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Originally Posted by jorgelito
The arts - a major influence: patronage, commission, subject matter
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eh... not really... christianity didn't really influence art any more than rome or greece did... all of them had people in power commisioning art, often the art was religious/quasi-religious. the only real new thing in art that came from 'christianity' (in quotes because i don't think it christianity that caused it, it was just another step in art) was stained glass.
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Education - monks etc kept learning alive and libraries of knowledge
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true, but so did islam. while europe's civilzation digressed backwards or stagnated in many areas not related to warfare, islam was creating algebra and increasing our knowledge of astronomy, amongst other things. to try to credit christianity as a major influence in this regard and not give any credit to islam, or the civilizations that are responsible for creating/gaining the knowledge in the first place is just a matter of your personal bias.
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War - so much war was made in the name of Christianity that arguably has made a huge difference in the past 2000 years. (i.e. - Crusades, Gulf war etc)
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most war, even that in the name of religion, is often about greed of the people leading the war. a lot of war in the name of god has been about land, not god. i think even the crusades were more than just a war for god... that was just a way to get the soldiers to fall into line with the war. i'm not sure what the gulf war 1 has to do with christianity, and the current war there doesn't seem religiously motivated either.
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Spread of Christianity has led to colonization, imperialism (divine right of kings etc) and of course, more war.
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again, these were not new thanks to christianity. they were around before it (see greece, rome, persia, pretty much every ancient civ before christianity came around). look to egypt for the divine right of kings with lineage passing to children, or rome where they actually looked at their emperors as being part man/part god (after death).
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Christianity also influenced concepts like "equality" and the like heavily affecting revolutionary movements, most notably US independence. Christianity was a factor in the birth of the US.
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how so? since when has christianity had anything to do with equality? christianity obviously played some role in the formation of the US as that was the religion of many people involved in the foundation of our country, but philisophical thought of people like voltiare (which i admit to not knowing much about) and other philosophers of that era (in france and england... hobbes and locke too) had more to do with the values of the main people behind the writing of the declaration and constitution than did jesus.
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And so it persists today. Just look at the dynamic bewteen Christianity and ....everyone else. Not just internationally, but domestically too. Including issues such as right to life, right to die so on and so forth.
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obviously christianity has been aroiund time and has been an influence on a lot of people, but to say that it's been one of the most important things in human history i think is incorrect... it may have had more staying power than other religions (which is really because it managed to kill off the others with the sword) but i would argue religion in general rather than just christianity if you want to make the argument you're making. and the issues that you bring up, they're a product of differing values of our society. christianity plays a role, but a minor one. people on both sides fo the abortion debate and right to die debate are christian. if anything, christianity itself doens't have anything to do with it, individuals interpretations of christianity does. but hey, once islam gets out of their current 'dark ages' they'll be dealing with issues like these... this isn't about religion so much as how certain religoius interpretations interact with other societal values.
personally, i think christianity has held back human society more than moved it forward.