I am doing a persuasive essay for my English class, and was wondering if someone might direct me to sites that offer support as Christianity being the most detrimental thing to happen to religion/humanity in general.

Hyperion is back in China +4 The God Delusion is great in terms of demonstrating why God probably doesn't exist but God Is Not Great by Chris Hitchens is probably better for arguing the reasons why Christianity and religions generally are damaging to humanity.

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Mr. Black evolution has many intricate workings, one being the "meme" and religion is a very good example, how and idea spreads like a virus.

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Hyperion is back in China Yep, Clever bloke that Dawkins

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Tyrunea Catholic, just for the spirit of debate:

I will summarize things, as I am not in depth enough to the religion to truly know all that has happened, nor do I have enough background history.

But, between the Crusades, The Inquisitions, and all the heretic burnings, destructions, from the Mayans to the Asians... I find it hard to believe they have done anything useful.

I recently started going to Church regularly, and I've been more confused than ever. And I'm not talking Catholics. I am talking THE Church of the middle ages. Inclusive of all branches.

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Tyrunea That is precisely why I asked here Takei =)

Thanks.

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Tyrunea NEVER THE FUCK MIND.

GOD DAMN COSPIRATIST CRACKHEADS

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Tyrunea Still, thanks =)

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Tyrunea I would like to know why I have seen so few examples of other religions starting wars that spanned centuries.

I can think of no other religion that went to war over one bloody city for 500 years!

And that's just the beginning...

So, please, try and tell me that Christianity is not detrimental to the masses of humanity?

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laie_techie The only wars which spanned centuries were the Crusades. There is some debate as to whether Christians or Muslims started them. Both sides kept it going. And how many centuries ago did the Crusades end? There's a reason they are called the Dark Ages.
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I would argue that today's Muslim extremists are more detrimental to humanity than today's Christian extremists. Not even extreme Christians have a "convert or die" mentality.

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Tyrunea "Not even extreme Christians have a "convert or die" mentality."

If you don't convert, you're going to hell.

With Muslims, its convert or die NOW.

Christianity= years of waiting to go to hell.
Sounds to me worse than a die now than a die in 30 years and go to hell after that too.

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laie_techie You're determined to hate Christianity, so there's not much I can do to change that.

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Tyrunea Oh, now who's judging who asshole?

3/4 of my family is Christian, and as I have told Buddha quite a few times, this was a HYPOTHETICAL F*CKING QUESTION.

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Tyrunea SO GO JUMP IN A FUCKING LAKE. BY SAYING "YOU'RE DETERMINED TO HATE CHRISTIANITY, YOU ARE IN EFFECT SAYING I HATE MOST OF MY FAMILY.

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laie_techie First off, nothing was ever said about yoru family. You do seem determined to hate Christianity - but this is not the same as hating Christians (hate the sin, love the sinner). So this was not a slight against your family.
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Secondly, your use of profanity shows a week vocabulary and a tendency to take things personally. You call my chosen religion "the most detrimental thing to happen to humanity", but you burst into vulgarities when I accuse you of hating said religion? And then you couldn't string together intelligible sentences, but used language which would make a sailor blush?
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GROW UP.

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Tyrunea I used Three swear words. of 47.

Not even 1/15th.

If I were to waste the effort on you, I would make a politician blush for my use of words.

Them being Chrisitian is what makes them, them. Alright?
I don't take being called a hater lightly.

How many times must I say it was a hypothetical Christian? I burst into vulgarities because for me, calling me a hater of Christianity was, in effect, saying I hated most of my family.

When I am pissed off, yes, I tend to swear enough to make sailors blush, but when I am not...

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Tyrunea I just picked the topic so the teacher wouldn't yell at me.

However... Thanksgiving break is here, so new topic ftw...! =D

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mrbuddhafreak Your teacher would believe that premise? Scary.

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Tyrunea I can build a logical argument for anything. "Logic" is my favorite weapon :-)

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mrbuddhafreak Could you build a logical argument that Christianity was worse than communism? Mathematics is logical. Count the bodies. Logic has no leg to stand on here.

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Tyrunea A comparitive scale. In numbers, Communism was worse. But Communism didn't destroy hundreds of years of tradition and history.

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mrbuddhafreak Really?? Take a look at Chinese communism. And Russian communism certainly tried. I can understand why people are upset that the Christian Spanish destroyed the Aztec civilization. Those human sacrifices we soooo cool. Destroying the codices is another matter. But the history is still there. It just takes a little more work.

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Tyrunea And far to much conjecture to ever be certain, short of inventing a time machine.

It is not just the Aztecs. Look at the Crusades and the Inquisitions... Christianity's benficiality to humanity is negligible for the masses.

