[Wild Fragaria]

I am waiting to see who will be 'Icy-Hot' next

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Sapphire
I find it interesting that the wrongdoings of the church mentioned here are those of the Catholic Church and its offspring.  Hmmmm.

Remember that being a member of a church, doing things in the name of God, and thumping bibles no more makes you a true Christian than playing FreeSpace makes you a true Modder.  Either you believe or you don't... whats the sense of arguing about it?  Its just counterproductive to the cohesiveness of this community.

The Catholic church is simply the best known and documented example; particularly if we're referencing Western europe in the last 5/6 or so centuries.  So if we're examing this period in time, the contribution of the Catholic church will be predominant.  That doesn't mean the bad - or good - can be assumed to be only attributable to Catholicism; we can't even assume these things wouldn't have happened if a different denomination or even religion was the dominant one of the time.

I personally hold the opinion that religion is defined by the believers as much as the believers are defined by their religion.  That's why I wouldn't blame religion for all these things (as people will always have free will); but conversely I wouldn't leave it blameless either.

Belief or rejection of religion is something which is based on a personal and usually unshakeable basis, true; but arguing about it has multiple purposes; it allows us to state our opinions and self-analyze why we hold them, and it allows us to form new ones whether in contention or agreement.  There is no value in any opinion which is left unquestioned or unquestionable, in my opinion.

[Ace]

Originally posted by Grey Wolf
Incorrect. It was Ferdinand of Aragon.

It was Aragon? Oh well.

[Grey Wolf]

Spain didn't exist until his great-grandson.  During the reign of Ferdinand, he was King of Aragon Naples and, through his wife Isabella, King of Castille.

[Krackers87]

uh, except for the minor fact that wasnt it proven a little bit ago, that the number was actualy 656?

we had an article on here about it.

[Grey Wolf]

616. Not 656.

[Goober5000]

Hmm.  I'm trying to figure out some sort of response to Ace's post.

[BlackDove]

He nailed your ass rather hard. You'll have a difficult time trying to break his points

[Ace]

Meh, I didn't have the time nor effort for a real reply if I wanted to truly nail anyone.

Haven't people learned from watching movies? If you have to deal with the supernatural or facists, don't mess with an archaeologist.

My problem isn't with christianity per se, but with certain viewpoints such as Augustinian/Calvinist thought which is unfortunately quite prevalent in the US. Generally I don't have to argue too much with Orthodox types as they generally admit to the incredibly stupid things done and don't try to blame it all on the Catholics.

[Goober5000]

The problem it that I don't have time at the moment to conduct very thorough research on the historical contributions of Christianity.

I do have plenty of first-hand evidence of people doing stuff strictly and uniquely because of their Christian faith.  Whether its accepted depends on a person's legal standards.

1) A friend who went on a short-term missionary trip to India was directly involved in the healing of a deaf man
2) My youth pastor experienced a whole slew of events when he went to ministry school; including having truckloads of food delivered to his apartment when he and his friends had no food at all, plus witnessing his friend healed from a football injury that left him unable to walk without pain for several years
3) Sandwich lives in a country whose inhabitants had been scattered across the Earth and reformed without losing their national or cultural identity - all of this predicted in advance.
4) Not to mention watching many of my friends have their lives dramatically changed over the course of their college careers because of their membership in the campus Christian group.

You can consider me a secondary source on the first two and a primary source on the second two (since Israel exists independent of whether Sandwich lives there or not ).  I haven't yet had the privilege of first-hand observation of a miraculous event, but I hope that will eventually be the case.

EDIT: re archaeology - Do note that archaeology has proven a great many historical facts in the Bible and disproven none.

[Ace]

"Historic contribution" isn't being debated. What was being debated was your assertion that christianity led to technologically advanced societies. Led to positivism. Of course none of these things would matter to a True Believer, and in fact it would be logical to reject them and involvement in 'worldly affairs' to instead lead by an example, groups such as the amish take this route which is much more respectable in my mind.

Inspirational stories are a dime a dozen. You know how many ghettos were saved by islam during the civil rights movement? The passive resistance of Hindus freed their nation from colonialism. Buddhist monks still resist the attempts of the Chinese to colonize and assimilate Tibet.

Belief is a powerful force for both good and ill.

Goober, archaeology proved the existance of Troy. (along with other classical sites related to mythology) Are the Illiad and Odessey true?

Contemporary sources collaberate events such as the Phoenicians being driven out of their land by effectively Egyptian migrant workers. (the pyramids were not built by slaves) This little kingdom narrowly resisted Hettite conquest and wound up selling its own citizens to settle debts with the Babylonians. (Babylonian exile when the oral histories and traditions were written) These types of events are mentioned by several civilizations in historic documents.

