cupnoodlefreak comments on What if the prophet Mohammed was never born?
...Firstly, Copernicus never feared the church, he feared his contemporaries. The problem with the heliocentric model copernicus had was that he had circular orbits. The Ptolemaic system was full of stupid things like epicycles, but it worked. It accurately predicted the movement of the stars and planets better than Copernicus' model until Kepler realized they were elliptical orbits. Copernicus was scared not because the church would be annoyed, but because his contemporaries would be, as his model didn't accurately track the stars. In fact, Copernicus decided to publish it at the end because several bishops and theologians begged him to publish it.
Secondly, Giodarno Bruno was a visionary because he went beyond the copernican model and even predicted that the sun itself was a star, but he wasn't killed because of that. He was killed because of his religious views, which were deemed as heresy. Keep in mind this was during the religious wars of the 16th century in Italy, when protestantism and catholicism were busy fighting each other (though there were political concerns too--protestant princes wanted to seize church lands and the like).
Thirdly, as for Galileo, Galileo is an interesting case, because (I'm reposting from an old post I made in the past here) while the church under the Congregation of the Index condemned Galileo's ideas were false, he was in fact supported--and in fact encouraged--by Pope Urban VIII. The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was sanctioned by both the papacy and the Inquisition. The reason Galileo was imprisoned was partly because of papal politics, and because Galileo represented the Pope's position under the name of "Simplicius" - that is, simpleton (the Pope had ordered Galileo to represent his--the geocentric--theory within his book as well, given it was called a "dialogue")...
Secondly, Giodarno Bruno was a visionary because he went beyond the copernican model and even predicted that the sun itself was a star, but he wasn't killed because of that. He was killed because of his religious views, which were deemed as heresy. Keep in mind this was during the religious wars of the 16th century in Italy, when protestantism and catholicism were busy fighting each other (though there were political concerns too--protestant princes wanted to seize church lands and the like).
Thirdly, as for Galileo, Galileo is an interesting case, because (I'm reposting from an old post I made in the past here) while the church under the Congregation of the Index condemned Galileo's ideas were false, he was in fact supported--and in fact encouraged--by Pope Urban VIII. The Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems was sanctioned by both the papacy and the Inquisition. The reason Galileo was imprisoned was partly because of papal politics, and because Galileo represented the Pope's position under the name of "Simplicius" - that is, simpleton (the Pope had ordered Galileo to represent his--the geocentric--theory within his book as well, given it was called a "dialogue")...
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