A New ‘Dark Age’? Or the Age of Light?

“Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals, but, however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may be to believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system.There was more knowledge in the world before that period, than for many centuries afterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as already said, was only another species of mythology; and the mythology to which it succeeded, was a corruption of an ancient system of theism.’’

― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

Recently on this very platform there have been a number of articles strongly advocating that the world is now entering a — modern version — ‘Dark Age’ where our freedom is now dying slowly and irrevocably. The equating of declining freedom with the rise of a ‘Dark Age’ I will return to later. The pessimism in this article is truly astounding. I know things are bad in the world but are they really that bad? Methinks not. Here are my reasons why.

The world has faced and is facing still a global pandemic from Covid-19. I have many serious issues with my own — British — government about their handling of the crisis (I have written articles upon this) BUT the vaccination roll-out has been outstanding in Britain — not because of those in power but in spite of them. It has shown humanity at its very best. Science has risen to the greatest modern challenge it has ever faced and has triumphed. People have been faced with…