“Voltaire and his associates made up the fiction of the Dark Ages so that they could claim to have burst forth with the Enlightenment.”
Nope.
“Historians typically regard the Early Middle Ages or Early Medieval Period, sometimes referred to as the Dark Ages, as lasting from the 5th or 6th century to the 10th century.[note 1] They marked the start of the Middle Ages of European history. The alternative term “Late Antiquity” emphasizes elements of continuity with the Roman Empire, while “Early Middle Ages” is used to emphasize developments characteristic of the earlier medieval period. As such the concept overlaps with Late Antiquity, following the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and precedes the High Middle Ages (c. 11th to 13th centuries).”
“The period saw a continuation of trends evident since late classical antiquity, including population decline, especially in urban centres, a decline of trade, a small rise in global warming and increased migration. In the 19th century the Early Middle Ages were often labelled the “Dark Ages”, a characterization based on the relative scarcity of literary and cultural output from this time.[1] However, the Eastern Roman Empire, or Byzantine Empire, continued to survive, though in the 7th century the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate conquered swathes of formerly Roman territory.”
“Many of the listed trends reversed later in the period. In 800 the title of “Emperor” was revived in Western Europe with Charlemagne, whose Carolingian Empire greatly affected later European social structure and history. Europe experienced a return to systematic agriculture in the form of the feudal system, which adopted such innovations as three-field planting and the heavy plough. Barbarian migration stabilized in much of Europe, although the Viking expansion greatly affected Northern Europe.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ages
Has the good Dr. debunked the Inquisition yet? /s
Dr. Stark: When I began as a scholar, “everybody” including leading Catholics knew the Church was a primary source of anti-Semitism. It was only later as I worked with materials on medieval attacks on Jews that I discovered the effective role of the Church in opposing and suppressing such attacks—this truth being told by medieval Jewish chroniclers and thereby most certainly true. Why do so many ‘intellectuals,’ many of them ex-Catholics, continue to accept the notion that Pope Pius XII was “Hitler’s Pope,” when that is so obviously a vicious lie? It can only be hatred of the Church. Keep in mind that it is prominent Jews who defend the pope.
*****
Fourth Lateran Council (1215)
Canons 78, 79: Jews and Moslems shall wear a special dress to enable them to be distinguished from Christians. Christian princes must take measures to prevent blasphemies against Jesus Christ.
https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/fourth-lateran-council-1215-10584
I have read a couple of Rodney Stark’s books.
I highly recommend them.
The liberty we enjoy derives from English legal and political tradition, in particular the Anglo-Scottish Enlightenment. Moreover, the enlightenment political traditions in both GB and the continent were aggressively opposed to clericalism and “established” churches of all kinds. Had this country been founded by the French or the Spanish, it would have been a very different place politically.
One settled by heavily Protestant beliefs....the other by heavily Roman Catholic beliefs.
I think you should be able to figure out the differences.
The dark ages happened because of Islam. Centuries of Muslim sourced warfare, raiding, slaving and piracy disrupted commerce and society. The enlightenment didn’t end the dark ages, the ability of Europeans to better defend themselves against Islam and therefore restore commerce did ... something built on the backs of Europeans taking back control of the seas, itself an outgrowth of internal rivalries and colonialism, at the same time the heathens of the Islamic Ottman were rotting in their own pot under ideas such as there being no cause and affect
In the midst of all that all that the RCC gained purely worldly power largely in the absence of the Western Empire as one of the few things in the West that had any cohesion. Of course it moved to solidify that power ... but it didn’t cause the circumstances from which it could grow into a political power vacuum.
True New Testament Church History is the Story of Anti-Catholicism
Dr. Peter S. Ruckman in his 2-volume work, “The History of The New Testament Church.”
Debunk all you want, it can’t change the fact that the current pope is an idolator. He doesn’t believe that Christ is the only path to salvation. ~~He is not even a Christian as far as I am concerned.
So remove the log in your eye before you remove the mote in mine.