Theists have not bothered participating in the analysis. All we've gotten from you people is one or two lines, with not a word of criticism for your own participants. So why bother?

Please say Christian. Just because I'm no Christian doesn't make me an atheist.

What were the objectives of the debate?
Were they met?
If so we have a great success on our hands ..... well done all involved

“Theists have not bothered participating in the analysis. All we've gotten from you people is one or two lines, with not a word of criticism for your own participants. So why
Well I think that smeck did much better than I have in the past with his arguments on the extra-scientific nature of mathematical and logical truth. To those points I might have added that, by and large, science doesn’t cut the mustard on aesthetic (love, beauty etc.), transcendental (by which I mean existence outside of oneself) and, even, scientific truth itself (ever changing hypothesises and theories and the need to accept certain basic assumption). Smeck, however, restricted the ground on which he fought and his argument was all the better for that.
CA had the best response I have encountered to the issue of supposed biblical “genocide”, particularly in the OT; a big thumbs up from me. I would not have made this point nearly as clearly as he did. If I was in his shoes I might have gone on to marshal a series of quotes from the Prophets calling for social justice and berating wickedness. In other words showing that the weight of the text is most definitely not along the lines that Obi, Hitchens. Dawkins et al., proclaim. He was sensible not to do this as the “cherry picking” charge would have been the knee-jerk response from the other side. I might also have made reference to the biblical establishment of an ultimately absolute basis for morality. The Achilles heel of the atheist world view, in my opinion, is the necessary concession to an ultimately subjective moral code.
On a more general level, if I can be absolutely honest, I regretted not seeing a reference from the theist, or come to that the atheist, contributors to the concept doubt. Personally I have always placed myself on the theistic end of the agnostic spectrum. I doubt the existence of God all of the time – one look at the nightly news on TV is usually enough (!). And yet I see the evidence of his work all around me, what is one to make of this mild form of schizophrenia? My take is that I have much in common with the moderate humanistic voices of atheism, many of which we find in our own forum. Indeed, I have more in common with these folk than I do with suicide bombers, the Westboro Baptist church etc., .I also, rather hesitantly (but to hell with it) put forward the idea that some of those atheists who describe themselves as humanists may have more in common with me than they do with the analogous ranting and raving fundamental atheists (or should I say anti-theists) on their flank.

Putin, I will gladly answer your call, though briefly - as a participant in another debate, I don't know how much I should get involved with this thread, and I don't know how valuable these kinds of discussions actually are.

With regards to the debate: I score this a clear victory for Crazy Anglican because he addresses the actual substance of the debate, while Obiwan concedes most of the strongest ground (some of which you've already noted). Obi has many virtues, but staying on topic and getting to the heart of a matter are not among them. Obi does not at any point clearly explain why Christianity is a force for harm, and the sins he lists are not clearly and specifically Christian. For example: Is "genital mutilation" a reference to male circumcision, which both ancient Egyptians and Hebrews practiced, or female genital mutilation, whose origins are pre-Christian and pre-Islamic but which seems to be associated with certain Islamic practices? Obi's focus on certain biblical texts reminds me of people like Ben Stein, who blame Darwinism for the Nazis. And some of the other accusations are, again, not clearly Christian - it's not like women are treated dramatically better in, say, those east Asian countries with limited Christian influence, or were treated more equally in most of pre-Christian Europe.

Going into this particular debate, I thought the discussion would be about CA explaining how Christian misdeeds are not reflective of Christianity and Christian belief as a whole. If anything, Obi takes the fight to ground that's hostile to him. For example: making the matter about, as he capitalizes, CHRISTIANITY as opposed to CHRISTIANS as a force for good in the world simply hands the Christian side, without even trying, the high ground without any dangers of engaging in a No True Scotsman fallacy. If anything, CA goes too easy on Obi.

As to your specifics about why you think Christianity and organized religion are a force for evil: I think this is supposed to be about the debate made, not the debate we'd want made, but: Of your numbered points, I think only parts of 3 and 4 are effective criticisms of Christianity. Censorship is certainly not limited to Christianity, especially outside the United States (and I doubt you'd extend political philosophies like Marxism, Leninism, etc under the umbrella of "organized religions," although those types of governments have been quite censorious). Your criticism of Christ's non-violent "insurrection" and resulting execution by a violent imperial state are somewhere between laughable and nonsensical. Dishonest charities are not limited to Christian ones.

It's true, in some of your points three and four, that some specific Christian misdeeds do happen in the USA. I deny that these result from the beliefs of all Christians, or that it's nearly as big a problem as you seem to believe, but they are there. The problem with this argument is that I don't see how that's clearly worse than non-organized religious societies or secular societies. After all, most of the worst governments of the twentieth century - Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, Khmer Rouge - were explicitly or implicitly secular or even anti-religion (if irregularly). This doesn't excuse the many, many misdeeds of Christian governments or more accurately of governments of countries which were primarily Christian, but it does suggest that allegedly Christian sins are more accurately considered human sins.

That didn't turn out as brief as I hoped it would, but oh well.

Why should the theists criticize their own? CA soundly defeated Obi. Obi kept saying that we should be rational and look at the facts, but it was CA that was rational, calm, factual, well-sourced, and well-argued. Obi kept attacking "Christianity" as he understands it, a highly inaccurate strawman. He failed entirely to address Christianity as it actually is, which is what CA presented.

@Thucy

Do you have my Judgement of this debate? I finally found the one I wrote for Debate #1, but #2 wasn't with it. : /

Yes, fulhamish, there are more coming. Putin and I are going to rumble.

I love it when pseudo-intellectual gits trot out the Inquisition, Crusades etc. when discussing their "issues"(as if simpletons can actually have issues) with Christianity.

Is that ALL THEY'VE GOT?

The entire world was brutal. The powerful monarchs used their varied religions as excuses to plunder.

At times, yes, and at times, no. The Church is run by men. Some men are good, some are bad. To expect the Church or Christianity to be only good is to expect men to be only good.

Nigee, sometimes you show the clearest insights.

Hm abge I will check my email.

Looks like I only ever got the first judgment from you.

OK, I'll keep looking. I remember writing it.

On mapleleaf's point, it does strike me that it does not necessarily follow that just because an atrocity is attributable to a religion's teachings in history that a similar atrocity would not have happened in the absence of that religion or in the place of another.

I tend to think that religion's influence may at times be overplayed from a historical perspective. It was an influential medium to be sure but it was perhaps other historical forces that were more important, and it is almost impossible to say one way or another. I think a historical blame game is very hard to play, though not a waste of time perhaps.

Just a general impression on the framing of the question.

Religion as scapegoat to commit atrocities. Pretty common place. Do you really think Hitler cared about the Jews being "Christ killers"? It was a lame ass excuse for him to persecute and kill his "problem" population.

On the other hand it is hard to deny that religion is a powerful force for dividing people. It's just that, one suspects that in its absence people will find equally powerful ways to divide themselves.

I think the question begs the consideration of counter-factuals, which are almost impossible to objectively consider.

It seems theists have contented themselves not with arguing that religion is a 'force for good' but that it's just as bad or good as anything else.

The fact of the matter is that men have not behaved equally badly in all periods of history. Humanity was more humane, cosmopolitan, and enlightened in the Hellenistic era than it became after the fall of Rome. Humanity once again became more humane when humanism and secularism arose after the fall of Ecclesiastical power in the mid-1700s. To claim that whatever crimes committed to Christianity can just as easily be attributed to anything else is ahistorical and a cop-out. If your ethos is supposedly so great it's not enough to say that you're "just as good" as anything else.

attributed, not committed.

"Do you really think Hitler cared about the Jews being "Christ killers"?"

No but he regarded himself as a defender of Christendom, as did his allies. His speeches are replete with religious language, and it is not for nothing that German soldiers marched with "Gott mit uns" on their belts.

The point, Putin, is that Hitler used Christianity as an excuse. If it hadn't been for Christianity, he would have found another excuse.

"and I doubt you'd extend political philosophies like Marxism, Leninism, etc under the umbrella of "organized religions," although those types of governments have been quite censorious"

Really? I had access to any western literature I wanted in China.

"Your criticism of Christ's non-violent "insurrection" and resulting execution by a violent imperial state are somewhere between laughable and nonsensical."

Laughable? Even in the white-washed version of history that appears in the gospels in order to appease the Gentiles of Rome, his lieutenants are armed at the time of his arrest. It's a historical fact that Rome reserved crucifixion for insurrectionists, and that the two people executed alongside Jesus were called "lestai" - insurrectionists. It's also a fact that early Christians were responsible for setting fire to Rome and other cities. And that while Rome did not have a habit of repressing weird sects (certainly were very tolerant of Judaism), they did once they became violent.

"Dishonest charities are not limited to Christian ones. "

But their dishonesty and coerciveness is particularly egregious. Telling poor people that they can get help if they covert their religion is something peculiar to Christianity.

"After all, most of the worst governments of the twentieth century - Nazi Germany, Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, Khmer Rouge - were explicitly or implicitly secular or even anti-religion (if irregularly)"

You're not going to succeed in depicting National Socialist Germany as secular. They absolutely were not, for reasons I've already talked about. Suffice to say that I don't agree that governments which provide full employment and industrialize their countries were the "worst of the 20th century". You cannot simply analyze developing countries in a vacuum and ignore the negative and abusive role priests and monks played in Russia, China, and southeast Asia.

"If it hadn't been for Christianity, he would have found another excuse."

If it hadn't been for Christianity, the zeitgeist of anti-Semitism would not have existed. It's not a coincidence that the most intensely anti-semitic countries of Europe have been the most devout. Look at, for example, Poland and Croatia today. Whilst the countries most opposed to this attitude tend to be the least devout - see Czech Republic.

It's also a fact that early Christians were responsible for setting fire to Rome and other cities.
This is referring to the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D.?

"Humanity was more humane, cosmopolitan, and enlightened in the Hellenistic era than it became after the fall of Rome. Humanity once again became more humane when humanism and secularism arose after the fall of Ecclesiastical power in the mid-1700s."

This is such ahistorical nonsense I don't know where to begin

No, nazi Germany was not secular. It was pagan.

>>This is such ahistorical nonsense I don't know where to begin>>

they were called the dark ages for a reason.

if you read the bible, you realize that god is cities-destroying jealous angry monster who kills tons of innocents, has a strange amount of hatred toward promiscuous people, and demands total devotion. the people that wrote the bible come from a different time, when reason and philosophy were both not as developed, and not as spread out among the populations

@dipplayer how in the world was germany pagan? it wasn't