The good done by religions vs the bad done by religions

[Beefbisquit]

"Jesus taught peer review?"

Couldn't be, peer review has been proven to be flawed!

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/

Oh, it's not perfect.... Unfortunately biases, and politics (left, right wing) come into play with science... Peer review is not done in a vacuum, but it is still the best method we have for determining the validity of studies.

 

[dashcues]

"Empty your minds of secular knowledge." – Chrysostom (The father of the Dark ages)

Only one part of a larger work by Chrysostom.If you care to read his works on the 'incomprehensible god",I think you'll find your quote does not mean what you think it means.
But,I'll concede this quote,if you can tell me his reasons for addressing his congregation this way.
For a (nonbiased) literary criticism of his writings,I'd recommend http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft0f59n6vv&chunk.id=d0e13634&toc.id=d0e13634&brand=ucpress

"As the Western Empire died, it left behind it empty cities with marble ruins lying like great skeletons, at their centres. Slowly the population was transformed into separate and modest nations of small farms and savage armies. There was little international trade and almost total illiteracy."
– John Romer, Testament, p244.

Romer?
Deurbanization. I think i already implied that.If the western civilizations collapsed today,you don't think it would set us back?

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2003/how-the-humanists-not-the-irish-saved-western-civilization/

Nice name for a site.
From the author of the article:
"For half a millennium Irish monks warehoused rare classical texts, but the great wealth of knowledge they contained was largely wasted on them."


Saint Adomnán of Iona (pronounced Athovnawn) (627/8 – 704)
Adomnán's most important work, and the one for which he is best known, is the Vita Columbae (i.e. "Life of Columba"), a hagiography of Iona's founder, Saint Columba. The source is by far the most important surviving work written in early medieval Scotland, and is a vital source for our knowledge of the Picts, as well as a great insight into the life of Iona and the early medieval Gaelic monk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adomn%C3%A1n


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Irish_Christian_monks
I started at the A's. I know for a fact there are many more that "the great wealth of knowledge they contained" wasn't wasted on.

Those monks weren't what you think they were.... they were acting against the Catholic church, and according to historians some were even jailed and executed for copying those texts.

Those monks were exactly who i think they were.They were Christians.
Barbarian tribes jailed,burned,executed,what have you...these monks for copying texts.Among many other things.
“One of the common misconceptions is that there was a ‘Roman Church’ to which the ‘Celtic’ was nationally opposed.”Patrick Wormald, ‘Bede and the ‘Church of the English’’, in The Times of Bede, ed. Stephen Baxter (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), p. 207.

"In the year 354 A new edict orders the closing of all the pagan temples. Some of them are profaned and turned into brothels or gambling rooms. Execution of pagan priests begins. A new edict of Constantius orders the destruction of the pagan temples and the execution of all “idolaters”. First burning of libraries in various cities of the empire. The first lime factories are organised next to the closed pagan temples. A major part of the holy architecture of the pagans is turned into lime."


Burn the cities and libraries.... nice.

Never have I implied christianities hands are white as snow.The christian/pagan conflicts through history shows fault on all sides.
Roughly 50 yrs before this edict,Diocletian (a pagan) consulted an oracle of apollo about whether or not he should enact a general persecution of christians.He interpreted the answer as a yes,and began the diocletianic persecutions.It outlawed worship of christian beliefs,and made a requirement for everyone to make sacrifices,and worship pagan gods,in pagan temples,upon order of death.Christian literature was burned,along with christians.Roughly 3,000 christians lost their lives in a matter of 50 yrs due to these persecutions.
I don't lend a sympathetic ear to one and not the other.
Not all of Christianity was intolerant towards pagans.Many settlement's at the time consisted of a mix of paganism and christianity.Worshipping side by side.Often times,integrating their religions.
Have you ever heard of christopagans? A relatively new term for a very old concept.

I don't have an exact number. Does a substantial amount of libraries, and books were burned and a substantial amount of people were executed for teaching things that went against church teachings even if they had direct evidence to support what they were claiming work better?

Not really.Neither "a lot of" nor "substantial amount" give enough approximation to draw a conclusion.
Can you estimate? 50,..500..,5000,...more? Just want to see if the claims are an exaggeration,or fairly accurate.

We have laws to prevent discrimination today. What about in Africa and South America?