It has so many contradictions and pitfalls for even the wary that there is no truly knowing how it came to be, and if it was meant to ever be interpereted this way.

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mrbuddhafreak The Inquisitions were vastly overplayed. Modern historians who have access to the files of the Spanish Inquisition have come up with numbers that show that over the 160 years that it was active, there were likely under 5000 people executed. And if you think the crusades, weren't about land and economics, you haven't read much beyond what you were forced to read. Even the First Crusade started with a request from the secular Byzantine emperor to retake land lost to the Muslims. So, it was actually a counter-attack. If you really think Christianity's benefit to humanity has been negligible, you haven't read ImaCatholic2's list. He forgot to mention genetics (Mendel was a Catholic monk) and the Big Bang theory (proposed by Georges Lemaître, a Catholic priest). The number of lives saved just by the discoverer of quinine to treat malaria (Jesuit brother Agostino Salumbrino) would be a huge multiple of all of those who died in the Crusades. Still negligible?

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mrbuddhafreak Do you have a car? The first working internal combustion engine was invented by Eugenio Barsanti, a Catholic priest.
Do you think the earth revolves around the sun? Nicolaus Copernicus was a Catholic monk.
It's a pity that what passes for freedom of thought is actually just anti-religious prejudice.

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Hyperion is back in China mrbuddha -
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1633 - Galileo is brought before the Inquisition. Under threat of torture and death, he is forced from his knees to renounce all belief in Copernican theories. He is sentenced to life imprisonment.
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As you can see, they also made hypocrisy into an art form and dishonesty into a science. You are continuing this tradition admirably mrb. 'anti-religious prejudice' my arse.

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Tyrunea Copernicus was probally a Catholic Monk BEFORE he developed his theories. As Hyperion stated... Galileo was forced to renounce the same theories.

Excommunication anyone?

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Tyrunea And "freedom of thought is actually just anti-religious prejudice"

Dude. I was doing this mostly hypothetical, but no-more I think.

I run into this every time I try to debate with a Christian, Buddha.

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mrbuddhafreak It's touching, Hyperion, that you can feel such sympathy for a man who has been dead for over three and a half centuries, even if most of your statement is either inaccurate or debatable. But you would think, that given your present geographical location, in the country where their greatest modern hero was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his people, and where Galileo would quite likely have been sentenced to death and not house arrest if he displeased the government now, not centuries ago, you might have a slightly more charitable view of religious vs. government institutions.
If you really think religion is that bad, please, do stay where you are. Any government that only approves state run religion should suit you well. And it wouldn't be at all hypocritical of you to complain, from where you are, about what was actually an act of censorship against Galileo. Dishonesty? Tibet. Xinjiang. Actors posing as students to meet Obama. Please! Give me a break.

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Tyrunea Touching? Without all those "heretics", the Church would likely have kept us all at a Middle Age level, knowing how they generally hate change and debate (As evidenced by yourself)

Or, we would all be living in a totally Christian society, and this debate would be monitored, and I would be whisked off the a rehabilitation facility or executed.

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mrbuddhafreak Tyrunea, of course Copernicus was a monk before he developed his theories. Many, if not most, of the scientists of his day would have been in the religious orders. Galileo was a full different story, at least as political as religious. And he wasn't excommunicated. He wound up sentenced to house arrest, not a particular problem for a 69 year old many three and a half centuries ago. And you missed the full quotation of what I said. I said "what passes" for freedom of thought. Freedom of thought is a great thing. But if all you do with it is repeat platitudes without evidence, you might as well be Rush Limbaugh or Nancy Pelosi. Have the evidence to prove what you are saying, and I won't damn the messenger. But if all you can do is bring up centuries old history without having an understanding of that history, how can you argue that it isn't just anti-religious prejudice?

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Tyrunea Lets back up to square one:

I asked hypothetically. I had to pick a topic.

I live for debates, regardless of my actual knowledge in there. How often do you think politicians actually argue for what they believe in?

Anti-religous prejudice would be me saying that I hate Christianity for something they did to me once as a kid. What I arguing for is it being the most detrimental thing to happen to humanity, and if I went out and got that info, I could build an enitre list to exemplarize my case. You have done so for yours, and it was eye-opening for me.

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mrbuddhafreak Excuse me, Tyrunea? Where have I argued against change or debate? And if you want to have this debate monitored, you would do best to be like Hyperion and live in an officially atheist country. Rehabilitation facility or execution? Ditto. Show me an example of this in anything vaguely modern Christian society.

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Tyrunea Wow. Did you not read the last comment?

I'm stuck in the damn US, and I'm agnostic, tyvm.

Christian society... is corrupt. I mean, just about every 2-3 weeks, you hear something about another priest who has to be hidden by the church for things he has done.

