Is Christianity good for society?

Hello, I am new to the forum and debate arena, my name is Tony and I am quite satisfied with this platform. I figured I'd start with a simple post in the forum to get acquainted with everybody. The topic at hand I will bring up is simple

Is Christianity good for society? In specific, American and European societies, (i.e. first world, highly developed nations)

What are your reasons for believing yes or no?

(P.S. please forgive me if threads like this already exist, I am just looking for a launching pad.)

Thank you.

O.S.A: I guess my personal view is that churches are neutral sources of "valuable" power (in the sense that knowledge is power). I have seen these power relations tear communities apart and bring them together. Really the question is whether one particular power structure is net beneficial in one particular context.

Right now I see Christianity as a religion in transition. Certain elements of Christian clergy are still excluding and ostracizing those they deem sinful. Yet at the same time I see messages of peace, tolerance, and hope. I've argued (elsewhere) that Christianity needs a values-based transformation, similar to the recent academic idea of values-based politics, taking out the judgments. So I see Christianity as perhaps hopefully heading in that direction. Will it end up there or will it just result in more schisms? God knows.

I view it as a net benefit for organizing and encouraging possitive community action. My sister is a single mother, through church she is able to get affordable daycare.

Of course there are negative sides to religion, but I believe the worst of those would happen anyway under another excuse.

Ragnar: You know, I've changed my view on that recently. I used to agree they'd happen under another excuse. But I think now the fact religion is so often the scapegoat points to it being a particularly dangerous excuse. There's a few reasons as to why this is. First, I think religion is very important for many people, and uniquely so, because it inherently transcends matters of life itself. Second, religious claims are by nature difficult to test or prove, making it easy to spin rhetoric that is bad for society. Third, religion to an extent DEFINES what is good or bad for society, by claiming its own moral compass.

admin: I will agree that it is a dangerous excuse. But so is race, nationalism, the gays, etc.

In your time debating how many times have you utterly disproved someone, only to have them not care and stick to believing something even when it is objectively false? Ignorant people seem to pride themselves on that, be it with religion or without. Spinning rhetoric that is bad for society, I live in the USA, and that damned politician who was running for president did nothing but spin rhetoric which was bad for America; this was done separate from religion, and about half the country got caught up and sided with him or her.

The moral compass is a very good point, but members of each religion disagree with each other and themselves on what that compass says to do. Slave owners for example had to outright go to double think in order to claim both to be Christian and to be opposed to their slaves being baptized.

While it can be the excuse for violence, it can also be the reason to overlook pigmentation and embrace all people as one. Religion more than anything seems to mirror the followers of any faith. MLK for example used the religion shared by him and the oppressors of his people, as a means to open the door to possibilities other than hatred.

Ragnar: As I said in my first post but feel moved to re-emphasize: we have common ground on religion being a possible force of goodwill. I just don't believe that, if religion were around, people would have the same depth of excuses as they do currently to commit some seriously immoral acts on a massive scale. Of course, there are other political incentives. There are plenty of things most reasonable people could only be convinced to do if they believed their very immortal soul was on the line, which is hardly possible if you're a naturalist who doesn't believe in souls.

admin: I see the problem, I agree with the problem, we merely disagree on weights to different elements involved.

O.S.A: Tony

I am a Gnostic Christian.

Does that tell you all you need to know?

Just my way of finding out how well read you are.

Regards
DL

admin: I see Christianity as a religion in transition

So do I. A transition to a slow death in the West if the tipping point to statistical non-belief of 2050 is accurate.

I think it will be a lot sooner because even now, Christian priests are dying off with no replacements in the pipeline.

Some will become like the one shown in this link but Yahweh is dying and so is the Jesus most know as his morality is coming more and more into question.





Regards
DL

Ragnar:
Of course there are negative sides to religion, but I believe the worst of those would happen anyway under another excuse.

I agree but the fact that religions are trusted, perhaps more than governments in some cases, the breach of trust when they preach homophobia and misogyny is more sinful for a church than for other organizations.

If the faithful cannot trust that their church is at least trying to be moral when morality should be the heist goal for it shows just how corrupted they are. All they are becoming is a social club for the old and when they are gone, Christianity's decline will really speed up.

I think that that will be good as it might get people to read their bibles and that would serve Jesus and moral spiritual tpeople a lot better than the churches have.

Regards
DL

admin: we have common ground on religion being a possible force of goodwill.

What???

Both Christianity and Islam have basically developed into intolerant, homophobic and misogynous religions. Both religions have grown themselves by the sword instead of good deeds and continue with their immoral ways in spite of secular law showing them the moral ways.

Jesus said we would know his people by their works and deeds. That means Jesus would not recognize Christians and Muslims as his people, and neither do I. Jesus would call Christianity and Islam abominations.

Gnostic Christians did in the past, and I am proudly continuing that tradition and honest irrefutable evaluation.

Regards
DL


Goodwill to their own but certainly not goodwill to those outside of their circles and half thei adherents who happen to be women or gay.

Bite your tongue my friend.

Local churches have some value at the social level byt organized religions even Jesus railed against.

Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

Mark 7:13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many such like things do ye.



