# Creationists in Museums. Two tier America ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 20, 2005, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524 "2005-09-20T13:36:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/121 "2005-09-23T02:55:30Z")
> [@](#): > > Not one posting on this board knows what I believe, who I am, or what I am trying to do. Not one. Would that include **lekatt**? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/122 "2005-09-23T03:25:35Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I must leave this thread, it has been hi-jacked enough. You know, if a whole bunch of your participations in threads seem to end this way, you might just want to explore your subjective reality and try to figure out why. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/123 "2005-09-23T11:45:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Would that include **lekatt**? If we paw through the _Da Vinci Code_, the parts that couldn’t be decoded…? ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/124 "2005-09-23T13:07:27Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Not one posting on this board knows what I believe, who I am, or what I am trying to do. Not one. Yeah, well, that’s what happens when your posts are largely unintelligible. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/125 "2005-09-23T15:24:27Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Where God is time isn’t. Eternity is not a long time, it’s an absense of time. Where God is acid jazz isn’t. Where God is Spongebob isn’t. Where God is blue isn’t. God is with those who feign belief in him. Infinite possibilities is not a lot of possibilities. It’s an absence of possibilities. Bottomless is not a long way down. It’s an absence of down. Endless buffet is not a lot of food. It’s an absence of food. Touch me and you shall know. Pay me and you shall become enlightened. I don’t take plastic. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/126 "2005-09-23T15:28:44Z")
> [@Captain Lance Murdoch](#): > > Bottomless is not a long way down. But those kinds of places get better tips. ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/127 "2005-09-23T16:14:26Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Yeah, well, that’s what happens when your posts are largely unintelligible. I can’t help it, there is something wrong with my brain. [http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/24289.php](http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/24289.php) ---
**Author:** ![lekatt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lekatt/32/7269_2.png) [@lekatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lekatt)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/128 "2005-09-23T16:16:44Z")
> [@Captain Lance Murdoch](#): > > Where God is acid jazz isn’t. > Where God is Spongebob isn’t. > Where God is blue isn’t. > God is with those who feign belief in him. > Infinite possibilities is not a lot of possibilities. It’s an absence of possibilities. > Bottomless is not a long way down. It’s an absence of down. > Endless buffet is not a lot of food. It’s an absence of food. > Touch me and you shall know. Pay me and you shall become enlightened. I don’t take plastic. I think you left out the part where God sticks you on the end of a fork and roasts you over His fireplace. When you become cracklin, He pops you into His mouth and swallows. I am really enjoying this, more, more. ---
**Author:** ![Papermache\_Prince](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f05b48/32.png) [@Papermache\_Prince](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Papermache_Prince)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/129 "2005-09-23T16:29:13Z")
So what part of your little mind wrote this “I must leave this thread, it has been hi-jacked enough. If someone wants to discuss the definitions of God for themselves, start a new thread. I won’t start a thread because that would require too much of my time tending it. I have other chores.,” the part that lacks all integrity? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/130 "2005-09-23T17:02:34Z")
Let’s not get back into personal insults, here. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/131 "2005-09-23T20:35:23Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You asked the other day why you kept getting attacked. This is why. Several of these statements are lies. They have been shown to be lies, yet you repeat them. > > _Science_ has never assaulted religion. It just hasn’t. And given the number of people killed or crippled by the Inquisition, there’s a fair argument to be made that religion has assaulted science. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/132 "2005-09-23T20:39:38Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > And given the number of people killed or crippled by the Inquisition, there’s a fair argument to be made that religion has assaulted science. Not really, since very few people subjected to the Inquisition were judged over scientific issues. The poster boys for such matters are, typically, Galileo, who was dragged up before the Inquisition after he attempted to force changes in doctrine, and Giordano Bruno, who was actually executed for his religious beliefs regarding the divinity of Jesus and whose scientific works did not enter into the Inquisitorial trial. