1. Not until the power of the Roman Catholic Church was broken during the Enlightenment Era was those things you listed accomplished. It was the absence of theopolitical power that permitted the sciences, such as medicine, to advance. In many cases, such sciences as medicine, architecture, technology, and metalurgy, to name a few, were repressed back to the stone age by your religion.
It is undeniable that Christianity has brought liberty, education, prosperity, health care to people all over the world despite the corrupt leaders who have brought shame to the Church. or try to control people through government and religion. Whenever government gets married to religion it breeds deformed babies.
2. No Other religion has attempted, and nearly succeeded, in the systematic erasure of ancient tradictions, culture, and especially religion on every single continent on the planet save one. Antartica.
Absurd! Granted, many atrocities have been carried along with the “Great Commission” “to make disciples of all the nations” but most of that so called “erasure” of ancient traditions has been through persuasion not violence and the result is that they no longer eat people, cut off heads, rip their skin off or worship stones, wood or animals. Who is to say that the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity were really perpetrated by Christians? We can't say it any more than we can say everything done in the name of Americans was known, or agreed on by Americans let alone allowed in the Constitution. Again if it doesn't comport with biblical principles you are free to continue to blame "Christians" for everything done in their names but you are not free to blame Christ or the bible or ALL Christians. Anyway those people are far better off today than they were or would be in most cases if not for Christians converting them. You are more than welcomed to enjoy your opposing view that they would be better off living as hunter-gatherers in huts instead of houses with witch doctors instead of medical doctors. With oral passed down traditions by tribal leaders instead of the written word and a decent education. That is no doubt your choice to make.
But it’s the “no other” part that is laughable especially in modern days. And doubly especially compared to those who are attempting to murder Christians as opposed to Christians who are murdering others for their religion. Where is that again?
3. Russia killed many NOT because they were Christian, but because they challenged the government. Religion was practiced freely in the early USSR until the Russian Orthodox Church began to challenge the power of the Communist regime. And even after the church was attacked and dismantled, people could still worship in the privacy of their homes. Russia was a horrible palce for everyone, Christian, Atheists, and Jew, becasue of political oppression, not religious oppresion.
Really? That’s not what Christians who have left Russia or have lived through the persecution say. Of course EVERY religion in Russia had a hard time INCLUDING Christianity.
Atheist Persecution of Christians in Soviet Union
YouTube - Atheist Persecution of Christians in Soviet Union
Tajikistan Protestant Church Threatened With Destruction Amid Crackdown Across Former Soviet Union - Christian Persecution
“China killed missionaries, not Christians. Prostylizing, by any religion, is still illegal in China.”
Are you kidding me? Over 40,000 Chinese Christians AT LEAST are in Chinese concentration camps. Many just for possessing a bible. During the revolution they were killed by the tens of thousands simply for being Christian.
“Indonesia is an example of an ongoing war between Christians and Muslims. Christians attack Muslims, Muslims retaliate, then Christians retaliate, et cetera ad nauseum to the point of who started the whole thing has been lost.”
86% of Indonesia’s population are Muslims and maybe 6% or thereabouts consider themselves Christian.
I look around on the net to find where the Christians are attacking the Muslims in Indonesia and its hard to find them but there are numerous examples of Muslims killing or beating or burning Christians.
In fact this is what happens to Christians in Indonesia
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2006/11/islamic_jihad_i.html
Please pose the similar Christian behavior toward Muslims in that country.
“Your "over 100,000" Sudan example is a little over the top, considering the only info I can find, from Christian sources, is seven.”
Actually you’re right. I conflated my numbers with my atrocities. There are over 100,000 estimated chattle slaves in Sudan. There are however way more than 7 who have been crucified. There were 7 in recent memory.
“The several Inquasitions were carried out BY Christians upon the sole authority of the Pope.”
Just read. Like Dylan said. “Know your song well before you start singing”. Crimes of heresy were crimes against the government not the Pope or the Church.
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/madden200406181026.asp
“Considering the two millenia of wars, death, forced conversions, the murder of culture and competing religions, slavery and colonization, and all the other lovely past times Chrisitianity has imposed on the world, Christians hardly have any right to complain about persecution in those FEW examples where they are, indeed, persecuted due solely to their religious preference.”
There is no doubt in my mind that you believe that, and will continue to believe that no matter what you read, or when you read it. Attempting to change your mind by pounding it in a mortar with a pestle into the finest dust couldn’t make it depart from your thinking. That said, I must tell you that your view of Christianity and history has been severely tainted and distorted and very sadly so.
“And the persecutions committed BY the Christian religion continue today in these United States of America. Gays are not permitted basic Equality of Marriage, a Civil Right. We non-Abrahamic Thesits are discriminated against, Muslims are attacked in the streets (right after 9/11 I stopped the assault of a Sihk, fer pity's sake), and there is an active movement in the US to turn this nation into a theodemocracy, at which point what little equality non-Christians and gays have attained will be erased totally.”
OK Where to start?
“Gays are not permitted basic Equality of Marriage”
And you’re going to attribute that completely to Christians? You’re equating a resistance of allowing gays to marry to chopping off the heads of Christians in Muslim nations for worshipping their God?
“We non-Abrahamic Thesits are discriminated against,”
Really? How so? Why haven’t we heard about all the atrocities committed on non-Abrahamic Theists by Christians? How many Christians have gone to jail for all these horrible persecutions so far? Is the media ignoring it for some reason? Sort of like a Christian controlled-media conspiracy?
*
“Muslims are attacked in the streets (right after 9/11 I stopped the assault of a Sihk, fer pity's sake),”
Really? Shakes are Hindu. So where are all these Muslims being attacked in the streets? Why don’t we hear about it? Why do you assume that it’s always Christians attacking all these Muslims in the streets of the USA? BECAUSE ITS NOT HAPPENING OUTSIDE YOUR TWISTED MIND
“and there is an active movement in the US to turn this nation into a theodemocracy, at which point what little equality non-Christians and gays have attained will be erased totally.”
Really? Where is this movement? What are they called? How many in their army? How do they differ from the Christians who started this great nation and ultimately provided for religious liberty for MILLIONS of people here and around the world?
"This entire "Help, help, we're being oppressed" nonsence is an invention by the right-wing conservative Christians in their continuing efforts to gain MORE THAN Equal Rights and eliminate the rights of others."
First of all, the "right wing" is a figment of your imagination. It like your other twisted notions really doesn't exist in the physical laws of reality or outside the minds of those who believe it exists. If it does then I challenge you to prove where this "right wing" is if not merely a label associated with nebulous definitions and nondescript meanings that change not only from person to person, but from day to day, and from region to region because its ALL BULLSHIT imparted into your little naive brain.
Any effort that I see among most Christians is to prevent people from changing what already is and has been into something else and maintain the same liberties they have enjoyed in this country for more than 300 years.
