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Old 07-29-2003, 09:09 PM   #40 (permalink)
stingc
Psycho
 
Location: PA
Whoever was most pivotal in getting christianity recognized (jesus himself if nobody else fits that description). Christianity caused a whole bunch of problems. Not to say that other religions have peachy histories, but Christianity has destroyed more of humanity than anything else I can think of (in the West at least). It contributed to the fall of Rome. All the developments of western civilization up to that time were essentially lost, and the church tried to make sure they wouldn't come back. They strongly discouraged any kind of non-religious scholarship, and caused people to devote their lives to trying to "save themselves," instead of trying to contribute something useful to society or themselves. Then there were the Crusades and the Inquisition, the forced conversions in the new world and elsewhere, etc.

What did Christianity give the world in return for all of that? The basic morals were similar to many other religions, but somewhat more pacifistic. So instead of thinking something is bad, and killing over it, people were required to be told that an omniscient god thought something was worth killing for (in practice). Human nature is still there, but Christianity took away the guilt and second-guessing. So I don't think we gained much of anything.

The present world would be unrecognizeable without Christianity, but I doubt a replacement could mess up things as much.
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