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/133 "2005-09-23T20:58:02Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Not really, since very few people subjected to the Inquisition were judged over scientific issues. The argument can be made, however, that the Inquisition and witchcraft trials stymied the progress of _medical_ sciences. Midwives and women who used herbs in healing were sometimes accused of witchcraft, especially if their methods met with a suspicious amount of success. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2005, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/134 "2005-09-23T21:18:58Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Not really, since very few people subjected to the Inquisition were judged over scientific issues. The poster boys for such matters are, typically, Galileo, who was dragged up before the Inquisition after he attempted to force changes in doctrine, and Giordano Bruno, who was actually executed for his religious beliefs regarding the divinity of Jesus and whose scientific works did not enter into the Inquisitorial trial. My understanding was both Bruno’s docetism and his support for the Copernican model were factors in his trial. The latter first drew the Inquisition’s attention and got him excommunicated, at any rate, or so I thought. If I remember correctly, after years of imprisonment, he was defiant and wouldn’t recant or shut up about his heresies, so they literally nailed his tongue down and burned him at the stake. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/135 "2005-09-24T01:42:58Z")
> [@Lissa](#): > > The argument can be made, however, that the Inquisition and witchcraft trials stymied the progress of _medical_ sciences. Midwives and women who used herbs in healing were sometimes accused of witchcraft, especially if their methods met with a suspicious amount of success. To the extent that the Inquisition interfered with medicine, it probably had far more to do with rules against desecrating bodies than midwifery. The places that happened to persecute midwives (when that happened) tended to be in the Protestant countries away from the Inquisition. In Catholic countries, you were more likely to wind up in a witch trial if you were a wealthy burger or a heretical law student. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/136 "2005-09-24T01:53:33Z")
> [@Loopydude](#): > > My understanding was both Bruno’s docetism and his support for the Copernican model were factors in his trial. The latter first drew the Inquisition’s attention and got him excommunicated, at any rate, or so I thought. If I remember correctly, after years of imprisonment, he was defiant and wouldn’t recant or shut up about his heresies, so they literally nailed his tongue down and burned him at the stake. I have found no evidence that his support for the Copernican model had anything to do with his imprisonment or trial. (Recall that Galileo was out discussing the Copernican model with the Jesuits quite happily over fifteen years after Bruno’s execution and it took Galileo’s personal enemies three tries (including doctoring his papers to look bad) before they could get the Inquisition to even summon Galileo in for a talk. That is hardly the sort of scenario I would expect to find if the Inquisition was wandering around looking to nail anyone who voiced support for the Copernican model.) ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/137 "2005-09-24T02:44:45Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > I can’t help it, there is something wrong with my brain. > > [http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/24289.php](http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/dailystar/24289.php) And this has _what_ to do with you, exactly? ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/138 "2005-09-24T03:23:35Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > I have found no evidence that his support for the Copernican model had anything to do with his imprisonment or trial. (Recall that Galileo was out discussing the Copernican model with the Jesuits quite happily over fifteen years after Bruno’s execution and it took Galileo’s personal enemies three tries (including doctoring his papers to look bad) before they could get the Inquisition to even summon Galileo in for a talk. That is hardly the sort of scenario I would expect to find if the Inquisition was wandering around looking to nail anyone who voiced support for the Copernican model.) From Dava Sobel’s _Galileo’s Daughter_ > [@](#): > > Galileo’s daugher…entered the world in the summer heat of a new century, August 13, 1600-the same year the Dominican friar, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome for insisting, among his many heresies and blasphemies, that the