Has Christianity Helped the world, or hurt it?

I'd be very surprised if a single person in the history of manking has treated an animal with respect, for the sake of someone telling them that they should be treated with respect.

 

Can't we say the same thing about the opposite things too? I bet their have been many who were inspired by what books have had written and decided to change themselves for either better or worse.

Even so, the question was more of whether Christianity has helped or hurt it and probably whether it teachings these things.

Edit: On second thought, that was your answer for the question. I apologize for getting ahead of myself there.

 

Zep's right. A question like this is going to be hard to answer since judgment is so subjective. Also Dale Carnegie comes to mind: there are two reasons anyone does anything; the good, moral reason (which they give you) and the real reason (which serves them).

No doubt Christianity - and every other religion - has been useful for good men to further good causes and evil men to further evil causes.

Christianity doesn't claim to change the world; it claims the world is going to Hell. It instead claims to change people. You'd have to make a judgment of its truth or effectiveness from that, from the people who've had a true change of heart and accepted it as it asks to be accepted. And you'd have to weed out those who only accept its truth superficially. Good luck sorting between the two. The only real way to judge Christianity is to become subject to it.

 

No, I think not
It seems to me that a (one) religion cannot help the world, it can only support those who (as any other religions may do) have a faith of comfort.
One only has to look at the impact of; well meaning, missionaries had on the indigenous native communities that they encountered. For me, each of us has our own desired choice of faith. It is to ourselves that we must be true - meThinks

 

I think heaven distorts right and wrong.
If you keep 'being saved' in the back of your mind as you help others, you're thinking, i'll help this person and go to heaven. But if you don't have that thought, you don't believe in heaven, you help because you want to help.
Christians will say, i won't rob this bank because i'll go to hell. Atheists will say, I won't rob this bank because it's a shite thing to do.
Not generalizing, obviously i don't mean every single person, but i'm just giving an example.
And with all the fucking wars over religion, it's ridiculous. The idea of God and Christianity is to be peaceful but you're here killing under his name.
Though many violent and shitey things are in the bible, so i guess it makes sense to kill for him. He kind of asks of it to be done, doesn't he?
Religion can be a help personally but at a worldwide point it fucks many things up.

 

Amen on the wars for religion.

No, he doesn't ask it to be done for him. Looking for a literal fix to spiritual problems is a sign of useless faith that leads to Hell. Recall that when Jesus was arrested to be crucified, Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant. Jesus rebuked Peter and healed the servant. And when Pilate questioned Jesus, Jesus said his world had nothing to do with swords and armies. "My kingdom is not of this world."

And the idea of christianity is to die to the material so that you can live to the immaterial.

 

True Christians have always and in many ways made the Earth a better place to live.

 

Questions like this are so hard to deal with because people calling themselves Christians come in so many varieties and are thoroughly human. Freeman Dyson, physicist and Christian, observes;" The main point of Christianity is that it is a religion for sinners. Jesus made that very clear." He didn't come to preach to the choir.

Could you find a more dedicated environmentalist and animal rights lover than Saint Francis of Assisi? Many Christians find a duty of stewardship in Biblical teachings about the earth and its bounties. Slash and burn farming is neither a Jewish nor a Christian innovation. Some theologians find in the word nephesh in Genesis as a testimony to the unique value of each and every one of God's creatures. As for all those wars, most of the great wars of the past three centuries and even in ancient times had nothing to do with religion. And as for those Christian and atheist non-bank robbers alluded to in a previous post, surely you don't seriously believe that all or most Christians refrain from robbery solely or largely because they're afraid of going to Hell, while all or most atheists refrain from it out od the goodness of their hearts.

I tend to agree with Dyson: "Religion tends to amplify the good and evil tendencies of individual souls." But besides intolerant fanatics, we have Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King. In churches, synagogues, and mosques, good people are collecting money for charitable causes and helping to take care of widows and orphans. I know an atheist organization that is doing this too. We welcome the competition! It's probably impossible to keep a balance sheet on this sort of thing, and it's probably more productive to be the best people we can be.

 

Being the best we can is a full time occupation.
Helpful in any instance is a matter of timing.

 

Morality and truth stand on their own. The problem with religion is it tries to codify truth and morality into human language, an imperfect, un-evolved, subjective system of communication. The objective of religion isn't bad, but its a human system and subject to the innately skewed bias of human perspective.

 

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Some more of this, please.

 

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How do you get banned after four posts?