This is the first stage the Enlightenment. Because of the oppression in Catholic lands, advances in science and industry moved to the Protestant lands of northern Europe. These lands still retained some sense of Pagan freedom because they were the last to be forcibly converted.
Even in this day and age these claims are still being made. This is a book for sale on Amazon in 2025
This author is trying to prove the Bible by deliberately misinterpreting Einstein's theory of special relativity which claims the universe has no preferential reference frame. Because of this non-preference, scientists and engineers will arbitrarily choose a refence frame which makes for the simplest calculations. He claims that the earth can thus be seen to not be moving which is true but he is also making it preferential which is completely wrong. Any other point in the solar system can equally be said to not be moving. By making the sun the motionless point, Newton's and Kepler's simple laws of motion become obvious and that allowed for the accurate prediction of astronomical events.
(March 27, 2025)
The Reformation only challenged the Catholic Church's thought control in areas whose rulers did not suppress Protestantism. It did not challenge the Bible as the main source for community knowledge. Both Protestants and Catholics still claimed the Bible was the source of all such knowledge. Replacing the Bible with nature for physics only came about during the first stage of the Enlightenment.
The first battle between nature and the Bible would be over the question of whether the earth moved. The Christians viewed the earth as immovable because the Bible said so:
Also 1 Chronicles 16:30, Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10.
Yet developing observations and theories about nature indicated that the earth moved.
(March 30, 2025)
Bruno was born in 1548 in the town of Nola near Naples. At the age of 17, he entered the Dominican Order at the monastery of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples, taking the name Giordano, after Giordano Crispo, his metaphysics tutor. He continued his studies there, completing his novitiate, and ordained a priest in 1572 at age 24. During his time in Naples, he became known for his skill with the art of memory and on one occasion traveled to Rome to demonstrate his mnemonic system before Pope Pius V and Cardinal Rebiba. His great memory is what initially gained him attention.
He later became known for his cosmological theories which incorporated the sun centric model of Copernicus. He forced this model to its logical conclusions suggesting that stars were distant suns surrounded by their own planets. He even raised the possibility that these planets might foster life of their own. He also insisted that the universe is infinite and could have no center.
An invitation in 1592 to go to Venice to teach Count Giovanni Mocenigo the science of memory led to his downfall. Mocenigo in short order turned him over to the Inquisition on a charge of heresy.
After a nine-month trial, the Venice court sent him to Rome where he was imprisoned and underwent another trial that lasted seven years. He was convicted with the Pope's approval and sentenced to death by burning on Feb. 9, 1600.
The inquisition cardinals who judged Giordano Bruno were Cardinal Bellarmino (Bellarmine), Cardinal Madruzzo (Madruzzi), Camillo Cardinal Borghese (later Pope Paul V), Domenico Cardinal Pinelli, Pompeio Cardinal Arrigoni, Cardinal Sfondrati, Pedro Cardinal De Deza Manuel and Cardinal Santorio (Archbishop of Santa Severina, Cardinal-Bishop of Palestrina). Many of these would also be involved in the later trial of Galileo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
Alberto A. Martinez (2022) Pythagoras or Christ? Saltshadow Castle, Cambridge, MA,USA
(March 31, 2025) Interestingly, the Vatican records, normally so voluminous and complete are missing the pages listing his alleged heresies. But we happen to have such a list from a German witness to the events in Rome named Gaspar Schoppe, who was visiting Cardinal Madruzzi at the time. His list was found in a letter to a friend. The most important 2 heresies according to Martinez (2022) were:
Worlds are innumerable
The earth moved because it had a soul and that soul was the Holy Spirit.
Multiple worlds are were a heresy because that implies that Christ must have visited them all, died, and then have been repeatedly resurrected to save them. This goes against Christian teachings even today (which is why even the modern Catholic church has never officially forgiven him).
Claiming a moving earth had a soul causing it to move is a heresy for 2 reasons. The first reason is because the Bible says the earth is stationary (Psalms 104:5). The second reason is that the Bible says the Holy Spirit is God's power to comfort, guide, and generally empower Christians, it does not change anything.
Bruno was not the only one who saw Aristotle's theory was flawed in regards to natural motion. Wood rose in water but fell in air. So what was its real natural motion? If that was imposed motion then all things falling in air was an imposed motion so things did not have a natural resting place (like the center of the earth) which they sought. So the only alternative they could think of was to claim the Holy Spirit moved things but this was Pythagorean and thus Pagan.
This shows that thought paradigms matter because that is how our brain organizes evidence. Having a false paradigm means nothing makes sense anymore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno
Alberto A. Martinez (2022) Pythagoras or Christ? Saltshadow Castle, Cambridge, MA,USA
(March 27, 2025) At this time, any claim that the earth moved was viewed as Pythagorean and thus heretical. Christians got most of their information about the Pythagoreans from Aristotle. He wrote:
"Star" is the Greek word ἀστήρ ("aster" as in astronomy) which means any heavenly body.
"Fire is the Greek word φωτιά ("fotia" as in photograph) which has been traditionally translated as either fire or light.
The most complete statement about the Pythagorean conception of the universe is found in a surviving summation of old Greek texts done by Joannes Stobaeus around 400 CE. It says:
(1) Aristotle (350 BCE) On the Heavens, Book 2, Part 13. Online at https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/heavens.2.ii.html
(2) Original in Stobaeus, Eclogarum Physicarum, translated by August Meinekie (ed) Ioannis Stobaei Eclogarum Physicarum et Ethicarum, vol. 1 (1860). I found it in: Phythagoras or Christ by Alberto A. Martinez (2022) Saltshadow Castle, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
(March 25, 2025) The Pythagoreans were devoted to the celestial light fate powers because they did not think the emotion class of motion powers were pure enough. This is a consequence of their contact with Zoroastrian Dualism.
Hesta was called "Vesta" in Latin. She was the goddess of fate for family and society and was guardian of the family hearth which protected the family. Consequently, this hearth fire was not just the element of fire, it was deeper. In Rome, her main priestesses were the state sponsored Vestal Virgins. Being virgins they had nothing to do with fertility and life powers but instead were involved in the magical motion powers of fate from the night sky.
