That does not explain why the dark ages set in everywhere else. Actually, the cause of the Dark Ages was severe economic decline and the rising in power of foreign forces. The Roman Empire was on the brink of colapse for most of the 3rd century until the reforms of Diocletian and the Constantinian dynasty - when the Catholic Church replaced the old Imperial Cult. If anything, the Roman Empire was saved from entering the Dark ages 200 years earlier than it actually did.

In the Roman World, there were a lot of racists against Germanic peoples, and this would lead to heavy problems.
* The fall began when Julian the Apostate launched a campaign against the Persian Empire and lost against the desert tactics of Rome's old enemy. The Persians ended up conquering much of the Easternmost regions of the Roman Empire.
* The next major downfall occurred when the Huns came in from the East and displaced the powerful Gothic tribes from Germany across the Danube and onto Roman soil. The Romans reated them poorly, fed them dog meat and such, and this caused a revolt and the establisshment of the the Visigothic Kingdom under Fritigern. The Roman Emperor Valens from the East came in with an army of 75,000 in order to crush the revolt, but the Goths instead anihilated the Eastern forces and ravaged the Empire until Theodosius established peace and an alliance with the Goths.
* In 395 when Theodosius died, racial tensions increased and Alaric who was essentially ousted from the West Roman ranks formed up with his Gothic outlaws and began raiding and pillaging in the heart of the Empire, they sacked Greece and crushed the Spartans and extinguished their culture. 
* In the early 5th century the Rhine froze, and Vandals invaded, General Flavius Stilicho who had taken the majority of the froentier defense forces to deal with Alaric, had left France and Spain open to invasion, and the Vandals caused heavy damage to the region crippling the economies of France and Spain.
* Emperor Honorius had accused Stilicho (half German) of being a traitor and behind a consiracy - executed his family to lure him in, and then killed Stilicho (it was all jealousy due to Stilicho's popularity among the commoners).
* Many outraged took up arms, and Alaric gathered them all up into his rebel army and marched directly on Rome - Constantinople sent reinforcements, and the Legions were pulled from Britain to defend Rome but Alaric's army crushed them all, and sacked Rome in 410 AD, causing irreparable damage to the Roman Economy. Britain fell away to barbarians and the dark ages spread there.
* The Western Roman imperial court eventually dwindled and colapsed, leaving German Kings as delegates to the Eastern Emperor, and things actually began to improve drastically under Odoacer in Rome, the Visigoths in Spain, and the Ostrogoths Greece and the Balkans - but Zeno became increasingly suspicious - and created a war between the Ostrogoths and  Odoacer, the Ostrogoths were led by Dietrich von Bern (Also known as Theodoric the Great) who was perhaps the most capable leader seen since Emperor Constantine himself.
* Under Dietrich Von Bern in the early 6th century, who was Consul of Rome, and vassal to The Emperor (now stationed in Constantinople) the west began to flourish and saw heights not seen since the Constantinian dynasty. The Empire overall was benefitting. This was a key point where the Dark Ages could have been avoided.
* The Eastern Roman Empire became jealous of the Ostrogothic Kingdom and Emperor Justin (Justinian's predecessor) began having huge issues with them and also with the Persians. A few years later the successor Emperor Justinian launched an invasion campaign, and conquered Italy. Justinian robbed Italy of its wealth and brought it to Constantinople. Justinian also warred against Persia, and in the end the Roman and Persian world was severely weakened.
* With both the west and East weakened, and the Persian Empire weakened, a new power swept in and crushed them all - this was the Islamic invasion which finally destroyed the Mediteranean economy and brought the Dark Ages to Europe and the end of the Roman Empire.

But it really was a long string of events that caused the dark ages, and Catholicism had nothing to do with it.

as far as how humans came to be evolution is very much just a "theory." There are far too many missing pieces in the chain. That is all i said. I never said evolution does not happen, i said it is not the end be all explaniton for how things are today, and that is true. Its a theory that is missing pieces to explain it all. It explains some things, and does it rather well, but not everything.

edit: in retrospect i could of worded the last sentance slightly differently, but in the sense of what people where talking about in the thread as far as humans evolving it stands.

This comment itself is quite unintelligent, so it seems the pot is calling the kettle black?

There are many Christians who are well-renowned scientists, as well as physicians, chemists, physicists, etc. You're discriminating an entire group based on your experience with a few; hence, unintelligent and primitive.

That's not to say that I disagree with you that some Christians do have traditional, sometimes uninentelligent/ignorant ways of thinking. But again, some; not all.

The THEORY of gravity was Newton's explanation for WHY planets were observed to move according to Kepler's laws.  One can quibble about the universality of the inverse-square hypothesis (and one would be well-justified in questioning that), and one can ask deeper questions about WHY the inverse-square law occurs, but gravity itself was a fantastic explanation for the non-obvious phenomenon of the shape of planetary orbits (based on decades of painstaking astronomical observations).

