Hiya Fluffy,
You offered:
Some general points/rebuttals:
1) Many people seem to attribute particular historical events to Christianity and form a conclusion from this.
Yep. And...rightly so.
There are two problems with this sort of reasoning. Since scientific progress is an example that has been brought up regularly in this thread, I will use it to illustrate these two problems.
Cool. Things that might be examined by means of reason and methodology.
Firstly, often the person hasn't formed the view of Christianity from the particular event but has already got a view of Christianity and are then finding events which could, when looked at from that point of view, be used to support that view.
OK. Personal bias [most] likely influences a rationalized opinion. Check.
This is circular and can be identified if the person merely makes the claim but fails to back up why they feel Christianity is the dominant factor and, especially, if they are unable to identify any other possible factors.
Hmmm. Could you cite a relevant example?
Why? Because it indicates that they haven't even given the issue sufficient thought to identify any.
Again, likely...but not a forgone conclusion.
Many people have claimed that Christianity has stifled scientific progress but failed to justify why they think Christianity is the dominant cause of slow scientific progress.
If "someone" were to claim that Christianity is/was the
"dominant cause of slow scientific progress...", then that
someone might feel compelled to support that claim with "justifying" evidential "proofs" [against].
Perhaps it is enough to observe that Christianity has never been either friend or advocate of scientific discoveries/revelations/conclusions...especially when those
insights suggest (or confirm) that deities or theistic claims are
essentially irrelevant (or otherwise nonessential) to naturalistic "explanations" that present an equal or higher level of plausibility/acceptability as evidential fact...vs.
any "faith-based" claim.
It might be true that Christianity did do this but without a justification that dismisses other factors and installs Christianity in this position, it is a broken argument.
Or, to parrot a more popular axiom, "
Two wrongs, don't make a right".
But...equality of
error should
not suggest equality of
legitimacy.
Secondly, even if we identify Christianity to be the cause of a particular event, we have no way of knowing whether the event would have occurred anyway had Christianity never existed.
Indeed. Speculations upon whatever "might have been" tend to ignore (almost by design) present day realities.
Even if the event is particular to Christianity (e.g. Papal dominance of Europe) there is no way to tell, without an incredible amount of information, whether a sufficiently similar enough event might have occurred anyway (e.g. dominance of Europe by a similar political structure). It is not valid to infer from the way things are to the way things would have been.
Such is but one focal distinction of idealism versus rationalism.
In the case of scientific progress, we have no way to tell whether other causes would have led to a similar period of scientific slow down or even whether there is a period in the future in which scientific slow down would have occurred if Christianity had not existed.
Perhaps not.
We can only wonder upon the potential "top speed" of any car that has no brakes, and is driven only to achieve a maximum velocity. One may rightly quibble as to whether the "destination" is of greater value/worth, than the associated risks and pitfalls that may accompany such unrestrained speed and direction...
(In the broadest sense, "Do the ends justify the means?". Is scientific insight/discovery/revelation inherently dangerous, or just potentially so? If I can build a really fast car--faster than any other car ever even conceived--should efforts be extended to prevent or dissuade such a mechanical manifestation from attaining fruition? The question is then "why?", or "why not?". Should human knowledge, or it's associative capacities of realized achievement, be subject to purely ethical/moral protestations alone? t what point may reason be allowed to prevail over objections presented by faith-based beliefs, or doubt, or ignorance, or fear?) .
However...it's hard to realize any destination with enhanced alacrity when you are trapped behind a vehicle purposely driven to slow it's ongoing pursuit.
Christianity may not be particularly effective in suppressing human innovation, but it has labored tirelessly and purposefully to inhibit human implementations of insight, wisdom, and inspirational revelations.
2) Many people have only identified the direct affects of Christianity without analysing the extent of the interweaving web of events that every aspect of Christianity has influenced over the course of 2000 years.
Then it would only be fair to ruminate upon the directly manifested effects that Christianity has managed to deflect, confound, or inhibit within/upon (predominantly) scientifically-derived conclusions. We can look "backwards", and speculate upon the prospective impacts upon modern medicine in the absence or MRIs, X-Rays, genetic DNA comparisons, or sanitary hygiene. We could just look to the "evidences" of "miraculous healing" instead. Faith as tool of evaluation, legitimacy, and measured breadth of challenge to a more comforting religious dogma...
In fact, many have assumed that history would have stayed roughly the same minus whatever events they attribute directly to Christianity. This is simply a highly inaccurate hypothesis.
If Christianity were removed from history, then
that world would have deflected and divested itself from this one well over 2000 years ago. That "time", is a very long time for things to change and we really have no idea what the modern world would like other than that it would not be anything like it is at the moment. We just don't know whether that is (or would conclusively produce either) a
good thing
or a
bad thing. "Things" would certainly be
different. Fair enough to assume that all reasoned choices produce and present their own unique challenges and obstacles to face and overcome.
I but argue that mankind's perspective (on whole) need not be reliant upon faith-based appeals to emotion and unsupported claims (of divine interventions/concerns, or "miracles") to effect more determined choices and more consistently desirable results/outcomes. Instead of "praying" (hoping) that 200,000 homeless American veterans might find a hot meal and warm shelter tonight...we can act (now; today) to effect both essentials of human dignity to those that deserve them most.
WE can act to affect direct and immediate "positive" changes.
3) Many people have confused "net gain" and "net loss" with "positive" and "negative". A net gain would be a set of positives and negatives that Christianity brought into the world which, when considered together, created a world that was greater than any other possible world. People have been very good at identifying what they see as the positives and negatives of Christianity but they then make the faulty assumption that they might legitimately make an assumption on the net gain or loss from this information.
I must concede that my drawn conclusions are (predominantly) predicated upon prospective evaluations of resultant gain/loss. This may be an inherent flaw resident within my own capacities of reason.
Indeed, I self-identify (politically and philosophically) as a
liberal "
progressive". I prefer to operate upon the assumption that unrestricted opportunity and unchained intellectual inquiry present the very best perspectives upon which to confront the unknown, the unexpected, and the unexplained (or unanswered/unchallenged). Within my own cognizant capacities and reality, I will never be satisfied by any "answer" that (at best) tenders a facile yet insistent fulmination of, "
God Did It".
Maybe "He" did. All I know is that we are left to pick up "His" dirty socks on the floor; since His only
promise is "
I'll get to that...one day...soon".
I only know that don't possess the requisite faith to accept
any faith-based conclusion as being reasonable, rational, or as offering any scintilla of acceptable "truth".