It's not an argument so much as a struggle that's won one liberated mind at a time. Anyways, off-topic!

As well as the fact that people forget that for all the so-called "flaws" in Christianity (and the other Abrahamic religions), the benefits to society outweighed the drawbacks. People tend to forget the positives they brought to the culture rather than the negatives. It wasn't just the Inquisition, Crusades, and "hatred of homosexuals". Jesuits made a lot of scientific discoveries, they contributed a lot to the arts, and to social welfare.

Don't interrupt their perception with facts. Its not nice.

Jesuits are largely regarded as heretics by the Catholic clergy. They were the butt of every third joke back in the seminary. They earned their label mostly through their scientific work and a sort of decentralized, overtly-disobediant style of spirituality that did too much to downplay the Vatican's role in upholding doctrine. They're pretty good at toeing the line between having a fair number of heretical members (which is nothing new--there are heretical bishops who don't stand to lose their diocese) and being a schismatic sect.

There is a lot of good work that's done through religious organizations simply because they're there. The Salvation Army does a lot of understated good work for about the same reason, even though I imagine most people would run the other way in terror once they learned more about their doctrine and modus operandi. For this reason, it's very important to decouple the impact on a community because there are well-intentioned people (or ill-intentioned) people in this world, and the impact on a community because of what an organization teaches, stands for, and strives towards. You don't hold Catholics responsible for abuse of altar boys. You do get to hold them responsible for covering it up--that's an institutional action, not the action of an individual. You also get to hold them responsible for the institutional stance on biological research. You don't get to give them credit for research done at Creighton that has to be handled by non-Catholics or openly heretical clergy.

I honestly believe that if a decently functioning secular social aid organization that had the same presence as a religious organization, the same benefit could be derived according to more humanistic or utilitarian principles.

Not to mention that not all money dumped into most religious organizations - The Roman Catholic Church particularly - ends up in charity. In fact, the vast majority ends up in maintaining and expanding the infra-structure of indoctrination and political influence; those organizations are all ultimately self-serving, and their charitable component exists primarily as a means of spreading the memeplex itself; there have even been cases of Christians refusing charity to people who wouldn't accept to be baptised and converted, of example. The net effect is overtly negative, and anyway if I murder someone, and then go on the streets handing money to beggars and candy to children, do my good deeds erase the bad deed I did?

Ah, now that you put it that way, the article makes much more sense.


I've never been proud of what Christians have done in the past, or are doing now. Sometimes, what Christians do disgust me.

However, all of those arguments mentioned above like AIDS, condoms, homosexuality etc. are, ideally, not a part of Christianity. Honestly, I can't recall any passages that prohibits condoms, without any pastor or bible teacher coming to me and telling me that this-or-that passage says so.

Furthermore, almost all of these things brought up have their 'biblical foundation' in the Old Testament. When people tell me God hates fags, I tell them God hated shrimps as well. Jesus fufilled the laws in the Old Testament, and there is no need for them to continue emphasising specific laws which further their -own- hatred. Why are these people being so hypocritical and insist on only -one- part of the many laws in the OT, but yet say that the Sabbath has been fufilled by Jesus?

And as for the Great Commission, all I'll say is that firstly, I'm not in a Western country. Next, I truly believe that the Great Commission consists of simply, letting people know that God exists. Its not a call to force conversion, but rather to ensure that everyone knows that they have this choice. If God allows humans to have free-will to choose if they want to serve Him or not, who are we that we think we should force others to convert? Yes, we can convince and whatnot, but not by saying fags will go to hell. Yes, I know homosexuality is a sin, but God forgave ALL sins, so who are you to decide that homosexuals have to go to hell, when you yourself commit so-called lesser sins.


I don't know enough about this other than Catholicism prohibiting contraceptives.


What Xavius meant was not a comparision, but rather a Christian AND Wiccan AND any other religion: Who did harm statement.


Then they've ignored what Jesus said about feeding the hungry and clothing the poor. And honestly, they've gotten the whole process of conversion through charity wrong. They're supposed to give, so as to give others a good impression of Christianity and then convincing them to convert, but it has apparently backfired. To be honest, I'm guilty of not freely giving and being too attatched to material possesions. Part of my unwillingness to give is that I'm an easy target for sob stories, but thats not supposed to deter me. Ideally.


No, good deeds are not meant to erase bad deeds (unless you are Catholic?). If I've sinned, and I repented, God will then forgive me. If God forgives me, then you should forgive me as well, because God has also forgiven your sins. And to emphasise this: all sins are equal in God's eye. No such thing as lying being a minor sin or homosexuality as a major sin.
Unless, you were using that as a metaphor?

That's one thing that disturbs me about many religions... they view charity as a means rather than an end.

