Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 14:22:23 EST
From: erikahedberg@hotmail.com ("Erika Hedberg")
Subject: Giordano Bruno
To: ashslistserve@yahoo.com


This is from Matt Cherry, Executive Director of the Council for Secular Humanism:

Yesterday, February 17, 2000, was the 400th anniversary of the death of the 
great Italian philosopher, scientiest and playwright Giordano Bruno. Bruno 
has become a symbol for freethinkers across the world. Bruno died at the 
hands of the Inquisition: after 7 years in prison he was dragged naked with 
a nail through his tongue (so that he could not repeat his heresies) to one 
of the main public squares in Rome and burnt at the stake.

On February 17 every year since 1889, Italian freethinkers have gathered in 
the Campo de' Fiori--where Bruno was burnt alive--to commemorate Bruno's 
life and death. For the 400th anniversary, the Giordano Bruno Italian 
Freethinkers League and the government of the City of Rome together 
organized a three-day festival in memory of Bruno. The organizers invited 
the Council for Secular Humanism to send a representative. Roy Brown--an 
English supporter of CSH who is a leading activist on population 
issues--agreed to pay his own costs in order to represent CSH at the event.  
Below is the speech Roy made at this historic public meeting.

I was so moved by this short but powerful speech, that I thought it would be 
good to share with our local leaders (it will also be published in the next 
Secular Humanist Bulletin--with photos of the even--and on our website.)

Thanks
Matt Cherry


  Imagine There's No Heaven: A Future Without Religion
  Free Inquiry Magazine's Annual Conference
  May 4-7, 2000, Los Angeles, CA
  http://www.secularhumanism.org/Conference2000/index.htm



In Memoriam - Giordano Bruno

I bring greetings from the Council for Secular Humanism and its chairman, 
Professor Paul Kurtz.

The Council for Secular Humanism is an international organisation dedicated 
to rational inquiry, ethical values and human development through the 
advancement of humanist principles and a secular society.  It publishes a 
quarterly magazine, Free Inquiry, supports free-thought movements in many 
countries, and actively promotes and defends the separation of church and 
state.

For many secular humanists, Giordano Bruno symbolises the age-old desire for 
freedom of inquiry and freedom of thought. Four hundred years ago he was 
martyred. But what was his crime?
Was it because he did not believe in God?  No.
Was it because he did not worship God?  No.
Was it because he preached atheism?  No.
Was it because he was an evil man?  No.
Had he harmed anyone?
Had he assaulted, maimed, raped, murdered or abused anyone?
Had he stolen any property?
No, no, no and no!
His crime was simply that he thought for himself He questioned the 
authority of the catholic church. He did not accept at face value the claims 
of the catholic church to be the sole arbiter of truth and the sole 
repository of morality.

But, you may say, this was all a long time ago. The church has changed. The 
mere fact that you can stand here in the Campo de' Fiori and say what you 
are saying proves that.

But has the church changed? And if so, why has it changed?

Yes, it has changed. It can no longer piece the tongue of an offender with a 
nail to prevent him speaking - while burning him alive... But do you think 
the church gave up that power willingly? Or did it fight, kicking and 
screaming against every diminution of its power?

What has changed is the power of the church to suppress by violence freedom 
of thought and freedom of speech. That change was forced on the church by 
civil society. It didn't happen from within. The church, which claims to be 
the sole arbiter of morality, has fought moral progress every step of the 
way - and continues to do so to this day.

We are told that it is immoral for women who have been raped to use the 
morning-after pill to prevent conception. They must bear their rapists' 
children - and presumably care for them for the rest of their lives. Why? 
Because for the catholic church to accept modern contraception would be to 
accept the right of individuals to decide moral questions for themselves. 
The suffering of the victims of rape matter not a jot to this Pope compared 
to the need for catholic hegemony.

We are also told that men who are infected with HIV must not use condoms to 
prevent their wives becoming infected and possibly dying horribly of AIDS. 
Why? Because what is the suffering of a few hundred thousand women compared 
to the need to preserve papal authority?

The catholic church is first and foremost an institution. And like many 
institutions it claims the sole right to think for and to speak for its 
members. To accept dissent would be to weaken its power. The church is not 
alone in this; it is not uniquely evil. The 20th century saw the rise of 
many institutions equally unable to accept dissent: Stalinist Russia, Nazi 
Germany, the Chinese cultural revolution, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, the 
Taliban in Afghanistan.

The western world has changed beyond recognition in 400 years. But what has 
changed most is the concept of human rights. We believe that every 
individual should have the right to think freely and that no institution has 
the right to suppress freedom of thought or freedom of speech. It is this 
individual right that separates western liberal democracy from totalitarian 
regimes and from the theocracies of the world.

Today, human rights are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights, itself the initiative of a single individual, Eleanor Roosevelt. 
This declaration was signed by virtually all of the world's governments, but 
there are few regimes today that pay more than lip service to its ideals. 
Many claim the right to speak for the group, that human rights belong to the 
group as a whole, and that human rights should be subservient to the needs, 
desires and mores of the group. But human rights are individual rights. 
Thought is a property of the individual. Institutions do not think. No-one 
has the right to do your thinking for you.

Every step in the social and scientific progress of the past 400 years has 
been hard-won by individuals challenging the received wisdom, and the 
authority, of their age. Civilisation is nothing less than the sum total of 
the individual thoughts and actions of millions of individuals.

Yet individual human rights, freedom of thought, and freedom of expression 
are under threat on every continent. For the church, and for many of the 
world's regimes, not much has changed in four hundred years. Mercy, justice, 
reason and virtue must all be subservient to the one, amoral purpose: the 
absolute authority of the organisation.

The only weapons we have against this institutionalised evil are reason, 
free thought and freedom of speech. We must continue the fight - for freedom 
of thought, freedom of inquiry, and freedom of expression.

Long may the spirit of Giordano Bruno live on.


                                                                Roy Brown
Campo de' Fiori
February 17th 2000

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