Thank you, Jim, for this excellent reference. For those tempted by the Siren call of "Dark Ages" mythology packaged and sold by militant secularists who worship the Goddess of Reason, the essay referenced by Hamstra offers much needed nuance and appreciation for the complexity of the history of ideas that Erv oversimplifies and distorts. 

Most of those who have been luminaries, in what Erv seems to view as a gradual ascent from the darkness of faith and religion to the light of reason and science, were ironically programmed  with, and  embraced the "regressive" world view that Erv seems to think is incompatible with progress and understanding.