If I wanted this debate monitored, I'd go have it in school.

However, in school, I can win any debate. Here, I run the chance of losing, which I believe I already am here. Tyvm.

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mrbuddhafreak Tyrunea, I love debates, too. And I've argued positions that I knew were pure bull. But you have to argue from a position of knowledge even if you don't actually believe what you are saying. But prejudice doesn't require any experience. In fact having experiences reduces the prejudice factor (if I was abused by a priest, my dislike of priests would be less prejudice that practical).

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mrbuddhafreak Tyrunea, Hyperion is in China (duh, the name). He can be monitored, and probably is.
Can you honestly say that Christian society is more corrupt than society in general? And check the news a little closer. Your 2-3 week time frame might have been true in the 90s when the whole story came out. But it's not true now. Perception is not reality.

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Tyrunea And I have experience. Most of my family is Christian, but religion isn't my slice of cake. I question things far to often to truly belive something that requires a leap of faith.

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Tyrunea Like I have said before, I debate with what I know and have read. I don't spend the time and go out to hunt up every anti-christian thing I can do.

Society being made of humans, it will be corrupt. The Church made of humans, it will be corrupt. The only difference, I think, is the scale on which corruption occurs.

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mrbuddhafreak I'm not a good Christian (haven't seen the inside of a church since my Mom's funeral). And I suck at leaps of faith. But, I do know, that religion is held to a higher standard than general society when its members do wrong. That is as it should be. But the bar shouldn't be raised when it comes to the good that Christianity has done.
Corruption is endemic in our society. More so yet, in other less developed societies. But when it comes to scale of corruption, politicians have churches beat hands down. Follow the money, follow the power.

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Tyrunea Like I said, the scale corresponds. There are less people in the Church than in Society, therefore the Church has an overall lesser corruption than Society in general. On the other hand, they could do enormous good if they bent the 1/3 of the planets population towards assissting the rest of the world. In a society that they could create with that effort... ha! As if it will actually happen tho... /sigh.

I must go now, dishes to wash.

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mrbuddhafreak Enjoy the dishes, which reminds me of the laundry.

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Hyperion is back in China mrbuddha:
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"It's touching, Hyperion, that you can feel such sympathy for a man who has been dead for over three and a half centuries" - What are you talking about? I simply that stated the facts concerning the imprisonment of Galileo. Sympathy isn't the issue.
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Continuing the theme of bring up things that are not the issue though - your rant about the Chinese government is irrelevant as far as the subject that we were supposed to be debating is concerned. We were actually talking about Christianity.
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While the Chinese is govt is certainly oppressive in many respects, this is also true of many govts, past and present. The Christian church is supposed to be better than that. It's supposed to be the moral voice of charity and compassion. When it commits atrocities, when it's run by power hungry despots and when it sanctions burnings and murders; a valid defense is not to compare it to the Chinese govt in 2009. This is intellectual dishonesty, pure and simple.

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mrbuddhafreak Comparing the Christian church of 350+ years ago to a current government that claims to be a "People's Republic" is hardly intellectual dishonesty when the whole premise being debated is " Christianity being the most detrimental thing to happen to religion/humanity in general."
One would hope that in comparison with 350 years ago, virtually any church or government would show much improvement. So in using the crusades (700+years ago), the Spanish Inquisition (300+ years) or the the religious/political/scientific trial of Galileo (350+ years) as examples to show that Christianity is the most detrimental thing to happen to humanity, it begs, that if it isn't, what is? Could it be a political system that murders it's own people in uncountable numbers? Not normal even 300 years ago. Media censorship? So 18th century! Political prison camps in the 21st century? Just freaking sad.
If you can show that Christianity has been worse than communism, feel free.

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Hyperion is back in China mrbuddha: You're getting wrapped up in your own argument.You made this comment:
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"Do you think the earth revolves around the sun? Nicolaus Copernicus was a Catholic monk. It's a pity that what passes for freedom of thought is actually just anti-religious prejudice"
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I pointed out that Galileo was imprisoned for life by the church and forced to renounce the Copernican ideas that you cited.
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Your response to this was to go into a rant about the government of China. Not because I was supporting or defending it but because I happen to be working here at the moment. It begs the question what your response would have been if I had been working in the USA or Europe. It's not very good logic is it.
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For the record though, in my opinion the most detrimental thing to have happened to humanity in general is rule by dictatorship. Specifically where an individual has obtained a position of authority over a group of people who have not elected that person.
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It's not communism or fascism or religion per ce, it's the person in the top position that's the problem. The Catholic church is the longest surviving dictatorship in the world today as far as I know. The nasty extra element that the church has is it's threat of eternal damnation of the soul for dissenters. At least the evils of the communist dictators only lasted for the duration of a persons lifetime.

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