{"id":6363,"date":"2014-03-30T05:20:11","date_gmt":"2014-03-30T11:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6363"},"modified":"2014-03-30T09:08:48","modified_gmt":"2014-03-30T15:08:48","slug":"cosmos-misrepresents-giordano-bruno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6363","title":{"rendered":"‘Cosmos’ Misrepresents Giordano Bruno"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neil Degrasse Tyson\u2019s remake of Cosmos<\/em> tries to remake Giordano Bruno as a martyr of modern science, but he was nothing of the kind.<\/p>\n

He was a lot more of an occultist. Even The Daily Beast<\/em> gets it.<\/a><\/p>\n

As Discover<\/i> magazine\u2019s Corey Powell pointed out<\/a>, the philosophers of the 16th century weren\u2019t anything like scientists in the modern sense. Bruno, for instance, was a \u201cpandeist,\u201d which is the belief that God had transformed himself into all matter and ceased to exist as a distinct entity in himself. He believed in all sort of magic and spirits, and extrapolated those views far beyond his ideas about the infinity of the universe. In contrast to contemporaries who drew more modest conclusions from their similar ideas, Bruno agitated for an elaborate counter-theology, and was (unlike the poor, humble outcast portrayed in Cosmos<\/i>) supported by powerful royal benefactors. The church didn\u2019t even have a position on whether the Earth orbited the sun, and didn\u2019t bring it up at Bruno\u2019s trial<\/a>. While the early-modern religious persecution certainly can\u2019t be denied, Bruno was killed because he flamboyantly denied basic tenets of the Catholic faith, not because religious authorities were out to suppress all \u201cfreedom of thought.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neil Degrasse Tyson\u2019s remake of Cosmos tries to remake Giordano Bruno as a martyr of modern science, but he was nothing of the kind. He was a lot more of an occultist. Even The Daily Beast gets it. As Discover magazine\u2019s Corey Powell pointed out, the philosophers of the 16th century weren\u2019t anything like scientists […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,89,95,234],"class_list":["post-6363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-esotericism","tag-journalism","tag-renaissance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1ED","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4566,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4566","url_meta":{"origin":6363,"position":0},"title":"CFP: Culture and Cosmos","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Call for papers . . . CULTURE AND COSMOS Vol. 17,\u00a0 no. 1: Literature and the Stars We are inviting submissions for Vol. 17 no 1 (Spring\/Summer 2013) on Literature and the Stars. Papers may focus on any time period or culture, and should deal either with representations of astronomy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"astrology\"","block_context":{"text":"astrology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=astrology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1265,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1265","url_meta":{"origin":6363,"position":1},"title":"Cannibalism in ‘Old Europe’?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeologists have found evidence of possible long-term cannibalism at a 7,000-year-old Neolithic settlement in what is now southern Germany.Human sacrifice at Herxheim is a hypothesis that\u2019s difficult to prove right now, but we have evidence that several hundred people were eaten over a brief period,\u201d [Bruno] Boulestin says. Skeletal markings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10186,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10186","url_meta":{"origin":6363,"position":2},"title":"I Will Be Buying this Book on Polytheistic Theology","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"New from Bibliotheca Alexandrina: Ascendant: Modern Essays on Polytheism and Theology. From the publisher: Monotheistic assumptions so pervade our culture that even those few people born into polytheist religions (or those who grew up with no religion at all) cannot help but be influenced by them. Polytheology raises questions that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Pagan studies\"","block_context":{"text":"Pagan studies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=pagan-studies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":483,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=483","url_meta":{"origin":6363,"position":3},"title":"Apples and Honey","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Even though it was billed as a horror film, and even though no one whom I knew ever endorsed the ending, the 1973 movie The Wicker Man still inspired many of us who were then in the Pagan movement. We loved the idea of a place like Summerisle, a functioning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1167,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1167","url_meta":{"origin":6363,"position":4},"title":"A Sikh at the Solstice","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 21, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Jason, a funny account of a British Sikh at a Pagan solstice celebration:There, surrounded by the verdant, wild beauty of the heath I felt connected with Nature herself. I lay on my back and stared at the sky that was preparing a slow welcome for twilight. I became acutely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Litha\"","block_context":{"text":"Litha","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=litha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12851,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12851","url_meta":{"origin":6363,"position":5},"title":"Free Book Reviews from Latest Pomegranate","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 13, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"As ever, book reviews in The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies are open-access free downloads. Here are links to the four in this issue.((I receive a small commission on Amazon sales, which helps to pay for this website.)) The King in Orange: The Magical and Occult Roots of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/king_in_orange-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6363"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6370,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6363\/revisions\/6370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}