Sorry, but there was no falling away from Christianity at that time, just away from the Catholic Church.
Nothing like actually reading the Bible in your own language to figure out if the Church is following the Bible or not and even that movement was slow not overnight.
Besides I guess you just might want to read up on the spread of Christianity during the time period the Greeks were persecuting and killing Christians. Hint the faith grew and spread not losing their faith.
About the time of the French Revolution began the 'enlightened' anti-Christian thinking and all the killing that has ever gone with those enlightened type of humanistic governments from national socialism to communism and its lesser cousin socialism.
Released (so to speak) from the bonds of superstition and Christian duty, to his fellow man and monarch, the first Capitalists went at it with a passion.
Released to follow Christianity in its purist form gave the West freedom which we then slowly spread. If you do not believe that the freedoms we enjoy today in America are due to Christianity you just might want to go and read what the founders wrote about where they got the inspiration for our freedoms and how they were sure that keeping those freedoms in the future were tied to us keeping a strong Christian society. They spell out all their reasoning in writings.
History is tied to religion. The future is tied to it also(sadly that is a scary thought since there is a great falling away from the only religion that has brought freedom).
I do not disagree with you on the point about religion and freedom being undisputably tied together. I do, however, dispute you on the notion that progress (scientific, economic or social) could not exist without religion.
"Sorry, but there was no falling away from Christianity at that time, just away from the Catholic Church."
Au contraire. One only need to research British history (c. 1340's) to recognize the concurrent themes of the establishment of a new, landed class (i.e. the new phenomenon of formerly-serf businessmen becoming nobility rather than nobility conferred by birth), with the rise in the belief that the Church was all garnish and no meat (the first rumblings of protestantism, in England, at least). These happenings co-incided with the first wave of Plague deaths, which put a premium on the labor of "freemen" (who could now dictate terms of employment), and the tendency of the survivors to inherit the property (hides) of their unfortunate relatives, which when consolidated, began to represent real wealth in Medieval terms.
The first priority of the new monied class was to protect that wealth, from both Church AND King, and to supplant the former nobility with their own members. Granted, religion did not disappear from European society, but it no longer commanded the respect (or special place) it once did. It was relegated to a secondary role -- as a club of the remaining monarchs, and their more rebellious subjects. Relgion became a tool of the ruling class.
"Nothing like actually reading the Bible in your own language to figure out if the Church is following the Bible or not and even that movement was slow not overnight."
True, the printing of the Bible in vernacular languages did a lot to make spirituality a more "personal" matter and led to personal interpretations of doctrine, and the heretical (to the Church) belief that Bishops, priests and all that rot were no longer necessary to personal salvation (including all the other nonsense of chantries, Purgatory, et. al.). But it was the calamities that befell Europe in the 1300's (famine, plagues, etc) that started the questioning of the power of the church (as intercessor) in the first place. The transparent manipulation of the Church by political bigwigs of the day (Henry VIII, the Bourbons, the Valois, Hapsburghs, etc), also added to the damage done to the Church's reputation and authority.
"Besides I guess you just might want to read up on the spread of Christianity during the time period the Greeks were persecuting and killing Christians. Hint the faith grew and spread not losing their faith."
The Greeks were not the only ones persecuting the faith. The Romans did (until Constatine put the problem to rest by legally recognizing Christianity). Christians themselves did an awful lot of persecuting, based on interpretations of doctrine (Monophylitism, the Albegensian Heresy, the Inquisition, Crusades which fell upon Christendom rather than Islam, etc). The issue is not that the Church survived, but that it managed to do so despite the obvious fault lines. I never intended to get into this kind of discussion because it was not germain to the original process (i.e. the failure of socialism). I will say this, however: for an institution which preaches man's duty to his fellow man, I find it laughable that the Church requests charity from it's followers while it's leaders live in oppulent splendor (just visit the Vatican, for instance), and preaches the virtue of poverty with no sense of irony (or shame).
"About the time of the French Revolution began the 'enlightened' anti-Christian thinking and all the killing that has ever gone with those enlightened type of humanistic governments from national socialism to communism and its lesser cousin socialism."
"Released to follow Christianity in its purist form gave the West freedom which we then slowly spread. If you do not believe that the freedoms we enjoy today in America are due to Christianity you just might want to go and read what the founders wrote about where they got the inspiration for our freedoms and how they were sure that keeping those freedoms in the future were tied to us keeping a strong Christian society. They spell out all their reasoning in writings."
I'd hardly consider the French Revolution and it's intellectual and political stepchildren to be "enlightened" in nature. All that happened was that it was now acceptable to use politics as an excuse to kill your enemies, just as in days past, religion could be used for the same purpose. The fact that God continued to be invoked to allow this was simply the "peasants" adapting the same argument for the exercise of power that the Monarch did (i.e. Divine Right). If the Monarch could claim God's protection and sanction, so could the populace, and who would (could) argue with it?
I do not,for a second, not believe that the men who founded both the United States and the French Republic were not convinced of their "Godly" support. Without it, it is questionable as to whether they would have dared lay claims (and hands) upon their former Monarchs and feudal overlords. That question is philosophical, not grounded in "reality" (for lack of a better term -- i.e. would God come to Jefferson like he did to Moses, and give him the authority, and doctrine, with which to rule?).
Furthermore, science (such as it was) could never have advanced beyond church superstition had there not been a general loss of faith in the Church and it's institutions. Certainly, the church played an important role by being the keepers of the (scholarly) remains of ancient Greece and Rome, but everyday practical experience was increasingly calling the Church's official views on this knowledge into question.
Henry the Navigator, for example, would never have begun his enterprise if he had been wedded to the Church's view of geography. Practical experience was proving the Church wrong on everything from geography to physical sciences. It took only a few men with crowbars to start this process (Martin Luther, Columbus, Mercator, Erasmus, Paracelsus, etc). But the process began in the late 1300's-1400's with famine, plague and dislocation, which called the very existance of God and the Church's role as intercessor into question.