Earth traveled around the Sun, instead of remaining motionless at the center of the universe." Then there’s [this guy’s](http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi241.htm) take on Bruno: > [@](#): > > The Renaissance Church couldn’t accept the idea that a God-made universe might be infinite, and that’s what eventually did Bruno in. He was lured back to Italy by a lecture invitation and then turned over to the Italian Inquisition. After seven years of trials, he was burned at the stake in 1600. According to the [Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno): > [@](#): > > Although the actual charge against Bruno was docetism…the world of science has long claimed Bruno as a martyr. Like Galileo Galilei, his Copernicanism was a factor in his heresy trial. Unlike Galileo, some of his theological beliefs were also a factor. Also, unlike Galileo, he refused to renounce his beliefs. Then there’s [this](http://www.theharbinger.org/xvi/971111/birx.html) admittedly hagiographic summary: > [@](#): > > During a two-year period in London (1583-1585), the autodidactic Bruno lectured at Oxford University and both wrote and published six strikingly brilliant Italian dialogues: On the Cause, Principle, and Unity; On the Infinite, the Universe, and Worlds; The Ash Wednesday Supper; The Cabala of the Horse Pegasus; The Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast; and The Heroic Frenzies. These volumes contain the essential elements of his daring cosmology, new epistemology, and bold statements on ethics, religion and theology. He had rigorously rejected the geostatic, geocentric, anthropocentric, and finite-because-spherical model of the cosmos found in those Aristotelian writings of antiquity that were still supported by the Roman Catholic Church. > > Bruno also wrote poems in which he ridiculed, with caustic sarcasm and bitter satire, both the dogmatic clergymen and superstitious beliefs of his age. In 1591, his last books and Latin poems were published at Frankfurt in Germany. They include On the Monad, On the Immense, and On the Triple Minimum. > > After many years of solitary wandering through Europe and with reckless abandon, the courageous Bruno returned to Italy in optimistic hope of convincing the new Pope, Clement VIII, of at least some of his controversial ideas. As a consequence of entrapment by the young nobleman Giovani Mocenigo, the self-unfrocked monk was tried and condemned twice (first by the Venetian Holy Inquisition in 1592, and then by the Roman Holy Inquisition in 1593). Bruno’s critical writings, which pointed out the hypocrisy and bigotry within the Church, along with his tempestuous personality and undisciplined behavior, easily made him a victim of the religious and philosophical intolerance of the 16th century. Bruno was excommunicated by the Catholic, Lutheran and Calvinist Churches for his heretical beliefs. The Catholic hierarchy found him guilty of infidelity and many errors, as well as serious crimes of heresy. However, Bruno stubbornly refused to recant his lofty vision. He was subsequently handed over to the Italian state, which determined his final fate. The philosopher was imprisoned in the dungeons of the Holy Inquisition in Rome for seven years, denied pen and paper as well as books and visitors, relentlessly interrogated and probably tortured. After enduring this living tomb, he was eventually sentenced to death under the influence of the Jesuit Cardinal Robert Bellarmine. Obstinate to the end, Bruno never recanted his heretical position. It’s clear that, despite no explicit proscription of the Copernican model directly by the Church (which did not occur until after Galileo had died), it was nonetheless of serious concern to various official bodies acting under the auspices of the Church, and hence the unanimous vote in 1616 by eleven church theologians, at the request of Pope Paul V (being eager to promote the Council of Trent reforms), that the Copernican system was “formerly heretical” and “erroneous in faith”. This led directly to Galileo’s first omenous warning, in a meeting on Feb. 26th of that year with Cardinal Bellarmino (one of Bruno’s inquisitors), who admonished him to abandon the notion the Earth moved around the sun. On March 5th, the Congregation of the Index declared in an edict that the Copernican model was “false and contrary to Holy Scripture” and halted publication of Copernicus’ _De revolutionibus_ until it could appropriately edited, in light of the conflict. It’s true neither Paul V in 1616, nor Urban VIII in 1633 evoked Papal infallibility in their explicit support for the edict and Galileo’s trial, respectively, it does seem that being a public exponent of Copernican astronomy could get you into serious trouble even before it became an official heresy in the eyes of the Church itself. To what extent exactly it cost Bruno his life will never be known, as the documents of the full verdict against him have apparently been lost. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/139 "2005-09-24T04:01:14Z")
