I felt this whole section was a false equivalence — it is mixing claims about Christianity specifically, with claims about whoever was in power at a certain point in history.
500 years ago, Christianity was the dominant power.
If the dominant power at that time was society of atheists, they would also take care to retain sole power to:
Appoint legitimate monarchs
Free people from their oaths of loyalty
Execute people at a whim
Exonerate members of their clique from being tried in regular criminal courts
500 years ago, if you had power, you kept it and did what you could to retain it! You’re talking about the wider category of “group of people in power”, rather than “Christianity” (which is an example of a group of people that was in power, but is no longer).
I felt this whole section was a false equivalence — it is mixing claims about Christianity specifically, with claims about whoever was in power at a certain point in history.
500 years ago, Christianity was the dominant power.
If the dominant power at that time was society of atheists, they would also take care to retain sole power to:
Appoint legitimate monarchs
Free people from their oaths of loyalty
Execute people at a whim
Exonerate members of their clique from being tried in regular criminal courts
500 years ago, if you had power, you kept it and did what you could to retain it! You’re talking about the wider category of “group of people in power”, rather than “Christianity” (which is an example of a group of people that was in power, but is no longer).