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{"id":826,"date":"2014-03-19T18:33:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T18:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/03\/cosmos-and-christian-history.html"},"modified":"2014-03-19T18:33:00","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T18:33:00","slug":"cosmos-and-christian-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/03\/cosmos-and-christian-history.html","title":{"rendered":"Cosmos and Christian History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

As I watched the first episode of the new\u00a0<\/span>Cosmos\u00a0<\/i>series March 9, I wondered a number of things in succession: Wait, who\u2019s this Bruno guy? How are the show\u2019s writers going to play the science-and-religion thing? More important, with so much science to explain\u2013and to illustrate with nifty special effects\u2013why are they playing the science-and-religion thing at all?<\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span>The all-knowing Internet was able to help me with the first question right away. Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was one of several early modern thinkers who combined what we\u2019d now call theology, science, math, literature, and magic into a speculative body of work that eventually got him killed by religious authorities. His abrasive personality and the myriad tensions of 16th-century Europe didn\u2019t help. A fantastic exchange on a\u00a0<\/span>Discover\u00a0<\/i>magazine blog<\/a>\u00a0has since filled in my sketchy knowledge of Bruno and his contributions.<\/span>

What struck me about the portrayal of science versus religion was the twist on the familiar scientific martyrology. Many cliches were repeated, as the lone truth-seeker chafed against limits on academic freedom and was ultimately slain merely for teaching ideas that were ahead of his time. (The\u00a0<\/span>Discover\u00a0<\/i>blog deconstructs these cliches as well.) But the money line was cartoon-Bruno\u2019s plea to his examiners, \u201cYour God is too small!\u201d I took this as an argument that religion, rightly understood, is not threatened by, nor does it pose a threat to, scientific inquiry. Of course, it\u2019s more than a little presumptuous for a popular science show to define the right understanding of religion, but the argument is basically what I was taught as an undergrad at Wheaton College, and a far cry from the sneering hostility of Andrew Dickson White or\u00a0<\/span>Inherit the Wind<\/i>.<\/span>

Still, why go there at all?<\/span><\/span>

<\/span><\/span>Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"