What about Africa and south america? There are christian charities there.
Hope africa,Tearfund?
These are the first two to come up on google.I know for a fact there are more.

I know Christians helped found Universities. People may have even found some inspiration from the bible with regards to formulating a hypothesis, but that's where it stops.

Even more progress!Next thing ya know,you'll be trying to convert me to christianity,and we'll be debating again.Only on different sides of the field. .

Christianity, an unchanging doctrine and science, a self correcting methodology are just at odds. Basically, Christianity boils down to 'no matter what evidence is shown, Christ still exists and is miraculous', and that is at fundamental odds with an evidence based methodology.

Again.I'm not arguing this.
But Christianity and Science at odds? In my opinion,they're not even apples and oranges.More like...brake pads and frying pans.They can be equally useful,but for completely different reasons.
Some scientists even believe in their compatibility. I remain,for the most part,unconvinced.Though it's hard to deny their very words:
“When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.”
“From the perspective of the latest physical theories, Christianity is not a mere religion, but an experimentally testable science.”
–Professor of Mathematical Physics Frank Tippler
As you may know,many other scientists throughout history say much the same.

I've yet to see a Christian that actually acts like Jesus, so....

Yeah. He left some big shoes to fill. But he did say to keep trying.(paraphrasing)

The Catholic Church condemned any secular knowledge.


As long as it's Christian knowledge, and doesn't go against the bibles teachings or you're worthy of death.

By "any",do you mean all? And when,where,why?
You're sentence is ambiguous in its meaning.You give no reference to time or scope of how much was being condemned.Can you provide a source that says the catholic church condemned all secular knowledge?
That implies a great deal of knowledge.

I didn't have to look hard at history, not a quote by Jesus, to see the exact opposite.


Augistine?
Pope Gregory?
John Chrysostom?


Nice fellas, those heads of the Church.

I can think of worse.
Seeing as this is about education,could you be more specific to your point?
And there were 16 pope gregorys.

He was inspired by the bible. Ok. He didn't use any knowledge from the bible when experimenting or making observations, or testing his findings.

So his inspiration played a part in the development of oceanography.?
I'm sure he thought so.Almost all his monuments depict him with his bible in hand.

Christians contributed to science. The doctrine of Christianity had no direct affect on science, other than acting as a 'muse' to some.

I disagree.So do scholars,as well as the scientist we're discussing.
But it's good to see you're not as obstinate as you were when we first began.

You mean divisions into small illiterate tribes?

Yes.When rome fell many people fled to rural areas around europe.Less civilization,and social structure,meant less education.Most didn't take their luxuries,only their necessities.

Source? I've never seen that label, and quite the contrary I see 'dark ages' used frequently in Historical texts.

Originally the term characterized the bulk of the Middle Ages, or roughly the 6th to 13th centuries, as a period of intellectual darkness between extinguishing the "light of Rome" after the end of Late Antiquity, and the rise of the Italian Renaissance in the 14th century.[5] [3] This definition is still found in popular use,[1][2][6] but increased recognition of the accomplishments of the Middle Ages has led to the label being restricted in application. Since the 20th century, it is frequently applied to the earlier part of the era, the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th century).[7][8] However, many modern scholars who study the era tend to avoid the term altogether for its negative connotations, finding it misleading and inaccurate for any part of the Middle Ages.[9][10][11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages_(historiography)


From yale history prof.Paul Freedman-The Dark Ages-- roughly the sixth to eleventh century. This is a term we don't like to use. It implies a value judgment that is not only not necessarily accurate, but also expresses a certain kind of point of view of what are good periods in history and what are bad periods in history. http://oyc.yale.edu/transcript/1190/hist-210


Dark Ages, the early medieval period of western European history. Specifically, the
term refers to the time (476–800) when there was no Roman (or Holy Roman) emperor in the West; or, more generally, to the period between about 500 and 1000, which was marked by frequent warfare and a virtual disappearance of urban life. It is now rarely used by historians because of the value judgment it implies. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/151663/Dark-Ages


^ Snyder, Christopher A. (199. An Age of Tyrants: Britain and the Britons A.D. 400–600. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. xiii–xiv. ISBN 0-271-01780-5. In explaining his approach to writing the work, Snyder refers to the "so-called Dark Ages", noting that "Historians and archaeologists have never liked the label Dark Ages ... there are numerous indicators that these centuries were neither 'dark' nor 'barbarous' in comparison with other eras."
^ Raico, Ralph. "The European Miracle". Retrieved 14 August 2011. "The stereotype of the Middle Ages as 'the Dark Ages' fostered by Renaissance humanists and Enlightenment philosophes has, of course, long since been abandoned by scholars."
Enough?

