Whack-a-Mole and those Awful Middle Ages

Every so often I see someone on-line claiming that rationality started with the Renaissance, when the bonds of the Catholic Church were finally broken. It ain’t so; if one troubles to look into it, one finds that so far from being dark the middle ages were an time of intellectual flowering. Trouble is, even if you’ve got the proof at your fingertips it’s like playing whack-a-mole. The claim pops up here and it pops up there like the hero with a thousand faces, and is as hard to kill. Currently it’s popped up in the new TV show Cosmos.

Tony Rossi has the scoop, including a long passage from blogger Tim O’Neill that sets the facts straight. I’ll note that O’Neill is an atheist and has no reason to pull his punches with regard to Church history.