Stop. Saying. Religion. Pick a damn religion to debate over. 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If you even know what a Christian is, we're certainly not discussing hypocrites, therefore Christians do much more good than harm. Believe me.
Oh really? I believe the Crusades and Inquisition alone raise an objection to that claim. Throw in the priest child abuse scandals, the Church's attempts to disrupt the advancement of science, the witch trials, and the denying of equal rights to individuals based on their beliefs, sexual orientation, etc. and I'd say there's quite a lot of harm the christian religion has done.
Your purely overbiased atheist overtone sickens me. What has true Christianity done? No harm. It has brought peace to millions upon millions (much more than any deaths caused by any false religious practices). Said better than I would: Care for the helpless, Christians were really the first, to on a large scale, start the care for orphans and widows and set up the system needed to ensure this would happen. This continues to this day around the world. Also, it was religious authorities who claimed that all people, not just those from the Old World, were to be treated as people. This was mostly in response to the treatment of the Native Americans of Central and South America following the European Conquest. It was the religious orders that taught these men how to take care of themselves and educated them as well as protected them from becoming slaves on a plantation. Christians made up the bulk of the abolitionist movements and fought to have all the slaves freed throughout the world. It was the Christian monks who preserved the knowledge of the ancient world, copying and preserving texts for later generations to use, by hand until the invention of the printing press. With the Reformation came the drive to educate the masses so that they could read God's word and understand it for themselves and established the idea of a public education system. The foundations of modern science was pioneered by Christians who saw the natural laws as being set up by God, knowable and testable. It is from these men and women searching to find how God caused things to work that the scientific revolution started. Christians started the idea of nursing and established the International Red Cross. (albeit repetitive a tad bit): Christian churches and other organizations, like the Salvation Army, have set up hospitals and clinics, schools, colleges, libraries, soup kitchens, food drives, flop houses, orphanages, and elderly services and homes. We set up farms in third world countries and crusade for the rights of oppressed people in all nations to live free of fear or torture from their own government. We fund and man relief efforts in times of natural disaster, like Katrina. All of this beside the simple act of teaching the truth of God to the world. Not only those, but Christianity helps millions of people, people who don't even believe in what they do. An interesting .pdf: http://www.findingmoreatprinceton.com/files/10_HarmGood.pdf When one interrogates the assumption that Christianity has done more harm than good to humankind, we see that it is an idea founded in a rather shoddily conjured historicism. Sure, Christianity has been used to justify a lot of evil—but so have atheism, and paganism, and virtually all other –isms the world has ever seen. Any organized belief system, after all, can be skewed to fit the most heinous inclinations of a wayward soul. In fact, it is often the most secular, areligious societies that wreak the most havoc, not the Christian ones. Think about Stalinist Russia or the various other communist regimes that dotted the globe in the twentieth century. They rejected any belief in God and systematically slaughtered millions of their own people. Think about the French Revolution—a thoroughly secular, godless movement that resulted in the barbaric purging of wide swaths of the innocent citizenry. Clearly a belief in God is not a prerequisite for horrific violence. And then there is the much larger human history (10,000+ years) predating Christ’s arrival on earth: and surprise surprise, all of it is littered with bloodshed and brutality. Far from a malevolent force of destruction in the world, however, Christianity has done more to make the world a better place than any other organized movement or guiding principle in history. Almost every major reform movement or social-justice campaign can be traced back to Christians, or at least Christian teachings. Christians led the way in the abolition of slavery and were the first to publicly deem it immoral and denounce it as sin (Wesley, Wilberforce, etc). Christians have historically been the first and most active responders to international relief, hunger, and justice issues, and most major charities and humanitarian organizations (Red Cross, Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, Samaritan’s Purse, Feed the Children, World Vision, etc) have decidedly Christian roots. Christians were the first to establish hospitals, schools, and universities (such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, and Yale). They led the way in literacy movements, adult education, prison reform, substance-abuse programs, and many other progressive reforms. C+V of my own thoughts.
I choose all of them because they all have a belief in a higher power even the extreemist/violent ones, but yes Christianity has contributed to world violence even Hitler was christian which we already proved . He may be not an ideal cchristian but one none the less. Also yes There have been many movements to better the world done by various religions including Christianity but there have been curruption in them just as much. Nemi gave us a good example a few pages back where Pastor I believe had used donation money assumingly to buy himself a nice appartment well in the millions at the exspense of where the money should have gone . Money skimming is not the only curruption how about priests that sexualy assualted the choir boys or how religious fanitics kill in the name of God. Theres lots of nasty things in the world I seem to be able to connect one religion or anouther to many conflics or indifferences we see every day.Like it or not religion has cause harm even if its intentions are good. Global warming excluded thats all our damn faults lol. ;]
No they don't. If Hitler was not an ideal Christian, there's absolutely no reason for him to represent all of us. Why should hypocrites represent Christianity? Its like getting the fattest man alive to be an athlete in the Olympics commercial. Sure, he can call himself an athlete, and he can try to be one, but why should he represent? He doesn't.