Slowed A LOT.

Advancements slowed for sure.The 'light of the world" had fallen.It had a rippling effect.
But not to a "virtual standstill".

Christians executed anyone who wasn't Christian and burned their cities, many times throughout history, 300A.D-?. They sure loved their pagan/idolater cleansing. I've read enough history to have a fairly good understanding of the times, no further descriptions required.

As i've shown: Not all christians,not everywhere,and not all the time.
Christians or barbarian hordes,which would you prefer?

Christians made contributions to science.

Indeed they did.Many times,because of their faith.

Saying the same thing over and over again does not make it a fact. Where is it that Jesus taught peer-review, or how to make a hypothesis? Pretty sure there's no scientific writings in the bible (I know there aren't, I've read it front to back two times).

Again.Not the argument.The goal post is fine where it is.

The first university, Plato's Academy, was founded around 400BC in Greece. The dark ages were the antithesis of critical thinking which were the key values the Greeks taught. Where Socrates said "The un-examined life is not worth living", the Churches were teaching "Empty your minds of secular knowledge".


According to historians, most of the places of 'higher learning' that were created through the dark ages focused on 'Church only' teachings.

Funny then,that history professors are teaching,in secular courses,that these christian churches were the very ones teaching and preserving the classic literature.
From yale prof.in history Paul Freedman in his online lecture
"Even though the Church grew up in opposition to the Roman Empire, it will preserve Latin, cities, learning, classical civilization.http://oyc.yale.edu/transcript/1190/hist-210"

Past tense. Look at the exploitation done by missionaries around the world.

Don't need to.I already proved the point.
You said:
Keep in mind often education, food, shelter would only be offered if the people agreed to convert.
I showed that wasn't the case.
Should we tally up the good christian missions have done versus the bad?
I don't think you'll like that outcome either.

Inspiration is certainly a type of contribution.

I agree.
And christian inspiration.Is it "a type of contribution"?

Extremist?


If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives. (Leviticus 20:13)


"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:24-32)


How is it that Christians so freely cherry pick what they want to believe out of the bible? It's either the word of god or it's not.

You're proving my point for me,Beef.
Out of all the passages in the bible,you "cherry pick" the most extreme.
Not the acts of piety,compassion,love,or faith,which are in abundance as well.
Yes.You judge christians by their most extreme acts and practitioners.Not their majority.

I come not to bring peace, but to bring a sword (Matthew 10:34)


Know this first of all, that there is no prophecy of scripture that is a matter of personal interpretation, for no prophecy ever came through human will; but rather human beings moved by the holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God. (2 Peter 20-21)


Seems pretty damn clear to me. Unless you are interpreting how they state there is no interpretation to scripture.

Seems clear to you? These verses have been debated since before the books were canonized.And I can tell you from experience,bible scholars are still not in complete agreement as to their meaning,even today.
Maybe you should e-mail these scholars and tell them what so clear to you,that's not clear to them.
The bible is multivalent.The books were "put together" that way.Writings that are over a millenium apart,opposing writings from the north and south kingdoms,exiles,language barriers,etc.
Yes.I would argue that there is not one,definitive method to it's interpretation.

People should be able to believe whatever they want, but if you want to wave your beliefs around in public; expect a backlash. Specifically in my case, peoples religious beliefs influence how they vote, and that matters to me. I don't want abortion outlawed because some half-wit's invisible friends says its bad. There are countless other religiously motivated laws/restrictions religious people want to place on EVERYONE because of THEIR religion.

Many different things affect how people vote.Should we take away everyone's right to a vote,based on what you think is right? It would hardly be a democracy.
Most politicians, I see today,use religion as a means to an end.They use it to gain supporters and rarely follow through on anything more than what they can personally gain from.Bank accounts run the world, way more than any religion.
My advice: Vote.Write your legislatures.Support your causes.Never stop.We're not as strong as we once was,but we still have our voice.If your cause is "Just" enough,I'll join you.Others will as well.
But coming on internet forums,and bashing harmless christians, and their faith,by subjecting them to horrible events in their church history,..says little.Especially when more often than not,it's hyperbole.