Isaiah 56:11) "They are shepherds who have no understanding; They have all turned to their own way, each on to his unjust gain, to the last one" But do not despair, for the day of judgment is at hand, for the day of judgment and the day of the LORD occupy the same time frame. All the dross will be burned away. (Zech 13:9) & (Malachi 3:3). In that day, "you will distinguish between the righteous and the wicked" (Malachi 3:18)

Regards
DL

Greatest I am: No I think Christianity is changing their marketing. If we're talking about Christianity as it largely exists today, that's going away. But you have to think how that might be different in future. I think the other thing is moderate churches need to adapt so people don't automatically go to fundamentalist ones, which by the way, are going nowhere.

admin: I think the other thing is moderate churches need to adapt so people don't automatically go to fundamentalist ones, which by the way, are going nowhere.

The progressive churches are adapting even to the level of calling themselves atheist churches so what you suggest is an ongoing visible process. That does not negate that Christianity as a whole is shrinking in the West.

I do not agree that the fundamentalist creeds are going nowhere. If I recall the stats correctly, they are the only Christian churches that are growing, albeit slowly.

Speculation is that as the moderate churches die out, their right wing factions are moving to the fundamentals.

This link shows the truth of this.





I think the root cause is that people have a love of war and hell is where they want to send all those not in their tribe.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am: Well that fundamentalist churches are increasing in popularity is obvious, but I think you're missing my point, which is that the only way to fight fundamentalism is with moderation. If moderate churches are weak that makes fundamentalist churches the best option for believers. And that's an issue for everyone. I don't believe in sociological determinism, so even if those were the trends now, we don't need to accept them.

However, I don't really think moderate churches are dying, you probably just don't recognize them as churches. For example I think the number of non-denominational christians, in my experience, remains pretty solid. I see less people inclined to ritual "doing" and more to spiritual "being", which itself has invoked a shifted understanding of "God" from a law-giver to a belonging.

I think the opposite. People hate war. The only people who think they like it are those who don't understand what it is. Religion is too complex to nail down to a purpose as a whole, just like the universe.

admin: which is that the only way to fight fundamentalism is with moderation.

That is not possible. The moment you tell a fundamental literalist that he should not be reading liberally or believe in the miracles within the bible, he is gone. That or like our Catholic friend here, he starts to cherry pick the hell out of scriptures to the point where a conversation is impossible. They deflect, push foolish context argument and lie in whatever way they can to not lose and argument that they cannot win. Christians are conditioned to believe lies and think the rest of us suffer from the same mental defect.

Religion is too complex to nail down to a purpose as a whole,

I do not agree. All ideologies, be they political or religious, have as the number one purpose the seeking of the best rules and laws to live life by.

All the rest is just commentary if we are to believe the prophets.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about literal reading.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets

Regards
DL

Greatest I am: Christians are conditioned to believe lies and think the rest of us suffer from the same mental defect.
That in and of itself is a mindset, and a very dangerous one in my opinion, because it generalizes a very large group of people. I tend to believe everyone is trying to work things out as best they can. They might not have the right answers - I certainly don't have any answers - but at least through developing philosophical links we can all come up with problems and questions to challenge our own beliefs.

All ideologies, be they political or religious, have as the number one purpose the seeking of the best rules and laws to live life by.
All moral philosophies do that. There are ideologies that, in my view, do not meet that criterion. Science is, in my view, an amoral ideology. While religion is generally a moral philosophy, there are elements of religion that have little moral component, for example hymns. They're just... things people sing. There's usually no commandment to sing them. People just do and don't expect it to make their life better later on.

As for the views of Hillel and the moral philosophy of the Bible, well, I have problems with them as you know. But that's beside the point.

admin: " That in and of itself is a mindset, and a very dangerous one in my opinion, because it generalizes a very large group of people

I see nothing wrong in classing people properly regardless of the number of divisions people try to split like minded people.

This professor does it so I am in good company on this.





All Christians and Catholics, I believe, must swear to the apostles creed and that makes them all people who believe in the supernatural and that is enough for me to class them all as fools, or schizophrenic as our Dr. does in that link.

You have to remember that I am a Gnostic Christian and have no respect for those who murdered my founders and tried to burn all of our scriptures.

Both Christianity and Islam have basically developed into intolerant, homophobic and misogynous religions. Both religions have grown themselves by the sword instead of good deeds and continue with their immoral ways in spite of secular law showing them the moral ways.

Jesus said we would know his people by their works and deeds. That means Jesus would not recognize Christians and Muslims as his people, and neither do I. Jesus would call Christianity and Islam abominations.

Gnostic Christians did in the past, and I am proudly continuing that tradition and honest irrefutable evaluation.

Regards
DL

admin: While religion is generally a moral philosophy,

Have you looked lately?

Yahweh, a genocidal son murderer, is hardly a good source of morality.

Allah, and his slave holding ideology is likewise a poor source of morality.

My Gnostic Christian ideology is of course the nearest thing to a perfect one you will find.

Regards
DL

It has a positive impact if you only consider impact on individual lives, i.e. how religion has sometimes helped some people. Admittedly, it has offered great support, hope and community in certain situations, but those are stories labelled as inspirational and exceptional, not commonplace. Any gathering of good people would have the same effect, it isn't exclusive to only Christian churches. It happens that good people go to churches, but not all churchgoers are good just because they go to church .
In the greater scheme of things, though, I believe it has a negative influence, as it grants excuses for terrible acts (that affect tons of people) to not just an individual, but whole organisations, countries, regions.

O.S.A: Good in what sense? That is a subjective term of course.