“The Dark Ages are a myth. The long centuries between the fall of Rome and the full emergence of a Christian Europe were incomparably the greatest period of moral improvement in human history. In the Classical world, such practices as infanticide, abortion, pederasty, sodomy, slavery, suicide, and crucifixion were everyday facts of life. Public entertainment in Rome included going to the Colosseum to watch gladiators kill each other or wild animals tear helpless people apart.
“As Christianity gained ascendancy, all these things were abolished by law. By the end of the so-called Dark Ages they had been banned throughout Christendom and ceased to exist, except insofar as they could be performed illicitly. Until recently we took their non-existence so much for granted that we forgot our huge debt to the Dark Ages — the very name of which signifies our modern ingratitude.
“The Dark Ages understood virtue and built a civilization; the progressive age doesn’t understand virtue and is tearing down the civilization it inherited.” – Joe Sobran
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