The trick is seperating historic fact from myth. While there was a Troy there wasn't a single, epic, Trojan war. While there was an Israel with a faith based off of Akhenaten's Ra-as-single-god, there weren't burning bushes and magical flesh melting Nazi killing superweapons. (unless pesky time travelers... or Neanderthals were responsible. Anyway the only magical flesh melting superweapon I know of was made in 1944ce, not 1944bce)

Of course you're also ignoring the fact that archaeology also heavilly deals with unrecorded history. (late pleistoceine generally) The Middle East these days is a hotbed for finding out about early agriculture and hunter-gathering homo sapiens. Those temples Saddam was etching his name on? Civilizations with written records predating the 6,000 bce creation mark. Funny how more and more people start pushing that back further as opposed to claiming all of Sumeria was made by satan to trick us.

Not that it matters. Bah! Now I see what Harrappa is more appealing. All of the discoveries about early civilizations without the thumpers breathing down your neck to ensure your discoveries fit with scripture.

The Aborigines were right in not starting agriculture. Coersive power structures, god-kings, gods, god, and all of the other evils of the world.

Maybe we'll dig up the old note outlining the move to agriculture with the 10,000 year "Seldon Plan?"

"This Seldon crisis is the creation of revealed religion. Don't Panic."

...and on a more serious note:
You can not prove or disprove a religion. If you can it is no longer a religion.

So please, stop with the urban legend of your faith being empirically proven when it has not and can not be.

That also goes for Scientologists and Flying Spaghetti Monstericists.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Goober5000
The problem it that I don't have time at the moment to conduct very thorough research on the historical contributions of Christianity.

I do have plenty of first-hand evidence of people doing stuff strictly and uniquely because of their Christian faith.  Whether its accepted depends on a person's legal standards.

1) A friend who went on a short-term missionary trip to India was directly involved in the healing of a deaf man
2) My youth pastor experienced a whole slew of events when he went to ministry school; including having truckloads of food delivered to his apartment when he and his friends had no food at all, plus witnessing his friend healed from a football injury that left him unable to walk without pain for several years
3) Sandwich lives in a country whose inhabitants had been scattered across the Earth and reformed without losing their national or cultural identity - all of this predicted in advance.
4) Not to mention watching many of my friends have their lives dramatically changed over the course of their college careers because of their membership in the campus Christian group.

You can consider me a secondary source on the first two and a primary source on the second two (since Israel exists independent of whether Sandwich lives there or not ).  I haven't yet had the privilege of first-hand observation of a miraculous event, but I hope that will eventually be the case.

EDIT: re archaeology - Do note that archaeology has proven a great many historical facts in the Bible and disproven none.

Science has yet to disprove that the Loch Ness Monster is not, in fact, a 50-odd million year old plesiosaur living in a Scottish loch.  It doesn't mean there is one.

Although I guess you could point to the whole genesis and flood stuff as being disproval.  But I'm not sure biblical validity is really relevant to this topic, as it's the effects of belief that count.  Um....

1/ That's not something unique or attributable to Christianity, though.  Your friend sounds a decent bloke, so I'd suggest even if he wasn't of that or any particular religious persuasion, he'd find himself gravitating to that sort of action.  (whether you interpret being a nice bloke as due to upraising, genetics, environment or whatever).  Unless you mean healed by God, which is a very dubious concept IMO
2/ God or luck?  (and doesn't this sort of conflict with the idea of a non-interventionist God allowing 'bad things to happen to good people'?)
3/ That's not really too valid, because if someone knows of a prediction, and then acts to meet it, then it doesn't make it prescient.  It just makes it self-fulfilling - people read it, and believe it strongly enough to (try and) fulfill it.  What I'd like to know is, how many little read predictions go unmet compared to the well read ones?
4/ Most people find life changes them.

In any case, I don't think you can hold religion solely responsible for anything.  To remove the humanity from human action is, I think, wrong.  Moreso, I think it'd be ignoring what IMO ultimately defines religion; their members.

[Black Wolf]

Originally posted by Goober5000
EDIT: re archaeology - Do note that archaeology has proven a great many historical facts in the Bible and disproven none.

Actually, and I'm quoting from talkorigins here:

The Bible contains anachronisms. Details attributed to one era actually apply to a much later era. For example, camels, mentioned in Genesis 24:10, were not widely used until after 1000 B.C.E. (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001).

The Exodus, which should have been a major event, does not appear in Egyptian records. There are no traces in the Sinai that one would expect from forty years of wandering of more than half a million people. And other archaeological evidence contradicts it, showing instead that the Hebrews were a native people (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001; Lazare 2002).

There is no evidence that the kingdoms of David and Solomon were nearly as powerful as the Bible indicates; they may not have existed at all (Finkelstein and Silberman 2001; Lazare 2002).

Moreover, there's stuff like Nineveh being "3 days journey" across (about 60 miles in diameter), even though it was only about 3 miles in diameter when it was dug up. It's accurate in some places, sure, but you'd expect that in what is, more or less, contemporary writing. Plato knew where Athens was, for example.