“The Dark Ages” – Popery, Periodisation and Pejoratives
“When the Pope ruled England, them was called the Dark Ages!”(East London street orator, reported by Herbert Butterfield, 1931) The concept of “the Dark Ages” is central to several key elements in New Atheist Bad History. One of the primary myths most beloved by many New Atheists is the one whereby Christianity violently suppressed ancient Greco-Roman learning, destroyed an ancient intellectual culture based on pure reason and retarded a nascent scientific and technological revolution, thus plunging Europe into a one…