[Dr. Bobsky]

Originally Posted by Frank777 I nowhere said that other religions didn't do good works, or made strides in public health. It's clear that Moses was educated as a Egyptian Royal, and that education shows in the ways he compiled the Old Testament laws. [Of course, there is much unique to Leviticus that did not come from surrounding societies.]

You're claim was "Christians invented hospitals." Not founded, not advanced, not moved from hospices for the poor to treatment of illnesses generally (which they were not the first to do so anyway). So you're lies (a sin) are pretty clear here.

Look I was trying to be charitable here. You are the one who posted the wiki link to the History of Hospitals, and I thought I was being kind by not posting the very first paragraph:

Perfect. Nowhere does it say Christians invented hospitals. In fact, if you bothered to look further into the article, you'd note that Muslims created the first general hospital. The way this jives with all of the other statements you glommed onto with false hope is that Byzantine hospitals (the ones you call Christian hospitals), were hospice care for the poor as a principle means of proselytizing to dying men. From my standpoint this is kind of sickening, but Christians will love it.

The entire Bible showcases the stupidity and ignorance of man, and I can't and won't argue that Christians have not done some very stupid things. However, I would say that it's important to distinguish actions that are driven directly by Scripture, and those that are simply political actions that use religious belief merely as a pretext.

And when the Scripture's interpretation is subject to modern readings and shifting meanings of words and you do not have the author to guide you with every single literal interpretation you've got to make except by feeling a movement, religious belief as a pretext for political actions is the default. Including anything you might think to claim is spelled out explicitly in the Bible. Even truisms like murder is wrong isn't as far as the bible is concerned.

And anyway, do you read ancient greek, or Aramaic or ancient hebrew? Or are you depending upon stupid and ignorant men to translate original version texts. I know the answer for most Christians, but how is this at all acceptable for folks who take it literally. Which version do you take literally?

As for the last sentence, you should re-read the very end of the Bible again. The Messiah's return ends all war on Earth, not starts it. Men do world wars very well, all by themselves.

And god pointed the way for Israelites to wage wars as well. If you're a literalist, and you believe this is all foreordained, then god starts these wars right there with men.

Understanding ancient historical methods can indeed be a complex business. But modern archeology doesn't write it all off derisively as 'telephone tag', and with good reason.

But it largely does treat oral traditions as having a higher rate of evolution than written traditions. For obvious reasons.

This is hilariously wrong, for reasons I won't expound on now. But I did post links to some of the group support networks that area churches use on a daily or weekly basis to co-ordinate outreach and counselling. Feel free to look into them and see how widespread they are used in cities across North America.

Yes, well done colonising north america and killing off hundreds of millions of indigenous people so you can have church bake sales.

Lol. I understand that government is god to an atheist. But it's amazing to be saying that in the midst of a pandemic, where government incompetence - regardless of country or party affiliation - is directly responsible for the deaths of a staggering number of people.

i think you don't understand the definition of atheism with such a stupid, vapid statement. atheists don't have a god. as far as governmental incompetence: what exactly have the churches done during this time, oh great wise Christian? They certainly didn't bring the vaccines to the forefront. The inventors of the Pfizer vaccine aren't white, or christian. The economic activity catalysed by government programs dwarfs whatever you think churches did. Sure food banks were helpful, but more important were programs to keep businesses afloat so that people can have jobs at the end of the pandemic. We're not even talking about the same order of magnitude of efforts. Not even with the catholic church.

Weren't you complaining about blood libels just a few sentences north of this?

Nearly every major conflict in recent history has had Christians on one or more sides. That is a fact.

Blood libel claims Jews eat Christian children. Which is not a fact.

You again misunderstand the point. It's not that good works don't exist outside of Christianity. Of course they do. I'm talking about the sheer scale of Christian ministry in the world, without any umbrella co-ordination outside of the Holy Spirit, dwarfing everything else. Every city, tribe and nation. Working in every corner of the Earth, without a central government authority responsible for co-ordination. Christianity has been [rightfully at times] criticized for fracturing into hundreds of smaller church families or denominations. And yet somehow, they are working globally largely in unison.

blah, blah blah. Coordination does in fact exist between churches across the globe, but that isn't even the point, the scale of individual good works dwarfs the scale of Christian good works, so... yawn.

As opposed to all those other world religions that demonstrate a desire to be far from power?

At last the truth: it is a detestable feature of Abrahamic religions (particularly Islam and Christianity) to aim towards theocratic states as a given. Religions and state power are entirely separable and should be. Period.

I posted a link above to a book by an Indian intellectual on how Western Civilization was shaped by the Bible. You should look into it.

I don't offer folks prosletyzing their faith any good faith with respect to their motives. The author of the book you are selling here is Christian. He has written several of the polemics about the inherent superiority of his religion. There's no added value that he is Indian. That you added this feature to your description of him and highlighted it again suggests you want to consider him exotic or coming from an outsider perspective. This is not only suspect, it is a clear attempt to argue by authority...

You're arguing that Christianity wedded itself to power and survived. But Roman gods were embedded into the political system and daily life with dissenters being thrown to lions as public sport. And they were still overthrown by a God who told His people to care for children abandoned to die outside cities, and for those abandoned by Roman society and dying in epidemics.

And yet, Christians continued the tradition of tossing non-believers into the proverbial lion pit. So, I don't see your point other than to say that Christianity is a Roman religion, and is in fact the only thing from Rome left. Absorbing gods of Rome into elements of god or as saints doesn't really count as vanquishing the god of the israelites, it's more akin to revising your story to present more options.