Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind

by Tom Holland

Columbanus had brought with him from Ireland a novel doctrine: that sins, if they were regularly confessed, were manageable.

‘Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, that is the very foolish daughter of a wise and intelligent mother.’

The spectacle of Lennon imagining a world without possessions while sitting in a huge mansion did nothing to put off his admirers. As Nietzsche spun furiously in his grave, ‘Imagine’ became the anthem of atheism.