Christianity's Valuable Contributions to Humanity: An Examination of Militant Atheism

[Nishant Xavier]

Like any claim, this needs to be demonstrated. 

You'd probably like a book that came out a couple of years ago called Dominion. This is by a historian named Tom Holland (not the Spider-Man actor). 

In interviews, Holland describes how his previous specialty was the Greek and Roman classical age. He wrote a number of well-received books on the period. But he said that the more he studied it, the more he realized that the values and morals of that period were repugnant to him. And when he looked to find out where the values that he had been raised with came from, he concluded that they had begun with Christianity. 

So even if the official church has fallen wildly short of the ideals that Christianity itself began, we can still honestly credit Christianity with many of the things we hold to be valuable today. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=458Bz1GPto0

As for the "conflict theory," we really should acknowledge that this is a modern invention, and that for a thousand years the greatest mathematicians and scientists saw no conflict between their religion and science.

Thanks, Belacqua. Haven't read Dominion yet, but should give it a try. As for the bolded, exactly. Even Non-Christians knew Christianity was the foundation of Western Civilization, it was the most uncontroversial thing in the world, before those Atheists and Agnostics whom even liberal Wikipedia acknowledges to have "propagated more fantasy than fact with their Conflict Thesis" began to claim the opposite. Christians made mistakes here and there, that's true, but Christians corrected them first, Racism, Slavery, Religious Freedom are all examples.

I do not agree, however, that the Church today, or all of Christendom globally, has completely fallen short of Christ's Ideals/Teaching. I cited this stat to show that: "In modern times, the Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of health care in the world. Catholic religious have been responsible for founding and running networks of hospitals across the world where medical research continues to be advanced. In 2013, Robert Calderisi wrote that the Catholic Church has around 18,000 clinics, 16,000 homes for the elderly and those with special needs, and 5,500 hospitals – with 65 per cent of them located in developing countries."

Wiki says this on St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta's Missionaries of Charity: "Missionaries care for those who include refugees, former prostitutes, the mentally ill, sick children, abandoned children, lepers, people with AIDS, the aged, and convalescent. They have schools that are run by volunteers to teach abandoned street children and run soup kitchen as well as other services according to the community needs. These services are provided, without charge, to people regardless of their religion or social status."

Militant Atheists like Hitchens should first come to India and work silently to help orphaned children, the sick and other suffering souls and then, after years or decades of doing that, allegedly better than St. Mother Theresa if they could, then let them criticize her/MoCs, as he unjustly did. And there are 1000s of saintly Nuns still doing it after Mother's departure. This is what the Early Christians did too and many still do it now.

Brian, so as mentioned, Militant Atheism claims "Religion is Positively Evil" ("Religion Poisons Everything" - Hitchens etc). This thread was to examine that claim. If Christianity is truly Good, irrespective of the question it is whether True. Obviously, if it were Good, that would be compatible with its Truth, although I agree it wouldn't prove it to be True. The Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ does that.

More on Religious Freedom and Atheism in the Soviet Union from Wiki: "The Communist Party destroyed churches, synagogues, and mosques, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and it introduced a belief system called "scientific atheism", with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers. According to some sources, the total number of Christian victims under the Soviet regime has been estimated to range around 12 to 20 million. At least 106,300 Russian clergymen were executed between 1937 and 1941" And this was at a time when all Atheists without exception enjoyed Full Freedom in Christian-Majority Countries. And don't even get me started on Atheistic Dictator Mao who killed upwards of 60 Million of his own Chinese people.

See, if Militant Atheists want to speak about things that happened 1000 years ago, which in most cases they don't even a clue as to the historical context (463 years of Islamist Invasions into Christian Countries before the First Crusade was even ever called being the most obvious example; and it was called by Western Christian Countries to help Byzantine Christians, just like the West is justly helping Ukraine today), then much more can we speak of these events which happened in just the last century. If those are reasons not be Christians, these are reasons not to be Atheist. 

Not that we believe that; the reasons to be Christian are because Christianity is True, but Christianity being Good is compatible with its Truth. Individual wrongs committed by individual Christians are their own sins for which God will penalize them at their Judgment. That Christianity is Good is shown by the fact that Christianity took the lead in Abolishing them. Those who disagree, show me the Atheists who Abolished Slavery?

I can show you your Hero, Charles Darwin, making some extremely Racist Remarks like: "At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races." (The Descent of Man, 1871). Lol, like Sanger saying she didn't want word to go out that she wanted to exterminate the Black Population, I'm sure Militant Atheists will have some explanation for this.

Again, if Lincoln and Wilberforce had thought like this, Slavery would never have ended. That's a brute historical fact and shows the Greatness of Christianity. It shows that, when the Spirit of God wakes men (and women) up to the Truth that "love your neighbor as yourself" and "do unto others as you would have them unto you", not to mention Christ's limitless exhortations to charity (e.g. in Mat 25: "Whatsoever you did to the least of these, that you did unto Me. Therefore, come ye blessed, and enter the Kingdom of My Father"), how much Good was done for the World.

It was not Darwin and Marx, it was not Nietzche or Sanger, who ever ended Slavery or even Racism, but it was Lincoln, and Wilberforce, then Martin Luther King, who did. If you claim Atheism deserves credit for the accomplishment, you need to show Atheists were leading the way.

Can't reply to every post right now, since there are 1 or 2 of us and like some 10 of you Atheists, but will respond to the points in time. Might quote one of Dr. Paul Stenhouse's writings on the historical context of the 463 years before the Crusades ever began in the subsequent post.

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