In the name of God?

William Bingham reflects on why religious men are so violent

In the year 1600 the Medieval church hammered a spike through the tongue of the Franciscan astronomer Giordano Bruno before burning him to death at the stake.

So, what was Giordano’s ‘crime’? He simply said: ‘There are many more worlds other than this one.’ The Hubble telescope has recently discovered 10,000 new galaxies. Each of these galaxies contains a billion stars.

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