Copernicus, Giordano Bruno, and Galileo Galilei all developed or promoted scientific ideas that contradicted church doctrine, in particular the heliocentric system developed by Copernicus, while Frances Bacon developed a theory of scientific method.
Giordano Bruno (1548?-1600), was a an Italian philosopher and poet. He was a supporter of Copernicus' heliocentric system and a pantheist who rejected the idea of an afterlife. He also advanced the idea that priests have no right to use violence as a tool of conversion. He was turned into the Inquisition and imprisoned for eight years before being tortured and burned at the stake for heresy in 1600. He had bravely refused his option to recant.
Lucilio Vanini (1585?-1619), also known as Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar) Vanini, and Pompeo Uciglio, wrote two books in which he expressed his radical ideas including a naturalistic philosophy of an eternal world governed by laws. For Vanini, natural law was the divine. He rejected the idea of an immortal soul and was one of the first thinkers to view nature as a machine governed by natural laws. He also suggested that humans evolved from apes. Accused of atheism, and his books condemned, Vanini was burned alive in 1619.
Frances Bacon (1561-1626), was a philosopher, statesman and scientific pioneer. He believed that people interpret nature and argued that truth is not derived from authority or tradition, but from experience. He developed a technique of inductive reasoning, employed by inferring conclusions about particular data from the characteristics of the larger, general group to which the data belonged. This technique greatly advanced the scientific method. Bacon's writing also led to greater use of observation and experimentation in science, and he emphasized the abandonment of preconceived ideas. This led to the latter development of Empiricism.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was an English philosopher and political theorist who was one of the first Western thinkers to provide a secular justification for government. He derived his ethics from a secular basis as well. He was a naturalist and materialist and influenced the later development of utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that says the good is that which brings the most happiness and least harm to the greatest number of people. Hobbes paved the way for the development of sociology by trying to explain human motivation and social organization in terms of mechanical processes.
He wrote his political views espousing national sovereignty in Leviathan, and although Hobbes view of sovereignty is in opposition to the Humanists' modern advocacy of international law, Leviathan also made a distinction between knowledge and faith. Hobbes also suggested that people could not gain knowledge of God. In 1666, a bill was passed naming Leviathan among books listed for an investigation on the charge of atheistic tendencies. In response, Hobbes burned several of his papers, and delayed publishing three of his books.