I'd throw that miniature baby out with the bath water, any day, all day.

Your choice.
I'm just trying to further education on a subject that should not be so cut and dried.

 

[Beefbisquit]

I'm not sure why, but I can't reply with quotes; it just comes up blank.... : /


I enjoyed your post, and I'll try to reply throughout the day and hope it works.

These posts are getting to be like novellas! Good stuff!

P.S. You seem surprised that I would change my opinions, and concede corrections, based on compelling evidence. That would be quite the hypocrisy, no?

 

[dashcues]

I'm not sure why, but I can't reply with quotes; it just comes up blank.... : /


I enjoyed your post, and I'll try to reply throughout the day and hope it works.

These posts are getting to be like novellas! Good stuff!

P.S. You seem surprised that I would change my opinions, and concede corrections, based on compelling evidence. That would be quite the hypocrisy, no?

I'm having posting problems as well.
Take your time.I'm in no hurry.Both our postings take time to sort out.
I'm enjoying your posts as well.Rarely do I find as civil a conversation when discussing these topics.
Not really surprised. I study my opponents way ahead of time.I know you,like myself,follow logic and take the evidence wherever it may lead.No matter the affiliation.A respectable quality, imho.

 

[burgertime2010]

More harm than good? On a personal level religion is, at its core, a harmful delusion that explains the essence of life so you don't have to ponder the mysteries of it all. This is a dangerous and disingenuous system of thought whose problems range across all cultures. I studied Tao and eastern philosophy that are called religions by some. They were of great benefit to me as the teachings spoke on levels that punctuated internal growth. I am a sculptor, and in large part, the Tao made clear the path of wisdom in my process, my aesthetic, and the mystery was left alive. It was relatively private, and it was a connection similar to other religions I imagine, and I grew positively.

 

[Beefbisquit]

Shit still isn't working....

Stumbled upon this article, thought it might be worth a read....

Stark claims that “the era from the fall of Rome through the Middle Ages was a time of spectacular technological and intellectual progress that erupted when innovation was freed from the grip of Roman despotism.” Similarly: “Christian commitment to reason and progress wasn’t all talk; soon after the fall of Rome, it encouraged an era of extraordinary invention and innovation.” He describes the development of water mills, dams, and windmills—and repeatedly discusses improvements in agriculture that significantly increased production of food. For example, he claims that “medieval Europe greatly increased its agricultural production by pumping water off potential cropland,” and that “these incredible gains in agricultural productivity so reduced the need for farm labor and increased yields that they greatly facilitated the formation and feeding of towns and cities.” After other similar claims, Stark concludes: “Not only did Europeans eat far better during the Dark Ages than in Roman times but they were healthier, more energetic, and probably more intelligent.”2

Projecting such unsubstantiated fantasies is Stark’s error—which is identical to that of the anti-capitalist Left—of ignoring the entire field of economic history. Economic history is highly relevant, as it provides men with whatever factual data can be ascertained regarding human living standards of the past. Critically, it is supported neither by arbitrary assertions nor by woozy evaluations but by actual evidence.

One of the leading thinkers of recent decades in this field is the Dutch economist, Angus Maddison. According to Maddison’s research, Europe suffered through zero economic growth in the centuries from 500 AD to 1500, the exact period that Stark describes. Maddison shows that for a millennium there was no rise in per capita income, which stood at an abysmally low $215 in 1500. Further, he estimates that in the year 1000, the average infant could expect to live to roughly the age of 24 years—and that a third would die in the first year of life. These are global estimates, with Europe showing no appreciable difference from the rest. Not surprisingly, per capita living standards show no dramatic increases until the 18th-century Enlightenment—the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.3

While other economic historians argue that some economic growth did take place in the late Middle Ages, they nevertheless recognize that the growth was of so minimal a degree that it hardly improved the horrifying destitution of the European masses. For example, the research of economist Graeme Snooks indicates that economic growth occurred in England in the six centuries between 1086 and 1688. “If the average person in 1086 had about one-sixth the income of the average person in 1688, he or she did not have much. . . . English peasants in 1086 had little more than enough food to keep them alive, and sometimes not even that. Houses were crude, temporary structures. A peasant owned one set of clothes, best described as rags, and little else.”4

