On a chilly evening in Edinburg, Scotland in 1696,
On a chilly evening in Edinburg, Scotland in 1696, twenty-year-old Thomas Aikenhead was walking with three other medical students when he remarked that at that moment he would prefer to be in Hell, where at least he would be warm. A few months later he would be on trial, with his life at stake. At that time blasphemy was a crime in Great Britain. Under the provisions of a 1695 “Act Against Blasphemy,” any person who “shall in their writing or discourse, deny, impugn or quarrel, argue or reason, against the being of God, or any of the persons of the blessed trinity, or the authority of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, or the providence of God in the government of the world” was subject to imprisonment for the first two offences and death for the third. Aikenhead was charged with blasphemy in violation of the Act and was brought to trial in Edinburgh in December 1696. Five of his supposed friends testified against him, reporting not only his quip about Hell,...