The Air We Breathe Quotes

“Infanticide was so widespread in the Roman world (in fact, in all the world) that the first known treatise on gynaecology included the vital section “How to Recognise the Newborn That is Worth Rearing”.[23] If they did not make the grade, the advice was “Expose it and try again”.”
― Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality

“If natural selection means the survival of the fittest and the sacrifice of the weakest, Christianity is about the sacrifice of the Fittest (Jesus Christ) for the survival of the weakest (us).”
― Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality

“In order to pursue the kingdom without the King, we have had to dethrone the person of Christ and install abstract values instead. The problem should be obvious: persons can forgive you; values cannot. Values can only judge you.”
― Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality

“The Greek poet Hesiod (c. 700 BC) came up with five periods of human history, descending from Golden Age to Iron Age. The only way was down (though perhaps we’d cycle back around to experience the whole unravelling again, and again). It was the Bible which proclaimed a unique view of history: not a cycle but an arrow pointing onwards and upwards. The Israelites had come from slavery, yes, but they were heading to “the promised land”. The Messiah would come as a Prince of Peace. Though he would suffer, he would nevertheless set the world to rights.”
― Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality

“In other words, the first move in nazifying Christianity involved tearing up the Old Testament (three quarters of the Bible), followed by half of the New Testament (the letters of Paul). That left them, essentially, with the biographies of one “Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1).”
― Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality

“Hitler considered Christianity, in particular the Jew Paul, to have introduced to the world “the deliberate lie”. This lie concerns the values of equality and compassion that we have explored in this book.”
― Glen Scrivener, The Air We Breathe: How We All Came to Believe in Freedom, Kindness, Progress, and Equality