Dear Danny,
Just so you know, the Illuminati were formed in 1775. That's the eighteenth century.
The Illuminati did not become violent until the 17th Century. Their name means 'The Enlightened Ones'. They were physicists, mathematicians, astronomers. In the 1500's they started meeting in secret, because they were concerned about the church's inaccurate teachings....
...Oh geez, you guys don't even read your own history do you? 1668, the church kidnapped four Illuminati scientists and branded each one of them on the chest with the symbol of the cross. Angels and Demons, film
I'm less concerned with the torturing/inaccurate teaching stuff than I am with the apparent talent of these individuals to time-travel! Really, though, I'm fascinated that you say Copernicus and Galileo were Illuminati. 'cuz, y'know, the last time I checked...the Illuminati were formed in 1775 or thereabouts. Copernicus died over two hundred years earlier; Galileo around a hundred earlier.
Oh, and by the way, Danny...
1. Copernicus was a clergyman held in high esteem by the Church. Imagine that--a priest AND a scientist! The horror!
2. Galileo was not grievously tortured for years on end. His fate was a natural death under "house arrest" in a nice house outside of Florence (which he was allowed to leave for medical care). Also--the initial hubbub was NOT about heliocentrism itself. It was the fact that Galileo (who, by the way, thought that the tides were controlled by the sun, and used that as his basis for his heliocentric beliefs) refused to teach heliocentrism as a theory.*
3. Furthermore, that persecuting Church must've really had it out for all scientists who proposed the Copernican system, because the first one to propose it--before Copernicus himself--(a scientist named Cusa) was persecuted by that mean little Church...by being made a Cardinal.
4. "Novus Ordo Saeclorum" does not mean "New Secular Order". It means "New Order of the Ages". Please, please, please, please--if you're going to use our language against us, for the love of humanity try to use it correctly!
Toodles!
Celestine
*Actually, if I recall correctly, the "gravely suspected of heresy" part had very little to do with Galileo's scientific beliefs, but I can't be certain. It's been a while since I was studying the whole Affair, but I'm pretty sure that it was vastly more a case of ego than scientific disagreements.
4 comments:
Good one, Celestine. Brown is a charlatan and certainly needs a good thrashing once in a while.
Some other interesting tidbits:
Copernicus' major work De revolutionibus... was dedicated to the Pope at the time.
Galileo never made reference to original sources and his innovations are buttressed by the scientific studies of his priestly predecessors: Jean Buridan, Nicole Oresme, etc.
I like this "Open Letter" thing. Maybe, in the future, you might compose one for those most likable fellows: Dawkins & Hitchens?
I second TH2's idea about the Damnamic Duo.
TH2--Thank you! And yes, Brown does need a thrashing. Or a dose of reality. In 2003, when asked how much in "The Da Vinci Code" was fiction, he had the nerve to respond:
99 percent of it is true. All of the architecture, the art, the secret rituals, the history, all of that is true, the Gnostic gospels. All of that is ... all that is fiction, of course, is that there's a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.
As far as Dawkins & Hitchens...I'm not entirely sure my dusty old brain is up to that, but I'll give it a shot at some point in the future.
No need to feel obligated.
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