Science and Religion: The Movie

Quodlibeta has the script:

Bertrand Russell – With Hypatia’s death, Christianity sapped the intellect of the people and all Pagan learning vanished for a thousand years. This period became known by historians as ‘The Dark Ages’. Only a few candles of reason burned in a world lit by the fire of superstition.

The Dark Ages – The scene is a field outside a monastery. Groups of filthy peasants are shown wearing hoods and slapping themselves in the face with bibles. A hairy man sits in the foreground scratching himself and attempting to copulate with a chicken. To the right, a group of plague infested men and women are busily worshipping the dismembered toe of a saint. This is an age of darkness.

The sad thing is that this is a reasonably accurate summary of the historical beliefs of the average Internet atheist and it’s not as far as it should be from the level of historical knowledge exhibited by the New Atheists.