Christian army reached the holy city, and finding it heavily fortified, began building three enormous siege towers. By the night of July 13, the towers were complete, and the Christians began fighting their way across Jerusalem's walls. On July 14, Godfrey's men were the first to penetrate the defenses, and the Gate of Saint Stephen was opened. The rest of the knights and soldiers then poured in, the city was captured, and tens of thousands of its occupants were slaughtered."

[TimelessTheist]

Try again . . .

"After resting and reorganizing for six months, the crusaders set off for their ultimate goal, Jerusalem. Their numbers were now reduced to some 1,200 cavalry and 12,000 foot soldiers. On June 7, 1099, the Christian army reached the holy city, and finding it heavily fortified, began building three enormous siege towers. By the night of July 13, the towers were complete, and the Christians began fighting their way across Jerusalem's walls. On July 14, Godfrey's men were the first to penetrate the defenses, and the Gate of Saint Stephen was opened. The rest of the knights and soldiers then poured in, the city was captured, and tens of thousands of its occupants were slaughtered."

Congratulations on proving me right yet again.

[shunyadragon]

Congratulations on proving me right yet again.

From one who considers the Inquisition justified, you should have no problem with justifying the slaughter of tens of thousands.

No, 'the slaughter of tens of thousands' is clearly cited. Is your first language English. Nothing is indicated here that there were survivors.

[TimelessTheist]

From one who considers the Inquisition justified, you should have no problem with justifying the slaughter of tens of thousands.

Yeah, war is violent, isn't it?

No, 'the slaughter of tens of thousands' is clearly cited. Is your first language English. Nothing is indicated here that there were survivors.

Well, it never says everyone in the city was killed, it simply says that many were killed....sooo, yeah, sorry.

Oh, and also:

Realizing that
the bodies would quickly decompose in
the summer heat and likely spark a contagion, the
conquerors impressed those Muslims and Jews who had managed to survive the massacre
into removing the corpses to outside the city walls

Oh! Caught in another lie I see!

[DLAbaoaqu]

Please, Shuny... the towel is ready to be hurled.

[rogue06]

I just posted this on another site and figured it would go along with the discussion here as well:

I just re-watched it and there are many things that the revisionist portrayal of Giordano Bruno in Cosmos got wrong.

FirstDe revolutionibus orbium coelestium ("On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres"). And let's not forget Thomas Digges who "was the first to expound the Copernican system in English but discarded the notion of a fixed shell of immoveable stars to postulate infinitely many stars at varying distances."

At least after the commercial break Tyson does mention Copernicus and his "radical proposal."

SecondDe Docta Ignorantia ("Learned Ignorance") asked whether there was any reason to assert that the Sun (or any other point) was the center of the universe which he apparently thought was limitless. Bruno even quotes him in his works.

Yet it was Nicholas of Cusa, the last great philosopher of the dying Middle Ages, who first rejected the mediaeval cosmos-conception and to whom, as often as not, is ascribed the merit, or the crime, of having asserted the infinity of the universe.

It is indeed in such a way that he was interpreted by Giordano Bruno, by Kepler and, last but not least, by Descartes, who in a well-known letter to his friend Chanut

Thirdwas on the banned list, his reading it would not have troubled the authorities that much because such texts were often consulted by scholars if only to refute them. In fact the aforementioned Nicholas of Cusa had read and commented quite extensively on Lucretius, which is likely what lead Bruno to On the Nature of Things in the first place.

Further, it most certainly not the ideas from Lucretius that was Bruno's "undoing." Not by a long shot. But I'll get to that.

FourthFifth, According to Tyson his dream about the nature of the cosmos was what "sealed his fate."

Really? While he was indeed excommunicated by the Catholics as well as the Lutherans and expelled from Switzerland by the Calvinists it wasn't for his views on the infinity of the universe.

For instance, he left Geneva for publishing a broadsheet that attacked a distinguished Calvinist professor, Antoine de la Faye, listing 20 errors Bruno thought he had made during a religious lecture.

And the timeline is skewed for the Cosmos animation has Bruno being kicked out of Germany before he headed to Oxford. In fact he went to London in 1583 and didn't go to Germany until 1586.

Sixth, the penalty for supporting Copernican ideas or even the view that there were other worlds (something that Nicholas of Cusa also had proposed) was not as Tyson stated "the most vicious form of cruel and unusual punishment." That issue wouldn't come to a head for over a decade and a half after Bruno's death.

Seventh, according to Tyson, the purpose of the Inquisition, as horrible as it was, did not have as a "sole purpose" of tormenting those that disagreed with Catholic teachings.

Really? Nothing made them happier than for someone accused of heretical teachings to immediately and voluntarily recant and rejoin the Church. And again not to excuse the brutality that they inflicted, the Inquisition almost always tended to be less brutal than the secular courts and methods they employed during this time. But again I reiterate, killing people who disagree with us is indefensible.

Finally, Bruno was tried for heresy by the Roman Inquisition on charges including denial of the Trinity, denial of the divinity of Christ, denial of virginity of Mary, and denial of Transubstantiation. Yes his ideas concerning the plurality of worlds (not the infinite nature of the universe) were included among many other charges (and he was encouraged to abandon them), but nearly every historian agrees that they played little if any role during the trial. He was convicted of religious heresies and occult practices -- not advocating science.

At least the animated segment got it right when they had Robert Bellarmine read out the religious heresies that he was tried and convicted of before bringing up Bruno's pluraity of worlds idea but it seems silly in the extreme that they had Bruno only addressing his view about an infinite creation.

There are many other smaller points (I especially loved the way he is depicted as some meek and humble lamb :D) but these should serve to illustrate what I mean.

It is a stretch to make Bruno a martyr for science when he was executed for religious heresies that had nothing to do with science. He was not, as Tyson said, one of those "searchers strictly adhering to a simple set of rules" who "test ideas by experiment and observation. Build on those ideas that pass the test. Reject those that fail." Bruno conducted no experiments, and wrote no scientific works -- his insight came to him as a revelation and stopped there. He was a mystic, a radical heretic, and an occultist. He abandoned Christianity in favor of worshiping the ancient Egyptian god Thoth and believed in Hermeticism (believed to be derived from ancient Egyptian wisdom) and magic (Both Hermes and Thoth were gods of magic)


And finally, the precise terminology for the tool used to silence Bruno before burning is recorded as una morsa di legno, or "a vise of wood" -- and not an iron spike as sometimes claimed by other sources. And the animation did indeed show him with his mouth clamped as he was led to the stake.

^[1], his tongue in a gag, and burned alive.

1. Square of Flowers

The last part about the vice was in response to a comment that "They did miss the part where he was being led to the pyre to be executed and wouldn't stop spreading his heresy and was helped to be quiet by having iron spikes driven into his mouth to keep it shut."

[Raphael]

Thanks Rogue, that is a nice detailed breakdown of the errors others have talked about.

[shunyadragon]

Please, Shuny... the towel is ready to be hurled.

I believe it when I see it hit the floor.

[shunyadragon]

Yeah, war is violent, isn't it?

The war was over, then the slaughter began, tens of thousands.



Oh! Caught in another lie I see![/QUOTE]

No, the slaughter is still very very real.