This belief doesn't make people immune to become crackpots. I personally know one crackpot that happens to believe that the earth revolve around the sun. He believes also that 2+2=4, and it doesn't help either.
> What separates a crackpot from an eccentric person or someone with weird ideas, or is that just a crackpot?
I believe it is how a person construct their beliefs and how they defend it. I don't know enough about Giordano Bruno to claim that he was a crackpot though. All I want to say is that if Giordano Bruno shared some good ideas including some novel and good ideas of the time, it doesn't mean he was not a crackpot.
> And, is it ok to be a crackpot?
No, from the point of view of a Catholic Church of the time, it was not. And Giordano Bruno should have known that. I'm not trying to whitewash Catholic Church, just that Giordano Bruno could have predict what was coming to him and ignored it, while having some really weird ideas. I have a very little knowledge of him, but I heard of some of his ideas and I tend to think that he was a crackpot.
To add/refine: Bruno didn't incur his punishment because of "weird ideas" or because he was a crackpot, specifically, much less for believing in heliocentrism [0][1].
Thanks for your thoughtful and educational reply! I had to go do some digging on the views of the Catholic Church of the time and I hadn't realized, "crackpottery", if you will, was taken so seriously, but after researching I see the problems. Thanks again for taking the time, that was some good learnings.
Yeah. He though the earth revolved around the sun. Crazy, right?