Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pucc-h
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!CS-Mordred!Pucc-H:aeq
From: aeq@pucc-h (Jeff Sargent)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.religion
Subject: Re: Why attack Christianity?
Message-ID: <616@pucc-h>
Date: Tue, 27-Mar-84 03:27:33 EST
Article-I.D.: pucc-h.616
Posted: Tue Mar 27 03:27:33 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 28-Mar-84 01:33:24 EST
References: <2624@azure.UUCP>
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center
Lines: 55

> = Jon White

> There is a strange tendency for Christians to view themselves as martyrs
> that are struggling against the overwhelming forces of evil in the world,
> although I think that an objective look at the past 2,000 years of history
> would reveal that Christianity has done a lot more harm than good.

Well....  Christians, being imperfect in faith, sometimes suffer at least a
tactical defeat in their struggle against evil.  One author has pointed out
that "The Spanish Inquisition and the witch hunts in early America are not
the only times that the Devil has captured the very fortress of the church
itself"; in other words, it wasn't Christ or Christianity that was doing
the harm.

> Consider, for example,
> just exactly what things would be like if the Roman Catholic Church had
> managed to hang on to the awesome power that it enjoyed in the middle ages.
> ....  I doubt that any of us would be enjoying the fruits of science,
> because science as we know it would not exist; it would be considered
> heretical and its practitioners would be regularly burned at the stake!

The same author I quoted above (Doug Dickey) pointed out that because the
Bible views the world as real and as orderly, science is possible.  Other
cultures (e.g. Asiatic), not having this view of the world, did not develop
science as the predominantly Christian nations did.  While it is true that
the medieval Catholics impeded the progress of science, Christianity itself
does not.

> So why do I attack Christianity?  Because I don't think that it is necessary
> to have a belief system that is based on nothing more solid than a bunch of
> Hebrew myths....

If it were based on nothing but Hebrew myths, it probably wouldn't be around.
It is based on Jesus Christ.

> By the way, I don't dispute the statement that Christianity has done some
> people some good.  However, I do think that the same results could have
> been achieved in other ways that would ultimately be less destructive and
> divisive to mankind.

And how is the help that was done for me, individually, destructive and
divisive to mankind?  Not to mention that I don't believe that mere
psychotherapy would have done me much good (I tried it).  But Christ's
love has helped me to healing and brought me to greater unity with other
people--even some I've never seen.  Christ has been good to me.  I tend to
agree with a song by Andrae Crouch which says: "If heaven never was promised
to me...it's been worth just having the Lord in my life; living in a world of
darkness, He brought me the light."



-- 
-- Jeff Sargent
{allegra|ihnp4|decvax|harpo|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!pucc-h:aeq
Have you hugged your junk mail today?