The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality

Such arguments carried the day and 400 men, women and children, were dragged to 400 crosses. Thus was upheld the wisdom of the ancients, the greater good of the empire, and the terrorising of the masses. Deterrence was the goal and crucifixion a major tool. Sometimes the injustice of it all was the very point being made. To see “the slaves’ punishm

However, sober-minded historical research (and there are very careful records to consult) puts the death toll at about 2,000 executions for the notorious 50 years under Tomas de Torquemada and his protégés (1480–1530). In the following 300 years there were a further 3,000 executions. Compare even the worst of Torquemada’s time with the last 45 year

modern science was invented nowhere else but among devout Christians in a devoutly Christian age, drawing explicitly on Christian beliefs and practices.

All that we see in nature is difference. Compare any two people concerning any one attribute and what will you conclude? This one has more than that one. This, of course, is the definition of unequal. To insist that two people are equal really, when every human trait betrays inequality, raises the question: Equal how? Where is this magical realm wh

What would a Roman—breathing Roman air, kept in check by Roman brutalities, raised on Roman myths—make of the Christian claim? They would, of course, consider Christ an ass, his worshippers fools and his religion a perversity. If Roman citizens could not bear to have the name of the cross on their lips, what sort of God would show up as its victim?

“Who are you to put a value on life? In my view, and I think in many others’, life is sacred, and I don’t think we should make those judgment calls. All life is worth saving regardless of what life it is people are living.” Notice the instinctive revulsion at the idea of inequality. Those who might never use the word “sacred” in any other setting b

The extraordinary impact of Christianity is seen in the fact that you don’t notice it. You already hold particularly “Christian-ish” views, and the fact that you think of these values as natural, obvious or universal shows how profoundly the Christian revolution has shaped you.

“In the sexual life of the Roman Empire, it would be impossible to overstate the decisive influence of social position in the determination of sexual boundaries.”[46] It was the status of your partner—not their consent, their age or their gender—that mattered. And it was your reputation within a shame-based culture that determined the rightness of

Preaching was a vital component, but beyond the spiritual authority which abolitionists conveyed, there needed to be political authority to enforce abolition. It certainly helped that Britain “ruled the waves”. As the world’s greatest naval power it could police the Atlantic, and as the world’s greatest empire it had the clout to negotiate the spre