Do you agree that, for the most part, the truly smart people during the dark ages were....?

No, not true. William of Occam made declaration that the Bible was the only infallible authority in matters of faith. Doesn't sound like an atheist.

Newton wrote more about religion than science.

NO, none of them were tortured or killed by the Church. William was reconciled with the Roman Catholic Church before his death.

"People like Copernicus, Francis Bacon, Descartes, William of Occam, John Philoponus, Jean Buridan, and Newton?"

For one thing they didn't live in the dark ages.

For another thing, being a Franciscan friar (Ockham), a Catholic priest (Copernicus) or writing whole volumes on theology (Newton), is a pretty extreme way of proving your religiosity if you don't really believe it.

No, I don't agree. Newton was a total religious nutter, Copernicus and Buridan were Catholic clergy, and both Descartes and Occam tried to prove the existence of god.

you are still confusing catholics with the real church. people who know and serve the Lord are the only real christians and that does not include anyone who would torture or murder anyone else.

in fact, many people who were real christians who disagreed with the catholic church were tortured and killed by the catholic church. the catholic church who tortured and murdered people are not real christians. they are the ones whom Jesus said he would send to hell even though they did many things in his name (matthew 7:21-23)

as for science during the dark ages, well the bible says that God created the first life out of the water and that the earth was round and that it spins on it's axis and names the constellations and that the earth was once all one large land mass and was later divided into continents thousands of years before scientists said or knew any of that, so what scientist of that age said, they could have read in and gotten from the bible.

It is true that the smart people were mostly Atheist. These people like to do experiment and do proof while religious people like to assume. There are some famous mathematician that are not atheist but that is kinda uncommon.

Self preservation and disguises dont require that much thought...... Shosanna, Inglorious Basterds

I would agree that you have no idea who these men are...

...For instance, Descartes went through great pains to prove that God exists!

Read a book.

Galileo, Bruno...