Hitler deffinatly doesn't represent Christianity I was just saying that corruption happens to every thing and makes it rotten he happened to be in association with Christianity .He met with the Pope and openly belived in God he eventualy cracked and became a dictator but he had belief still. As bad as a human he was he was a beliver a bad one though. Jesus is the representation of Christainity but when you have extreemists that follow by his word but misunderstand them as Hitler did then its makes the whole religion dull. Your only as strong as your weakest link Hitler is that weak link. My point: curruption sucks and its hurting rather than helping.
Uh, no. Religion has no relation to being as strong as its weakest link. Religion is represented by the purest form. Christianity, a religion, is represented by Jesus, its purest form. Not the other way around. You're essentially saying that a religion only lives up to its worst.... which is ridiculous. I can profess to be God's chosen one and go out tonight and kill hundreds of people, set houses on fire, rob banks, whatever. You can blame Christianity, but that's not the cause at all. Again, its like how Jack Thompson talks about video games. He blames all these issues people have on video games. Everyone who plays video games knows that its not true at all, its just that Jack Thompson is trying to find a reason for it, and that anything can be perverted to one's favor. Now, let Jack Thompson represent atheism, video games on Christianity, and plays with follows.
Nothing is pure and most things such as groups are always judged by its strongest parts and its weakest. Christianity Is a very large group thus making it vunerable to having some bad but still having good . Most people only see the bad because thats all we see on the news nut at the same time as a society thats all we care about . lol we as humans suck / So I stand by the part about Stong and weak links thats all that matters to us yes the Red cross fed and clothed thousands of children today but at the same time some where ing the middle of some 3rd world country a massacre killing thousands is happening , there could be a variety of reasons why this happens. Money land and Religion are the primary causes for conflicsts and wars . We cant live with out money as a society and we need land to live on and even if we have both if anouther person has a different belief we just might take there money and land . Now this is a weird part i think anyways if there was a common belief then there would be less conflics but we as humans are stuburn. Now to finish this rant I started ,well If there was no reason to fight or at least less reasons to fight than the world would be more peaceful. The problem is that we have made religions to at the begining bring people together but now as time has moved on it has divided us. Im not saying stop helping people or stop having morals I just want people to stop fighting over their beliefs because its doing harm . I state it again We humans are stuburn and we hate change as a species. Sorry if I rambled off lol im alittle tired being as its 2 in the morning haha.
Jesus was a pure example. Jack Thompson is on the news too. Bullcrap. Give me some proof of everyday third world country religion war.
If god created everything, then technically isn't every bad thing that's happened ever gods doing? Think about it. EVERY bad thing that's happened in history went without any intervention from a so called "God" God is merely there as an emphasis on just the good things that happen, when the bad outweighs it. It's all a part of the illusion.
I'll intervene on aMoeba and Sid's argument. I promise it won't take me long. You can't blame religion for violence. Blame HUMAN NATURE. Religion is merely used as a vehicle for violence that would have happened anyway. Many might object, but without the modern, open minded upbringing that all of us here have had the pleasure of, it is HUMAN NATURE in it's most primitive form to kill and fight. Humans are violent creatures like any other animal, except more so (see Weapons, Nuclear). Before you bring religion on me...I'm an atheist. Just intervening on an argument. :]
You can blame religion for violence when the people who commit the acts explicitly say they're doing it for religious reasons. The word "jihad" literally means a holy war against an immoral infidel. The terrorists, while they are interpreting the Qur'an in an overtly violent manner, believe they are doing the work of Allah. They believe they are cleansing the world of immorality, much like the Christians sought to do with the Crusades in the Holy Land. Violence may be human nature, but organized violence is not. Our scientific and technological advances over millenia.
We've already argued this. Christians deciding to come out against slavery is a good thing I guess, except that their handbook for moral action, the bible, condones slavery and even instructs on the proper way and duration to beat your slave. Christians have the exact same propensity for positive moral actions as any human does. Standing up and condemning slavery is the right thing for a Christian to do, as long as they understand that doing that goes against their holy instruction book.