You're misrepresenting Catholics; I believe they think good deeds are prerequisite for salvation whilst erasing bad deeds is the same as in any branch of Christianity (Forgiveness through Jesus Christ) except it must be mediated by a priest in the sacrament of confession.

Secondly, the "If God forgives me then you should too" is a miserable defense. I love how Protestant pastors in the US have used that to tell people they should 'forgive' hypocritical preachers that used religion as a tax dodge, embezzled the gullible members of their congregations, or sodomized male prostitutes whilst high on meth.

Thirdly, the notion that all sins are equal leads and has lead to people being punished for very small 'transgressions'.

As far as all sin being equal, in the eyes of God sin is sin. Yet in terms of consenquences, different sins are less harmful on others, and that is what is taken into account when justice is determined by the law.




Regarding the idea of forgiving others because God has forgiven us, well it's pretty ridicoulous that some preachers use that to get over. Forgiveness does not mean that all the consenquences are wiped out. If you are untrustowrthy as a leader, forgiveness won't magically make you trustworthy. The Bible clearly says that leaders are held to a higher standard, and will be judged more harshly than others. Those people who twist the Bible for their evil and greedy purposes will recieve what's coming to them.



Well, Jesus fulfilled the letter of the law. The spirit of the law remains. What that means is that little details, like how to clean mildew out of cloth, and the sacrifices are no longer necessary. Yet the 10 commandments remain, as does the commands to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. As far as God hating fags, well that's also ridicoulous. He desires that all would come to repentance. Homosexuality is often a hotly debated subject, but we all sin, and that makes us all equal before God, fallen men and women who need to be redeemed. In this respect, the homosexual is no worse off than a liar, and no better off than a murderer. I think part of the reason homosexuality is debated more is that it's less widely regarded as a sin or as being wrong.

Christianity simultaneously attaches guilt to things that aren't wrong (Like homosexuality or contraception), denies the notion that doing bad things actually have consequences (The basic message of protestant Christianity is that you can get away with anything if you accept Jesus - And they claim that they have morals and we don't), equates every bad thing to every other bad thing, and has a built-in complex of guilt in which everyone is guilty, even the very young.

To further your argument, you should try to make a case in defense of your translation of a Bronze Age piece of literature. Lots of people wrote lots of inspiring books. Some of them are even largely historically accurate. Even more amazing, people still write them even today. Woo! Proof that God still moves among us, inspiring his unworthy fleshy clay windsacks. Otherwise, you're making a blind assertion that we should hold 68% of the world's population in lower regard simply because this misguided majority thinks your book is a marginally pretty but historically important piece of literature...and nothing more.

Prove this. If the majority religion through history had been Buddhism or something, many of the same good things may have come about. The evils, well, I'm not as sure, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

The Jesuits in South America were a prime example of the Christian brand of charity. To save native South American peoples from slavery, they converted them, taught them Portuguese, Spanish, or Latin, and put them to work in missions and a sort of quasi-servitude, all but eliminating their cultures in the process - While being considered almost heretical by some branches of the Roman Catholic Church which supported natives being put to work as slaves in plantations.

There's lots of things on this thread that I could nit-pick at, too many. So I'll just chuckle about this post. This concern for other peoples' culture is a relatively new phenomenon, and to blame the church or in any way derogate their achievements for that reason is plainly anachronistic.

And maybe they wouldn't?

Edit: Got to run to the drycleaners, but when I return.. I will fill this post with a load of crap I was recently reading in a book called 'Fundamentalism' by Steve Bruce, which as an aside at one point or another, asserts that the current state of advancement in civilisation was dependant on the unique set of factors (and their interplay) underwhich Europe grew.

To be fair, I'm not really down with cultural relativism either - I was saying this to exemplify how the Catholic Church and many Christians in general do charity - They help you after you convert, and besides, being bound in a sort of indentured servitude to the jesuits, while being better than being a slave, was nowhere as good as simply being left alone.

I'll bow out of this debate seeing that:

1) I'm a new Christian. As much as I agree that there should not be any 'interpretations' by pastors, I still have much to learn, and believe me when I say that this debate has been making me do some self-analysis on my faith.

2) Its totally out of my league. Half of your posts don't make sense to me cause I don't understand the terms. I'm 16, and you guys are using erm... university language? And no, Wikipedia didn't help. I don't like people who just read a Wikpedia article and then act as if they're experts in that field. I very much prefer some human interaction, even if as little as the internet allows.

3) I'm tired.

But woah have I enjoyed this debate.

Always enjoyable to make people think.

All it takes is for the word 'religion' to crop up in a post for the argument to shift totally towards the subject... I also said bad things about conservatives, ultra-feminists, and 9/11 scare mongers. You don't see anyone jumping to the defence of those people, oddly enough.

I usually use religion in arguments because I'm a religious minority, so when talking about unpopular or minority opinions or beliefs, it's an easy parallel for me.