(July 28, 2023 at 12:09 pm)tackattack Wrote: @Helios
I wasn't claiming religion as the source of anything, that's not a Christian stance. The things I listed were areas Christians, the "church", or religious dictums contributed to bettering society, as was the original question. I'm also not denying the division and two-faced ness of the "church". The question wasn't "do the scales balance?" it was "has it done anything worth anything?" Knowing that this is a poke thread though, more than likely, it is just a place for anti-theists to vent. I have no problem entertaining actual discussions but it has to be in the vein of the OP. If you want a bag on the church thread, I'm certain there are tons of other places and threads here on that.

Good people do good things. 
There is no evidence that I know of, that proves evil people turn good and do good because of Christianity. 
Correlation is not causation.

How many Loaves and Fishes meals have YOU served to the homeless this week ?
I would like a count of that from all the religionists here.
Where I live the groups who do that consist of far more non religious "do-gooders" than anything else.

(July 25, 2023 at 11:58 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Both written by Western Scholars though the above links are to Amazon India. I ordered both these books recently and read them and they're excellent imo.

Whoa! You can read? You've read the Bible and you're still a believer? That makes you an idiot.

(July 28, 2023 at 5:07 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(July 28, 2023 at 10:45 am)Aegon Wrote: What? Lol. I don't even care about this topic all that much but this is an absurd response. I imagine a historian has better ground to stand on for his history opinion than Trump does for his electoral opinion.

People flippantly dismissing Holland's book simply show that they don't really care about the issue.

Holland has a double first degree from Cambridge. His subject was literature at that time, but you don't get a double first in any subject if you're not a serious scholar.

Since leaving Cambridge he has written several books about ancient times. These have all been well reviewed and won multiple prizes. He reads the original sources in Greek and Latin. He has said that while researching the era, he found that he was surprised by his reaction: he really despised the values of the time, and wondered why our own values are so different. After much research, he concluded that Christianity changed things. 

He is of course not saying that Christianity is perfect, or has ever fully lived up to the values he admires. 

He wrote an entire book demonstrating his point, that the values of the classical world were different from ours, and not something we'd want to go back to. And how the thing that made the difference was Christianity. 

It has been very well reviewed. When I read it I wished it had gone into more detail, but it was clearly written with a more popular audience in mind. It's not one of those big fat scholarly books that cost $150. 

There are of course other scholars who disagree with him. That's because for whatever position it's possible to hold about history, there are going to be scholars who disagree with it. However, both Holland and those who disagree are capable of laying out reasons, and making strong arguments for their positions. Just saying that Holland should stop drinking, or comparing him to Trump, is not a mature response.

So mature. Not.

So it is the war of the quotes. Well here is one learned man saying about not just Christian contribution to the world, but the contribution that all religions had to the world.

(July 25, 2023 at 11:58 pm)Nishant Xavier Wrote: Abolition of Infanticide and Slavery, Establishment of Charities and Hospitals at a rate unprecedented in the ancient pagan world (Roman Empire) and much more.

I recommend 2 Great Books (1) How Christianity changed the world by Prof Alvin Schmidt
(2) How the Catholic Church built Western Civilization by Professor Thomas Woods.

https://www.amazon.in/Christianity-Chang...0310264499
https://www.amazon.in/Catholic-Church-Bu...1596983280

Both written by Western Scholars though the above links are to Amazon India. I ordered both these books recently and read them and they're excellent imo.

I mean to be fair, The Bible has several moments where both slavery and infanticide are approved of by God. Sure, Christians in the past have abolished slavery, same with Jews in the Old Testament, but was it because of what God said? Or because of basic human morality?

(July 28, 2023 at 9:04 pm)Varium Wrote: I mean to be fair, The Bible has several moments where both slavery and infanticide are approved of by God. Sure, Christians in the past have abolished slavery, same with Jews in the Old Testament, but was it because of what God said? Or because of basic human morality?
https://www.evilbible.com/evil-bible-hom...-pro-life/
https://www.evilbible.com/evil-bible-home-page/slavery/

Interesting question! 

I'm curious about the term "basic human morality." Is there such a thing? How do we know what it is? 

The fact that people have so frequently behaved badly seems to argue against such a thing. Or maybe the fact that we can so easily act against it means that it has little influence.

I've seen people claim that all morality is based on empathy, but I'm skeptical about this. It seems to me that morality varies quite a bit with the age, and may have very little about it which is "basic" to the unchangeable human operating system. 

So for example you and I take slavery and infanticide to be bad, but in vast regions of time and space they were normal.

(July 28, 2023 at 9:15 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I've seen people claim that all morality is based on empathy, but I'm skeptical about this.

It is based on empathy but in humanistic societies. In theocracies, empathy is not important, thus there are no elections but the clergy commands what people need to think, do and behave. If someone needs to be killed because he or she broke a religious taboo, then there is no empathy for them and people were encouraged to cheer for their execution.

Yuval Harari has a lecture about those differences - how morality functioned in the past under religion, and how it functions today.

(July 28, 2023 at 9:15 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(July 28, 2023 at 9:04 pm)Varium Wrote: I mean to be fair, The Bible has several moments where both slavery and infanticide are approved of by God. Sure, Christians in the past have abolished slavery, same with Jews in the Old Testament, but was it because of what God said? Or because of basic human morality?
https://www.evilbible.com/evil-bible-hom...-pro-life/
https://www.evilbible.com/evil-bible-home-page/slavery/

Interesting question! 

I'm curious about the term "basic human morality." Is there such a thing? How do we know what it is? 

The fact that people have so frequently behaved badly seems to argue against such a thing. Or maybe the fact that we can so easily act against it means that it has little influence.

I've seen people claim that all morality is based on empathy, but I'm skeptical about this. It seems to me that morality varies quite a bit with the age, and may have very little about it which is "basic" to the unchangeable human operating system. 

So for example you and I take slavery and infanticide to be bad, but in vast regions of time and space they were normal.

When I use the term "basic human morality" I'm referring to viewing other people as equal, and seeing they should have the same rights as everyone else. Such as in most cases of slavery, the "masters" have seen their slaves as inferior (mentally and/or physically) to them, so therefore they should not have the same rights, this can also be used in some cases of infanticide. 
I get that for years, outdated science has told people that others are inferior to them, so that slavery is justified. However, even then people were stating how they were all equal 
(ex; The Constitution stating everyone is equal, while slavery was legal.)
And for infanticide, this is built-in human morality. Our brain tells us to care for our newborns, and to protect them.

But it doesn't tell them to protect the babies from other groups, (anthropology AND the Bible).  
It doesn't tell humans not to perform child-sacrifice. 
It may be the prevailing practice now,. Historically infanticide was practiced under a number of circumstances.