What has Christianity truly contributed to humanity

[Angrboda]

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yes, God knows everything, absolutely. Where's your Evidence that God is allegedly short-sighted as the 2nd part of your question claims?

According to polemics, your god doesn't know how to solve the Problem of Evil without permitting evil. So there's one bit of short-sightedness right there.

I should think an omnipotent god could teach humans compassion and gratitude without, you know, making them suffer evil. I didn't have to kill my son to teach him that killing is wrong. Why can't your god impart compassion as easily?

[Angrboda]

I have some thoughts on that which I've recently begun. It is less than obvious that you can make a deductive argument that involves libertarian free will, as its indeterminacy seems to suggest that there are no necessary implications of its existence. I need to read up on Plantinga and the assumption of depravity, but it seems unlikely something one can say necessarily follows.

[tackattack]

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I disagree. They are invoked FIRST and primarily because they are scientists, not Christians. They have contributed as scientists, not "as Christians". These  scientists *happen to be* Christian. They would not have even been invoked if they were not scientists. Christian scientists don't have their own scientific method, different from all the rest of science.

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@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.

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I delivered 2 meals last week to people that can't get out, it's a regular outreach for most churches I'm aware of. We also regularly donate to the homeless and other charities. I typically do soup kitchens on Holidays, but I'm going to miss Christmas this year because I'm moving. The salvation army runs most of the soup kitchens around here. But you can volunteer, even as an atheist. I also did some bad things last week, but YOU seem to making it personal and it's not.

Back to the conversation... So good people to good things and bad things, Bad people to bad things and good things. OK so people do good and bad things. I only use their claimed religious expression to classify them as "Christian" people. Even the most devout christian people do bad things and sin, that's kind of a core in Christianity. It doesn't make them not Christian. I'm not prepared acknowledge that I know the thoughts of other people, so I can't claim why they did what they did. It's just a simple statement, "People that claim to be Christian, have made positive impacts in society". Even FM quoting Bertrand shows that there have been "some" contributions. Then the conversation attempted to get shifted to does the good outweigh the bad for a net positive good, but again... that wasn't the assignment.

I've said it elsewhere, All humans have a personal morality. Groups of humans for a societal morality and these are both innately subjective. Christians.. or religious people have an addition objective morality from their diety/religious doctrine. It informs their very core beliefs and thus impacts their actions. I attribute my job, my location and my blessings to God. How can you prove I go to the soup kitchen because I'm just a good person and not a Christian? I don't think you can.

Even if we take all the personal morality out of it and look at organization decrees. I still think "The Catholic Church" is the largest non-governmental provider of education and medical services in the world. Historically farms, food pantries, and hospitals were built specifically right alongside missionaries and churches. The literacy and education of the middle ages was predominantly done by clergy was it not?

[The Grand Nudger]

We've already discussed this one. It's the largest non government provider...after stealing the governments money. The US government both pays and subsidizes the catholic church. Then, there's the issue of the quality of care provided. Which is decidedly less than what the us...and basic human decency...demands.

Churches established themselves in farmland and within oversight of medicine so that they could control and profit from them. For much of the time, they were a taxing authority. Its a mafia that operates daycares...and boy did that not age well, huh?

...and how did they get there. By a long history of philanthropic good? No. Murder, theft, rape. Complicity in every imaginable scheme that any crook ever dreamt up and pitched to a con man wearing a dress while casting a magic spell over a fucking cracker. If there was a single christian left in the rcc they'd have all forced it to shutter by now - but who am I kidding, the good christian man is just another centering trope gifted to us by the same for purposes of social control and minority rule.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I have some thoughts on that which I've recently begun.  It is less than obvious that you can make a deductive argument that involves libertarian free will, as its indeterminacy seems to suggest that there are no necessary implications of its existence.  I need to read up on Plantinga and the assumption of depravity, but it seems unlikely something one can say necessarily follows.

