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

[The Grand Nudger]

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. 

That's a great example of why I'm a militant atheist.  Islamists, just like christians, often invade a place certain that some super fairy approves of the effort.  You have to believe in super fairies..ofc..to believe that super fairies provide moral warrant for invasions. Cynical operators, who are very often the theists leaders themselves, know that a good portion of their subjects are precisely this gullible, and so they leverage that belief to their practical and political advantage.

[Belacqua]

For one thing, you shouldn't spread the lie that Copernicus' books were burned by the church. 

Here is an article from Physics Today, a publication of The American Institute of Physics, describing the true story. 

https://joelvelasco.net/teaching/3330/si..._myths.pdf

I'm not finding where in your article it says that they did not burn Copernicus' books.  Could you provide the page and quote the passage?

It doesn't specify that they were never burned. It also doesn't specify that they were never chewed up and spit out by donkeys. If you have any reliable source saying that one or the other of these things happened, I would be interested to see it. 

Copernicus had supporters and detractors within the church. They finally put the book on the Index of Prohibited Books about 70 years after it was published, but of course by this time it was in wide circulation. And remember that the Index was only enforceable in the Papal States. In other countries bans were almost always enforced by secular authorities, if at all. In Spain, even at the height of the Inquisition, Copernicus was never banned and his book was taught by priests at the university in Salamanca throughout. Even in the Protestant world, book bans were regularly flouted by samizdat editions. If you know of any cases in which people were punished for reading the books I would be interested to hear about them. 

The Index is often exaggerated. Every edition contained instructions on how to read a banned book if you really needed to. My father spent years in a Catholic hospital instead of going to high school. (He was not Catholic, but they were the only ones who would take a patient with no money.) He got a copy of the Index, and used it as a reading list. (It was still in effect then, and included Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and many others.) He enjoyed arguing with the nurses, who were all nuns. The nuns got permission to read many of the banned books so they could better argue with a patient. So it's clear that the bans were hardly absolute, and did not include burning.

[Angrboda]

I'm not finding where in your article it says that they did not burn Copernicus' books.  Could you provide the page and quote the passage?

It doesn't specify that they were never burned. It also doesn't specify that they were never chewed up and spit out by donkeys. If you have any reliable source saying that one or the other of these things happened, I would be interested to see it. 

Copernicus had supporters and detractors within the church. They finally put the book on the Index of Prohibited Books about 70 years after it was published, but of course by this time it was in wide circulation. And remember that the Index was only enforceable in the Papal States. In other countries bans were almost always enforced by secular authorities, if at all. In Spain, even at the height of the Inquisition, Copernicus was never banned and his book was taught by priests at the university in Salamanca throughout. Even in the Protestant world, book bans were regularly flouted by samizdat editions. If you know of any cases in which people were punished for reading the books I would be interested to hear about them. 

The Index is often exaggerated. Every edition contained instructions on how to read a banned book if you really needed to. My father spent years in a Catholic hospital instead of going to high school. (He was not Catholic, but they were the only ones who would take a patient with no money.) He got a copy of the Index, and used it as a reading list. (It was still in effect then, and included Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and many others.) He enjoyed arguing with the nurses, who were all nuns. The nuns got permission to read many of the banned books so they could better argue with a patient. So it's clear that the bans were hardly absolute, and did not include burning.

I'm not interested in doing your footwork for you. I presumed that you would have linked to an article that was relevant to your criticism. My mistake.

[no one]

But, I when I say somethibg, and you should just take my word for it.

[The Grand Nudger]

The catholic church burned books, authors, printers, and sellers over it's long history of religious censorship. Many more were condemned to that fate or something similar as a matter of course - not even needing an official order. That your dad read books from a ban list that the catholic church officially shitcanned in 1966 has nothing to do with what the catholic gang was doing when it had the authority to do so, centuries prior.

That wonderful tradition of theirs begins....ironically..with Acts. In a story telling us about how early christians would go out of their way to terrorize the people of whatever city they'd set up shop in, the author brags about having compelled a bunch of those same people to burn scrolls he estimated at 50k drachmas in value..cuz sorcery. "In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power."

Yup.

[zebo-the-fat]

Odd how people always need to do things for god, people burn the books, people kill the unbelievers... why can't an all powerful god do stuff himself, is he just lazy?

[Deesse23]

First Crusade... it was called by Western Christian Countries to help Byzantine Christians, just like the West is justly helping Ukraine today

Your ignorance about history (like many, many other things) has virtually no limits.
If you are the best your god can send to convince people like me.....wow.

[The Grand Nudger]

Odd how people always need to do things for god, people burn the books, people kill the unbelievers...  why can't an all powerful god do stuff himself, is he just lazy?

Sometimes Those People are just super good craftsmen, and god can't do anything about them on account of superior wheelbase technology.

[brewer]

I think NX is afraid to preach on the street so he comes here.

[The Architect Of Fate]

Christianity has not contributed anything. People have done all the work.