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You gotta wonder what the world would have been like if the Greek and Roman civilization hadn't collapsed and work like this had never been lost. We might have been 1,000 years more advanced from where we are now.

Things probably progressed as well as they could, what seems to stop societies in their tracks is the nutty idea that if it is in the holy book its true and all one needs and if it is not in the holy book it is not worth learning. I seem to remember this is a tenant of radical Islam today. The real question is what happened to the men who, like Newton could understand the writings of people like Archimedes during the dark ages. There must have been some in the Church, but outside the church, what did they do?

The real question is what happened to the men who, like Newton could understand the writings of people like Archimedes during the dark ages.

I heard many surviving manuscripts were in Ireland, where the zealotry of the Inquisition and other such Chrisitan-State extremisms didn't penetrate for considerable time.

The 6000 year doctrine (as I call it) was prevalent in the Middle Ages. For some reason the year 2000 was supposed to be the end and the second coming was scheduled. Again I don't know why.

So, why push progress and knowledge, etc, when in a few hundred years the world was coming to an end anyway?

Bad mindset.

The end of the classical era was not caused by a growth in Christianity but rather the other way around. When the Asian tribes overwhelmed the already weakened Roman Empire and all of the social infrastructure collapsed, people turned to the Church as the new center of life, culture, everything. Being Christian became synonymous with being European as opposed to those Asian types who were killing and marauding.

This was largely the result of St Augustine's book "City of God".

It didn't take long before the mindset was established that doing things the Classical way was the right way. Any deviation from what the Greeks/Romans had done was considered in poor form. This was what renaissance men like Da Vinci sought to counter.

Those who hate religion often conveniently forget that it was the Church (and ironically the Moslems) that preserved the knowledge of the ancients. The Church was also the principal patron of those that today we would call scientists. You could fill a book with stupid things that were done in the name of religion but a fair assesment, I believe, would show that the Church aided rather than hindered the growth of knowledge during the dark ages.