How we got freedom of conscience

For ages, freedom of conscience stood for impiety, immorality and anarchy. But in the 17th century, that started to change. In this article you'll read why.

Until the 17th century, freedom of conscience was often associated with impiety, immorality, violence and ungovernability. Society had to be protected against heretics, people with terrible ideas, and against religious incitement. But gradually that view changed. In this article, I list how thinkers in the 16th and 17th centuries argued for this change.…