I won't lie -- and this won't surprise you -- that went right over my head.

I promise I'll try to follow if and when you decide to post about it.

[Belacqua]

All humans have a personal morality. Groups of humans for a societal morality and these are both innately subjective. Christians.. or religious people have an addition objective morality from their diety/religious doctrine. It informs their very core beliefs and thus impacts their actions. I attribute my job, my location and my blessings to God. How can you prove I go to the soup kitchen because I'm just a good person and not a Christian? I don't think you can.

These days I'm reading The Dyer's Hand, a collection of essays by W.H. Auden. It's clear from these pages that Auden is a learned, wise, and compassionate man. Full of love for others' wisdom and goodness. 

Judging from what was said earlier in this thread, it will be easy for people here to claim that his Christian faith has little or nothing to do with his personal goodness -- even though the way he expresses himself is Christian through and through. People can always claim that he's just a good person and would have done all these good things even if there were no Christianity in the world at all. 

As you rightly point out, it's not possible to prove what degree of a person's goodness is separable from his religious beliefs. 

However, we all know that every human being exists in a society. No one grows up independent of moral systems, ideologies, worldviews, etc. etc. The fact that Auden's great compassion finds a vocabulary and a structure in Christianity means that whatever spark of goodness he had as a child found a method and a tradition which nurtured it. If he had grown up in a military setting or a Wall Street family, he might well have lacked the means to organize and build on his natural instincts. 

An individual's capacities and talents are only developed when that person's culture provides the means to do so. This is true of abilities in math or the arts or of the Christian virtues -- compassion, love, etc. 

Auden was fortunate in that he had good Christian models and opportunities. No doubt there are also bad Christian models who don't produce the kind of man he turned out to be. But the idea that his development and achievements are detachable from the structure of thought that produced them is just silly. He grew into his goodness through the medium of Christianity.

[arewethereyet]

All humans have a personal morality. Groups of humans for a societal morality and these are both innately subjective. Christians.. or religious people have an addition objective morality from their diety/religious doctrine. It informs their very core beliefs and thus impacts their actions. I attribute my job, my location and my blessings to God. How can you prove I go to the soup kitchen because I'm just a good person and not a Christian? I don't think you can.

These days I'm reading The Dyer's Hand, a collection of essays by W.H. Auden. It's clear from these pages that Auden is a learned, wise, and compassionate man. Full of love for others' wisdom and goodness. 

Judging from what was said earlier in this thread, it will be easy for people here to claim that his Christian faith has little or nothing to do with his personal goodness -- even though the way he expresses himself is Christian through and through. People can always claim that he's just a good person and would have done all these good things even if there were no Christianity in the world at all. 

As you rightly point out, it's not possible to prove what degree of a person's goodness is separable from his religious beliefs. 

However, we all know that every human being exists in a society. No one grows up independent of moral systems, ideologies, worldviews, etc. etc. The fact that Auden's great compassion finds a vocabulary and a structure in Christianity means that whatever spark of goodness he had as a child found a method and a tradition which nurtured it. If he had grown up in a military setting or a Wall Street family, he might well have lacked the means to organize and build on his natural instincts. 

An individual's capacities and talents are only developed when that person's culture provides the means to do so. This is true of abilities in math or the arts or of the Christian virtues -- compassion, love, etc. 

Auden was fortunate in that he had good Christian models and opportunities. No doubt there are also bad Christian models who don't produce the kind of man he turned out to be. But the idea that his development and achievements are detachable from the structure of thought that produced them is just silly. He grew into his goodness through the medium of Christianity.

If the author you speak of had been a military brat or the child of a 'Wall Street' family (whatever that is) they could not have been a naturally good person because the military and/or Wall Street background would have prevented it?  Is that your perception?

[no one]

And pissant is silent. Let's see what excuse it gives this time.

[Deesse23]

And pissant is silent. Let's see what excuse it gives this time.

New thread, rinse and repeat