‘The Reformation and Counter-Reformation participated in parallel projects of religious discipline: while Catholics disciplined populations to believe, Protestants disciplined populations of unbelievers.’ Belief in the modern sense of the word was bred of the resulting strain. The demands imposed on Christians by inquisitors and Puritans alike proved too much for many of them. Dissidents emerged in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions, who emphasised the subjectivity of religious conviction. Belief was to become opinion. – History Today