What if religion never had a "breakthrough"?

[CapnAwesome]

A. The European Dark Ages (476-800 CE) were actually at a time when the Church was at its weakest. They ended when the Church gained dominance in 800 CE when key rulers in Western Europe converted. Of the three major Dark Ages, only the Egyptian was due to religion.

The lack of scientific advancement, especially in the beginning, had more to do with a the collapse of civilization and a decent into anarchy than it had to do with religion. There was ultimately no setback because the Moslems had been at the forefront of advancement in those fields.

I think you have definitely fallen victim to a propagandized view of history. I don't know of any credible historian (I have a degree in history, so this isn't an entirely empty statement) who considers the dark ages to have ended in 800 CE. The mark of the end of the Dark Ages is generally considered to be with the Renaissance, somewhere around the 14th century at the earliest. By what criteria are you saying that the Dark Ages ended around 800? Also it's pretty fair to say that the church dominated Europe when the roman empire collapsed. The countries that hadn't yet been dominated (Such as Ireland or the Scandinavian countries) by Christianity were fairly insignificant, politically and militarily.

Also to completely discredit whatever view of history you are deriving this post from, there have been far more than three 'major' dark ages. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_%...ademic_use