Creationism is a horribly unsatisfying explanation: it's no better than saying the reason planets travel around in ovals is "because God likes that shape".  When small discrepancies were found in the orbit of Uranus, we didn't throw out gravity as being hopelessly flawed and say "I guess God must have wanted a twist there"; we used it to construct a theory that there was an undiscovered planet (we know it as Neptune).  When small discrepancies were found in the rotation of Mercury, we didn't throw out gravity as being hopelessly flawed and say "who are we to understand God's whim?"; we used it to confirm the (rather shocking) predictions made by Einstein's relativity.

Pointing out gaps that current evolutionary theory can't explain perfectly is a fine part of the scientific tradition.  But throwing out a rational explanation and offering only a truism that is as irreducible and useless as "God designed it that way" as the replacement?  That should be offensive to any person who values thought over dogma.

Well ... I'm a christian and I believe in Evolution.

It explains pretty much everything it wants to explain. 

OT:
Its an issue of micro- vs. macro-evolution. I fully believe in a creature's ability to adapt; but when it's taught that entirely new species form from other species, I personally am not too quick to believe this. Darwin taught his evolution on the concept of survival of the fittest. If apes turned into humans, then, why do apes still exist at all since they are the inferior, less "fit" species? Additionally, if macroevolution has occurred, then we would see some creatures in mid-transformation; for example, apes in mid-evolution from ape to human. So from what I see, there are unforgiveable flaws in the theory.

Additionally, evolution was hoped to be an explanation for the initiation of life and the existence of the universe as well, but it fails to provide any reasonable theory. The main thought was that lightning struck mud to stimulate life. This was basically disproved as a possibility, and it still doesn't explain where the lightning - let alone the rest of the universe - came from.

As for the big bang theory, unless I'm mistaken, this is meant to directly conflict with the Creation theory - a way to explain creation while excluding God from the equation. It discounts any form of intelligent design, stating the world was created by chance from nothing.

@1st Para: Macro-evolution is Micro-evolution over time, you have to consider the vast time scales involved, there is no "mid-evolution", the process is very gradual. Apes didn't evolve into humans, humans and apes share a common ancestor. These aren't unforgiveable flaws in the theory, these are misconceptions you have about the theory.

@2nd Para: Evolution doesn't try to explain how life or the universe began, just how life evolves after it's started. Google "abio-genesis" for how life starts. All evolution explains is how organisms change over time, it has nothing else to do with how the universe works, so I have no idea why you expect it to. 

@3rd Para: The big bang doesn't exclude a higher power. Creation isn't a scientific theory, it's not even close to being qualified as one. The Big Bang theory doesn't state that the universe was formed form nothing nor does it suggest the universe was formed by chance. It simply happened. We aren't sure why yet, but it did.

I don't mean to be rude, but I would advise you to research topics before trying to criticize them.

Everyone should read some Dawkins. I just finished the blind watch maker and the greatest show on earth. Really good reads. Why evolution is true by Jerry Coyne was really good too.

90% of Americans believe in God. 52% of Americans accept evolution as truth. That means 42% of people in America who believe in God also recognise the truth of evolution. That's not all Christians, and it's not even the majority of Christians. But it is plenty of them.

The Bible teaches evolution, if you read the Bible as using physical language to tell spiritual truths, and that it was revealed in accordance with the capacity of the generality of the people at that time to understand. The universe was created in 6 days in Genesis, each day a new aspect of the universe was made until humanity appeared on the 6th day. If you understand that the people of the time had no concept of the immensity of space and could not possibly grasp billions of years, let alone the concept of a light year (or even that light has to travel from source to destination) you can see that genesis was an expressionb of evolution that could be digested by the bronze age mind. And if you consider that an educated 10 year old child of today is more knowledgable about the world and science than anyone at the time the book of Genesis was written you will clearly see that the bible could not tell the full story of evolution to the people of the time. Jesus did not elucidate Genesis in any way, because even though a few thousand years had passed human knowledge and understanding was little advanced over what it was back when Genesis was written. Even Mohammad wasn't in a position to expound on evolution.

Besides Jesus and Mohammad had more important things to do than to talk about evolution. They were more concerned with refining the characters of the people and society around them, and into the future, than looking back at the past to talk about how life came to be on earth.

The eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism) don't have a Genesis story, so people from these religions would generally not have any hang ups about evolution or the Big Bang!

Continuing to use those ancient texts as the sole source of religious teachings is like continuing to use high school textbooks written in the 1920's as the basis for our high school education.

God must have a modus operandi for how the universe and life works. TBBT and Evolution are more than satisfactory mechanisms, it would seem.

The real head scratcher is free will. But that would be for a different thread.