The reboot of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos” was advertised proudly as Science! Science! Science! but according to the science magazine Discover, in their apparent zeal to trash the Catholic Church, the creators behind “Cosmos” went all anti-science in their depiction of Giordano Bruno, a 16th century mystic and heretic. The “Cosmos” premiere episode included a tribute to Bruno, but…

That depiction in the new Cosmos matches the standard textbook story of Bruno, but it is misleading and in some ways downright wrong. For starters, Bruno was not the first to link the idea of infinite space with the infinite glory of God. That idea actually originated with Nicolas of Cusa, a German philosopher who lived a century earlier (and who wrote about the notion of infinite space even before Copernicus, though not in a detailed astronomical way). Nicolas kept his infinite theology within the Catholic framework, however, and suffered no ill consequences for his views.

“Cosmos” co-writer Steven Soter responded to Discover but only with more anti-science inaccuracies (Discover responds at the bottom of the post linked here).

The left-wing Slate, of all places, detailed the six facts “Cosmos” got wrong about Bruno and his supposed persecution at the hands of the Catholic Church.  

Writing for Patheos, Catholic writer Thomas L. McDonald blasted the anti-science “Cosmos” segment as outright “dishonest” and blatantly accuses the series of telling “lie” after “lie.” [emphasis original]

We’re barely seconds into this farrago and we have our first lie.

“Everyone” knew the earth was the center of the universe?

Wow, who’s going to tell Copernicus? Kepler? Stigliola? Diggs? Maestlin? Rothmann? Brahe? All of them believed in models of the cosmos that were not considered orthodox, and lived at the time of Bruno. All of them escaped the fire, and indeed weren’t even pursued by the Inquisition. Right here we have the major lie at the heart of modern anti-religious scientific propaganda: the war between faith and science.

We’re supposed to just assume this ignorant backwards world of the past hates smart people. Tyson himself says it matter-of-factly: “How was [Bruno] spending New Year’s Eve [in 1599]? In prison, of course.”

Of course! Because that’s what the Church does to smart people! Bad church! Bad!

Next: “This was a time when there was no freedom of thought in Italy.”

His full post is impressively detailed and worth reading.

These kinds of attacks are  something that I think we are going to see more of from the secular, atheist crowd. There is a desperation at work here that makes sense when you put yourself in their shoes. Variety is obviously angry that Christianity is making a serious comeback in popular culture. For decades, these evangelical atheists have believed science was on their side and that by now science would in some way disprove the idea of God.

The complete opposite has happened, though. And that has revealed that it is not really science that many of these leftists respect and believe in. Rather, it is the convenient use of science to attack Christianity and to further their own political cause. For example, as Global Warming models slowly collapse, those who claim to be pro-science are looking more and more like religious freaks every day.

The primary reason I officially joined the Catholic Church a little over five years ago was due to secular science, history and archeology. Not only have these fields failed to disprove Christianity, thanks to them, there is an incredible amount of secular proof that backs up the New and Old Testament —  most especially the Christian Gospels. Faith made me a Christian many decades ago. It took proof for me to join.

My faith didn’t make me afraid to explore science, it boosted my interest. And when you look, most but not all of what you find only affirms the Gospels. What I learned about St. Peter during my visit to Rome is just the latest example. Even the Church built on the Tomb of St. Peter was shocked to discover the Fisherman was actually entombed there.

The militant atheist movement, which can be every bit as deceitful, dishonest, and obnoxious as any phony television evangelist, bows at the altar of science. But when science disrupts their faith, as we can see in the “Cosmos” episode, they are forced to revert to anti-science dishonesty.

Science is the Christian faith’s friend and the pro-science crowd seems to be having a difficult time facing that inconvenient fact.

 

Follow  John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC