Greek Fire...

[Brandy Blue]

For that matter, strictly speaking Galileo was not forced to recant his scientific views as long as he stuck to astronomical observations and left it at that. He annoyed some of the clergy, partly because of his views and partly because he was an annoying person. But he didn't get into real trouble until he took it upon himself to say (in writing!) that the church was incorrect in its interpretation of scripture. That doesn't mean the church wasn't opressive (by modern standards). After all, it did opress him. But not for retaining ideas from ancient civilization about Greek fire or any other ancient technical or theoretical ideas. In fact, I suspect any of us would be very hard pressed to name any military or practical technology or techniques from ancient times which the Catholic church banned, apart from the crossbow, of course, and even that didn't last long. (Astonomy, in that day and age, could hardly be called a practical, except with regard to calculating the seasons, and the church had no problem with that.)

Does anyone know if Copernicus was oppressed for Greek views? I thought he died of a stroke, but I don't know much about his life.


Antisocialmunkey, what do you mean about Lorica Seg-whatever? And why do you have to track down and kill him? (I just hope it wasn't me!)