When Atheists Stole the Moral High Ground

In 1585, Jacques du Perron presented to the court of the French king Henry III, as a kind of after-dinner entertainment, a formal logical argument for the existence of God. Du Perron, formerly a Protestant, was now well on his way to becoming a cardinal. He was a highly intelligent and rhetorically gifted man and he performed his task well, to the great pleasure of the assembled nobility. Flushed with success, he then turned to his audience and announced that, if they wanted, he could prove the opposite case too. The king was not amused.