Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre (1572) It was on this date, August 24, 1572, that the bloodiest massacre of Christians by Christians began in France – the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre. The Reformation of the corrupt practices of the Roman Catholic Church, which had begun in Germany, had spread to France and gained many followers, including […]

It is only good fortune that those with Bibles and weapons, or with Korans and weapons, for that matter, were so anti-science: imagine what a human holocaust they could have perpetrated!

Montaigne was a Deist, but refrained from candor about his beliefs due to the mutual slaughter between Catholics and French Huguenots of the time. "It is setting a high value upon our opinions," he wrote, "to roast men and women alive on account of them."

"On no account should the church allow infidels to have power over the faithful or to be set above them in any way. ... The church is above the state ... kings must be subject to priests." (Thomas Aquinas)