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David M Perry interview
Interview – Dr David M. Perry on the “Dark Ages”

Interview – Dr David M. Perry on the “Dark Ages”

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My guest today is Dr David M. Perry . David is a medieval historian and author of several books, including The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe and the forthcoming Oathbreakers, both co-authored with Matthew Gabriele. He has taught medieval history at Dominican University and is currently the Associate Director of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Minnesota. The Bright Ages sought to refute common misconceptions about the Middle Ages and counter the misconception that this period was…

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The Dark Ages
The Great Myths 15: What about “the Dark Ages?”

The Great Myths 15: What about “the Dark Ages?”

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The concept of “the Dark Ages” is central to several key elements in much anti-religious polemic.  One of the primary myths most beloved by many anti-theists 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 thousand year “dark age” which was only relieved by the glorious dawn of “the Renaissance”. But when this “Dark Age” supposedly…

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Review – Catherine Nixey “Heresy – Jesus Christ and Other Sons of God”

Review – Catherine Nixey “Heresy – Jesus Christ and Other Sons of God”

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Catherine Nixey, Heresy – Jesus Christ and Other Sons of God (Picador, 2024) 365 pp. British journalist Catherine Nixey’s first foray into popular history, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World, (Macmillan, 2017) received enthusiastic praise by many non-specialist reviewers and an even more rapturous reception by certain polemicists, who relished its fundamentally anti-Christian thesis. It was far less well-regarded by historians who are expert in the periods and topics it covers, who condemned it as biased,…

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Hypatia - Myths and History
Hypatia – Myths and History

Hypatia – Myths and History

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The story often told about Hypatia of Alexandria was that she was a great scientist, rationalist and scholar who was brutally murdered by a mob of Christians who hated her knowledge and learning, with her death ushering in the Dark Ages. But this story is mostly nonsense and the real history is far more complex and much more interesting. Contrary to the myths, she was not a modern-style scientist, she was far from an atheist or what we would regard…

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The Closing of the Athenian Academy
The Closing of the Athenian Academy

The Closing of the Athenian Academy

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In 529 AD Damascius, the last head of the Academy in Athens, closed down the philosophical school and, with several fellow scholars, went into exile in Persia. This is often portrayed as the final act in “the closing of the western mind” and the beginning of “the darkening age”; the symbolic closing of an institution founded by Plato himself almost a millennium earlier. It is regularly portrayed in popular writing and anti-theist polemic as the end of ancient science and…

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Dissection
The Church and Dissection

The Church and Dissection

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The claim that the Medieval Church “banned dissection” and so set back progress in the study of human anatomy is often made in popular sources. It is also regularly found in academic sources by medical experts commenting on the history of anatomy. So, unsurprisingly, it is often produced by anti-theists as evidence that Christianity retarded scientific knowledge for religious reasons. This is despite the fact there was no such “ban” and that the practice of anatomical dissection that founded the…

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Renaissance
The Great Myths 13: The Renaissance Myth

The Great Myths 13: The Renaissance Myth

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Many of my fellow atheists operate with a simplistic children’s picture book view of the past. This is one where the glories of Greece and Rome are destroyed and suppressed by the Medieval Church, but civilisation is saved by the geniuses of the Renaissance, whose revival of ancient thought, critical analysis and radical new thinking establishes most of what we value today. This conception of the Renaissance as a dramatic and revolutionary break with the medieval world is actually Modernity’s…

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Answers
History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

History for Atheists on Answers in Reason

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It is always nice to be invited to speak to other atheists and to highlight the work I do here on History for Atheists. This week I had the pleasure of talking to Davidian from Answers in Reason in a live discussion which was mainly about the historical Jesus but also on how history is analysed, the nature of ancient source material and the problem of atheist bad history and anti-theist tribalism. We did not get to cover many other…

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Stephen Hicks Mangles History

Stephen Hicks Mangles History

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Dr. Stephen Hicks thinks the Early Middle Ages were a “Dark Age” thanks to the Church, and considers any revision of that idea to be the work of conservative ideologues. Working from dubious sources, a succession of erroneous presuppositions and some total fantasy, he supports this via a sustained string of bungled arguments about history that leaves his audience considerably dumber for having heard them. Why do atheist philosophers keep doing this? I was not aware of Dr Stephen Hicks…

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Review – Tom Holland “Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind”

Review – Tom Holland “Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind”

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Tom Holland, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (Little, Brown, 2019) 624 pp. Tom Holland is the best kind of popular history writer. He is a good researcher who knows what can be stated with emphasis and what needs to be judiciously hedged. He is a fine story-teller, who can weave bare facts into a smooth and engaging narrative. He is provocative and startling enough to keep the reader on their toes and turning pages. And he is…

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