LuvRPgrl
Senior Member
- Aug 11, 2005
- 3,163
- 206
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I don't either. Maybe you should tell that to the evangelical Christian base the Republican party caters to.
As far as the Dark Ages are concerned, you're argument is ludicrous. What brought Europe out of the Dark Ages was a revival of classical Greek and Roman cultural ideals, not Christianity. You may know this period by its common name, the Renaissance. During the Dark Ages, the Christian Church challenged and snuffed everything that went against orthodoxy. This included stamping-out (or trying to) scientific breakthroughs, the most notable of which was Galileo's discovery of heliocentricity.
Maybe this will "enlighten" you a bit...
"This article is about the term "Dark age(s)" as a characterization of the (Early) Middle Ages in Europe. For the period itself, see Middle Ages and Early Middle Ages. For other uses of the phrase, see Dark Ages (disambiguation).
Petrarch, who conceived the idea of a European "Dark Age". From Cycle of Famous Men and Women, Andrea di Bartolo di Bargillac, c.1450In historiography the phrase the Dark Ages (or Dark Age) is most commonly known in relation to the European Early Middle Ages (from about A.D. 476 to about 1000).
This concept of a "Dark Age" was created by Italian humanists and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latin literature. Later historians expanded the term to include not only the lack of Latin literature, but a lack of contemporary written history and material cultural achievements in general. Popular culture has further expanded on the term as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope. The rise of archaeology and other specialities in the 20th century has shed much light on the period and offered a more nuanced understanding of its positive developments. Other terms of periodization have come to the fore: Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages and the Great Migrations, depending on which aspects of culture are being emphasized. Most modern historians dismiss the notion that the era was a "Dark Age" by pointing out that this idea was based on ignorance of the period combined with popular stereotypes: many previous authors would simply assume that the era was a dismal time of violence and stagnation and use this assumption to prove itself.
In Britain and the United States, the phrase "Dark Ages" has occasionally been used by professionals, with severe qualification, as a term of periodization. This usage is intended as non-judgmental and simply means the relative lack of written record, "silent" as much as "dark."