Asphyxiating

If one digs a deep pit and another comes and broadens it, and an ox falls into it and dies, the rule is as follows: If the ox dies as a result of the asphyxiating atmosphere of the pit, the second person is exempt because his action has rendered the atmosphere less asphyxiating. If, however, it dies as a result of concussion, he is liable since he has increased the likelihood that the pit will cause this damage.

For Kate, Dick and the theatre company represent a world of imagination, sensuality, and emotional freedom that her asphyxiating religion cannot accommodate.

But according to Gauchet's thesis, Christianity has proven to be 'a religion for departing from religion' (ibid. 4); the gradual emancipation from and death of God has trained and conditioned us Westerners to withstand the asphyxiating terror of freedom.

To Edward […] he was terrible, nerve-inflaming, poisonously asphyxiating. He sat rocking himself in the late Mr. Churchill's swing chair, smoking and twaddling.