Remarkably, Stark lists in his bibliography several leading historians who concur with these findings. For example, the superb French historian Fernand Braudel, writing about the pre-18th-century era, states that: “Famine recurred so insistently for centuries on end that it became incorporated into man’s biological regime and built into his daily life. . . .” Braudel points out, for instance, that although France was, by standards of the day, a relatively prosperous country, it is nevertheless believed to have suffered ten general famines during the 10th century; twenty-six in the 11th; two in the 12th—and these are estimates that do not even count the “hundreds and hundreds of local famines. . . .”5 Even granting that there are severe difficulties inherent in estimating medieval living standards with any degree of precision, the conclusion must be that what was then considered relative prosperity was, by comparison to prior and later ages, utter destitution.

Further, European sewage and sanitation regressed back to primitivism during this era. Human waste products were often thrown out the window and into the street or simply dumped in local rivers. (By contrast, ancient Rome had been significantly more advanced: “major cities of the Empire installed drainage systems to which latrines were connected”—and the “wealthy enjoyed such luxuries as indoor plumbing . . . even the indigent had access to public baths.”) With the streets strewn with garbage and running with urine and feces—and with the same horrifying conditions permeating the rivers and streams from which drinking water was drawn—vermin and germs multiplied, and disease of every kind, untreatable by the primitive medical knowledge of the day, proliferated. Between 1347 and 1350, for example, the bubonic plague—the infamous “Black Death”—spread by the fleas that infest rats, ravaged Western Europe, obliterating roughly 20 million people, fully one-third of the human population. Norman Cantor, the leading contemporary historian of the Middle Ages, states: “The Black Death of 1348–49 was the greatest biomedical disaster in European and possibly in world history.” A Florentine writer of the era referred to it simply as “the exterminating of humanity.”6

Finally, the early Middle Ages witnessed a stupefying decline in levels of education and literacy from the Roman period. In the endemic warfare of the period, human beings lost the skill of writing and, largely, of reading. “In the time of Augustine’s youth [4th century AD] . . . even a Christian got a reasonably good classical education. A few generations later, literacy was a rarity even among the ruling classes.” For example, during the 8th century, Charlemagne maintained that even the clergy knew insufficient Latin to understand the Bible or to properly conduct Church services.7



2 Ibid., xiv–xv, 35, 38–42.
3 Angus Maddison, Phases of Capitalist Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 4–7. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (Paris: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2001), p.1. Andrew Bernstein, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire(Lanham, Md.: 2005), pp. 73–136.
4 Graeme Snooks recounted in Joyce Burnette and Joel Mokyr, “The Standard of Living Through the Ages,” in The State of Humanity, edited by Julian Simon (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1995), pp. 136–39.
5 Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 73–78.
6 J. J. Bagley, Life in Medieval England (London: B.T. Batsford, 1960), pp. 57–59, 156–159. Mabel Buer, Health, Wealth and Population in the Early Days of the Industrial Revolution (New York: Howard Fertig, 196, pp. 104–105. Norman Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague (New York: Perennial, 2002), pp. 6–8. www.stanford.edu/~mooreChapter2.pdf.
7 W. T. Jones, A History of Western Philosophy, vol. 2, The Medieval Mind (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1969), pp. 141–142.

 

[Beefbisquit]

I fucking manually copy and pasted all your responses over and had responded to about 75% of them and I lost it.

I'm pissed.

 

[Beefbisquit]

More harm than good? On a personal level religion is, at its core, a harmful delusion that explains the essence of life so you don't have to ponder the mysteries of it all. This is a dangerous and disingenuous system of thought whose problems range across all cultures. I studied Tao and eastern philosophy that are called religions by some. They were of great benefit to me as the teachings spoke on levels that punctuated internal growth. I am a sculptor, and in large part, the Tao made clear the path of wisdom in my process, my aesthetic, and the mystery was left alive. It was relatively private, and it was a connection similar to other religions I imagine, and I grew positively.

We haven't even touched on the concept of faith yet. We;re just discussing how Christianity has affected science, education, culture, and the preservation of ancient culture.

The idea of belief without demonstrable evidence is foreign to me, and the bigger the idea I'm expected to believe, the more evidence I require as justification.

 

[Padawanbater2]

These posts are getting to be like novellas! Good stuff!

Because of RIU, I once held an 18 month long conversation with someone about organized religion.

Buckle up..