A 45 year old woman wanders the stacks of a large library. Though no longer considered young, she remains one of the most beautiful women in the city. The library is hers, in a sense, even though it is 700 years old, both because she is curator and because she is one of the few people alive who can understand everything in it.

She is looking for a few specific works this evening: a book on applications of steam power from 350 years ago and a tome describing modern medical practice including some rather radical experiments in brain surgery. She is writing her own book on the implications of technology and science for the future. In her mind she sees how these tools might change our lives. More importantly, she feels that certain policies of the government are about to rob us of that future by crushing innovation and free inquiry.

Wait, something is amiss... The first steam engine was only patented in 1769 by James Watt. Does she live in the year 2119? No, actually, her name was Hypatia and she lived in 415 AD. Why haven't we heard of her? Because Archbishop Cyril, later canonized, had her dragged to his church and dismembered by his Christian followers. The Christian mob then burned all the books in Hypatia's library, the Library of Alexandria.

What followed was the Dark Ages, not just because of this event, but because Cyril's actions represented state policy. Universities, professors, and students all across the Roman Empire were being cast onto the bonfire of history and with them our first chance at the modern world. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire began and ended with the Church. And Alaric's barbarians who had sacked Rome 5 years before? Oh yes, they were Christian too.

For a little insight into the implications of blending religion and government, I suggest reading "The Closing of the Western Mind" by Charles Freeman or "Remembering Hypatia" by Brian Trent. The first is a rather dry history, but the second is a novelization of historical events and should therefore be more accessible. Read with an open mind and I think you will find one conclusion inescapable: the Dark Ages were not inevitable. They were engineered, and we may be about to do it again.