Slavery in the Bible was drastically different than what slavery is commonly and modernly defined by now. In Bible times, if you were poor and could not hold your own, you could offer yourself as a slave and your slave owner would take care of you/let you live [with him] while you did his chores and whatnot. I've never in my lifetime seen a verse that says how to beat your slave and the duration of the beatings... please source this.
Slaves Here: When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21 NAB) And here's some more regarding slavery and sexual slavery of young girls: However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT) If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only six years. Set him free in the seventh year, and he will owe you nothing for his freedom. If he was single when he became your slave and then married afterward, only he will go free in the seventh year. But if he was married before he became a slave, then his wife will be freed with him. If his master gave him a wife while he was a slave, and they had sons or daughters, then the man will be free in the seventh year, but his wife and children will still belong to his master. But the slave may plainly declare, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children. I would rather not go free.' If he does this, his master must present him before God. Then his master must take him to the door and publicly pierce his ear with an awl. After that, the slave will belong to his master forever. (Exodus 21:2-6 NLT) When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. If she does not please the man who bought her, he may allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. And if the slave girl's owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave girl, but he must treat her as his daughter. If he himself marries her and then takes another wife, he may not reduce her food or clothing or fail to sleep with her as his wife. If he fails in any of these three ways, she may leave as a free woman without making any payment. (Exodus 21:7-11 NLT) I wanted to comment on this one in particular. It is clearly saying that if a man buys a girl as a slave and then marries her, he is allowed to marry another girl and keep his young wife slave, as long as he continues to feed, clothe, and screw her. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT) However you want to define slavery, how could god condone any of this awful behavior? Answer - The bible was written by humans that wanted and needed to perpetuate these practices that were common in this time. They wrote these passages with no consualtation from a higher power, but did so to control a population. It is possible that some type of God exists, but if a Christian God exists then I am truly embarrassed to be the creation of a being condoning any of this. In my experience most Christians have stronger morals than their own God. There is nothing wrong with adopting a strong moral belief system, but the foundation that Christians stand on is archaic at best.
You are right that humans wanted these practices. God doesn't exactly condone it, he works within it. Even though slavery is taught in the Bible as violently as it is (how you stated) doesn't mean God condones it. God only makes rules inside of what we ourselves have already made. We invented slavery, not God. I mean, you look at both definitions of slavery, and of course offering yourself up to be taken care of is sensible and certainly justifiable. While however that only existed in the New Testament era, which is why the reference of Ephesians is literal to the sense that if you do offer yourself up you should obey your master. God doesn't condone sin, but as you can see, its allowed. God made rules and allowances inside of the ones we built for ourselves. If you read Matthew 19:8, Jesus allowed people to divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. Now was it condoned? No. Allowed? Yes. In the verses you listed (except for Ephesians I'd think) God made rules in what was already made. There's plenty of Bible heroes who God used that had sinned more than many of us (see: Moses, Samson, David), yet they used them for great things in His will. God permits their freedom, but uses the system and the people according to what their will is. If that wasn't relevant to slavery in your eyes, basically, God saw man's fallen system of slavery, and he made rules inside of it. I'm pretty sure he knew that they probably wouldn't be completely convinced to turn their morals in the opposite direction in the first place.
You are really having to stretch your logic here in order to accommodate your beliefs. Here are some verses that should be included in the bible under your logic of God allowing sin, just not condoning it and trying to give the sin a silver lining. Let there be pause after five days of heroin binging. The sixth day belongs to God and should be dedicated to sobriety. When sharing in the joys of heroin with your children they must rest and become sober for a period after only 3 days. (Bullshiticus 21:7-11 NLT) When raping a family friend, you shall be severely punished if the victim is not treated with divine care. Thou shalt make sure a pillow is positioned correctly under the victim's head. The hand restraints must also be loose enough not to burn the skin of the victim, but not so loose that the victim may escape. (Nonsensicus 21:2-6 NLT) By allowing those verses to be included in the bible, God has done no good towards reducing the sin of slavery. In fact, by including those versus, God has immensely perpetuated those practices allowing Christians to look to their good book in order to justify the beating and keeping of slaves. I mean, God says it's OK so......People still use these outdated bible inclusions to justify their hatred of and believed moral superiority over homosexuals. If slavery is wrong, if it is a sin, if it is clearly a horrible practice and a dark time in humanity, why wouldn't God just say it's wrong and tell us to cut it the **** out? Why would he say to beat your slaves to within inches of their lives, but not quite kill them? What kind of God are you arguing for?