However, none of your citations actually provides an ecclesiastical connection between Bruno and Copernican thought. While “the world of science” would like to claim Bruno as a martyr, the “world of science” seems singularly unable to provide any evidence for their claim. And, as I mentioned, the trial of 1616 was the result of three separate efforts to get Galileo hauled into the court. If Copernican thought was so threatening, why was it not a red flag to drag him in on the first pass? In fact, it was Galileo’s insistence that the Church had to reshape Scripture (when Bellarmine had offered him a conciliatory middle path) that actually got him tried, finally. And in the first trial, he was simply ordered to not publish on the topic, not actually told to deny it. There is simply no evidence that the Church was _seeking_ to suppress Copernican thought before Galileo raised the issue in the theological context. Once he pissed off the pope in 1632, the Church certainly screwed up in making it an issue, but even there, the trial of 1632 was actually based on a document discovered in his 1616 file which Galileo claims to have never seen and there has been serious speculation that it was fraudulently entered after the 1616 trial was closed. In other words, individuals within the church worked to destroy Galileo and the Copernican revolution was simply collateral damage. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2005, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524/140 "2005-09-24T04:55:49Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > However, none of your citations actually provides an ecclesiastical connection between Bruno and Copernican thought. While “the world of science” would like to claim Bruno as a martyr, the “world of science” seems singularly unable to provide any evidence for their claim. I’m not sure where “the world of science” came into this. I was quoting a number of historians or other chroniclers, one of which (Sobel) has written a very even-handed account of the Galileo affair that does not shy from portraying the flaws of Galileo’s own impolitic role in the debacle. Are they all wrong? I guess it surprises me that they might be, as I’ve never read an account that said Bruno _wasn’t_ in the hot seat for his cosmology, as well as his theology. There’s a massive fiction being promoted if what you say is correct, and yet Bellarmino, as Sobel notes, was himself of the oppinion that Copernicus was a heretic. This caused Prince Cesi of the Lyncean Academy, with whom Bellarmino discussed the subject, to speculate that _De revolutionibus_ would never have been published had Copernicus been born after the Council of Trent. It seems not unreasonable, as Bellarmino had tried Bruno, that it factored in his execution, as every source I cited has claimed. But, out of fairness, Bruno had truly antagonized so many, for so many different reasons, it’s a wonder he stayed alive as long as he did in the climate of the day. At any rate, given that key documents from the trial of Bruno are missing, it’s not clear to me why the evidence that he was _only_ condemned for docetism is any stronger. > [@tomndebb](#): > > There is simply no evidence that the Church was _seeking_ to suppress Copernican thought before Galileo raised the issue in the theological context. I’ve never read anywhere that Galileo wanted to “rework scripture”, though he certainly took umbrage with the notion that he could not and should not offer his own oppinion on how it ought to be interpreted. In light of the cites above, I see no reason to conclude the only problem the Church had with Copernicus is that Galileo was his irritating champion. I really can’t understand this need to mitigate the culpability of the Church in its abuses because its adversaries were uppity or abrasive. It makes no difference in my mind whether Copernican astronomy bothered them as a scientific or theological concern, and I can’t see why it should matter. Moving to suppress it and censure and imprision those who championed it, merely because they voiced an opposition to an authority, was _wrong_. No doctrinal or purely philosiphical transgression of any thinker in that time ought to somehow even partially exonorate their oppressor, nor should so many generous excuses be made for it. Galileo and Bruno certainly had their failings (especially as a father, in G’s case, IMO, and I’d say he is as guilty of denying his daughters freedom as the Church was for denying his own), but what of it? I simply cannot accept the notion that the Church wouldn’t have suppressed challenge, inquiry, science that contradicted scripture, and so forth, unless their noses were rubbed in it. Nothing about the Church’s history at that time suggests they required such provocation to act in the harshest manner, and Galileo and Bruno were themselves surprised out of their initial optimism for acceptance of their ideas by the responses to them, each having eventually legitimate reason to fear for their lives. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creationists-in-museums-two-tier-america/322524.md?page=8)