Words Worth Noting - May 3, 2026

“Like Nietzsche, the Islamic state saw in the pieties of western civilization – its concern for the suffering, its prating about human rights – a source of terrible and sickly power. Like [the Marquis de] Sade, they understood that the surest blow they could strike against it was a display of exultant and unapologetic cruelty. The cross had to be redeemed from Christianity. In the Qur’an it served as it had served under the Caesars: as an emblem of righteously sanctioned punishment. ‘The penalty for those who wage war against God and his messenger, and to strive in fomenting corruption on the earth, is that they be killed or crucified...’”

Tom Holland Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World