At the risk of repeating myself, once again I recommend reading The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason by Charles Freeman; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2003 (Freeman is British, and there is a British edition also, but I don't know the publisher).

Freeman outlines the beginnings and the development of Greek philosophy, the schism between Aristotle and Plato (one road leads to scientific thinking, the other to mysticism), the birth of Jesus, the early development of Christianity, the fragmentation of early Christian belief, the development of "one true Church" under the aegis (and imperial power) of the emperor Constantine, and the adoption of neo-Platonism as a way of philosophically justifying Christian doctrine. The abandonment of—indeed, the hostility toward—observation and reason in favor of asceticism, prayer, and "divine revelation" was what led to that period we now refer to as the Dark Ages. This period of intellectual and philosophical stagnation ended with the rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle, one of a number of intellectual factors that sparked the Renaissance.

The struggles and disputes between people such as Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine and others as each claimed to have a direct pipeline to The Truth makes a fascinating story (it's obvious that a lot of these folks could have used a good "shrink") and goes a long way to explaining the modern Christian church in its "infinity variety." Suffice it to say the Jesus got lost way, way early.

This is not an anti-religious book. But it does illustrate what can happen when we forget that God gave us brains with the intention that we use them. Failure to do that, at least in my theology, qualifies as sin. I would recommend the book to "heathen" and Christian alike. It gives a pretty good idea of where it all went wrong, and why. It's a bit of a tome, but it reads almost like a novel. It's one helluva good read!

Don Firth