Should Christianity be put on trial for all the "crimes" it is guilty of?
The practices cited here were not introduced by Jesus Christ.
Although many were introduced by Yahweh, Who is JC's dad, or, if you believe that way, JC's better 1/3.
Actually the evil practices listed by bilby were not introduced by Christ or by Yahweh. These are just some bad things people or societies have done. The main one listed was that of neglecting to do standard medical treatment on a child, because of religious belief or superstition, and so causing harm to the child in many cases.
And this is just a standard evil in virtually every society since "the dawn of history" or since the beginning of any medical practices, long before Abraham or Jews -- probably going back more than 10,000 years ago. It is silly to blame something like this on Judaism or Christianity. Just because a certain evil is also practiced in a Jewish or a Christian society does not mean that Jews or Christians are to blame for the existence of that evil practice.
This simple truth refutes everything bilby lists here as some kind of argument to debunk Christianity. These evils did not originate from Christ and are not something peculiar to him or to Christianity, and so have nothing to do with any supposed "reason to reject Christianity" but are just complaints that can be thrown at any culture or any religion, because all cultures and religions and societies have some elements of mistrust toward their medical establishment.
There is no standard orthodox scientifically-proven medical catechism which is always right and cannot be doubted. And all of them are and should be doubted, and there's no reason to give total obedience to any particular medical establishment as having the absolute truth for every patient or for every health condition.
There has never been a society or culture or religion where there was not some resistance to medical treatments promoted by the current medical establishment. Sometimes it was good to reject mainline medicine and seek some alternative (or no treatment at all), and other times it was a bad choice.
When the subsequent event after rejecting standard medicine is a good one, no one complains. But when things turn out bad subsequently, some self-righteous fanatics pounce on the ones who made the decision and accuse of them of some crime or wickedness, even though those same fanatics would say nothing at all if there had been a different result. It's all Monday-morning quarterbacking.
And often the medical establishment cannot prove that their treatment would have produced a better outcome. Rather, they just condemn someone's decision from hindsight when the outcome is bad, and preach that they would have produced a better outcome, which they cannot prove. In some cases, the evidence would give good odds in favor of mainline medical procedure. But in many cases it's a toss-up, and the decision-makers cannot be faulted, because there was no way to know for sure what the outcome would have been.
There's plenty of unhealthy things straight out of the bible . . . The harm doesn't stop there! We can move on to the harm of the cult of virginity, of celibacy, of misogyny, some would add circumcision . . . of supremacy, oh, the list can go on and on in ways the Christian church and its jewish forebear are harmful.
All of those predate Christ or Judaism. You can't blame (or credit) the Bible or Judaism or Christianity for something that was already happening earlier and so was not introduced by them.
All of those predate Christ or Judaism. You can't blame (or credit) the Bible or Judaism or Christianity for something that was already happening earlier and so was not introduced by them.
Exactly. It is so unfair to blame the Third Reich for persecuting Jews, when people had been persecuting Jews for centuries.
No, "people" generally were not persecuting and gassing and exterminating Jews prior to the Third Reich. How many millions of Jews were exterminated by France or by Russia or by Italy or Spain etc. prior to the Third Reich? What the Third Reich did was not simply a repetition of what had happened earlier, but much worse. If the same thing had really been done by "people" generally and "for centuries" prior to the Third Reich, there would have been no Jews at all left in the world by the 1930s because they would all have been wiped out.
So again, you cannot blame Judaism or Christianity for the practices listed above because these practices were going on just as much prior to Judaism and were not introduced or increased by Judaism or Christianity.
Is there "collective guilt" for some crimes?
And this isn't to say we can't blame collectively, or impersonally, a religion or philosophy or cult or political party for an evil practice it didn't introduce itself but was practiced by some of its members. Any such group could be blamed for an evil practice, PROVIDED:
1) this group increased the evil practice considerably beyond what was the case previously; and/or
2) the evil practice is the exception rather than the rule in most societies/cultures, or has been done by
only a few societies/cultures, rather than many, so that this group being blamed is almost unique or singular, or distinguished, in its engaging in this practice.
But if it's a common evil practice, done in most or all societies/cultures, then you cannot single out one of them and blame that evil practice on that one society/culture.
The evil practices in the original list (top) are ones going on universally in all societies/cultures. So the mere fact that these practices happen also in Jewish or Christian societies is no basis for blaming them on Jews or Christians. Just because you name some Christians who refused medical treatment doesn't show any necessary connection between Christianity and this practice.
However, persecuting Jews can be blamed on Nazism even though some similar behavior happened in previous societies/cultures, because under Nazism this evil practice was greatly increased, and also this is not a normal or universal practice throughout most societies/cultures, so the Nazis were almost unique or singular in doing this. It is a distinguishing feature of Nazism, not just something incidental to it which it adopted from past culture.
While the evils listed (top: under
"It can hurt. It can hurt a LOT.") are only
incidental to Christianity or Judaism; they are not unique or distinguishing features of Judaeo-Christian culture but are common to all cultures.
You can't blame (or credit) the Bible or Judaism or Christianity for something that was already happening earlier and so was not introduced by them.
Only the originator of an idea is to blame for carrying it out. Murderers should all be set free, . . .
What "murderers"? Who should not be "set free" for what? No one has been locked up for what we're talking about here. How can someone be "set free" if they haven't first been locked up? We were not talking about individual blame/punishment for someone's personal acts or crimes, but about blaming the whole group or collective for what only certain individual members of the group did. And no one has been locked up for this, so how can anyone suggest that they be "set free"?
If you blame or punish the entire group, or the belief system -- such as Christianity or Judaism -- rather than individuals, you have to mean that this group introduced the criminal practice or taught it uniquely, so that the members took up this practice as a result of the group teaching it or introducing it to them, like "contributing to the delinquency of a minor," or the delinquency of a parent in this case.
But no such group or belief system has been prosecuted and locked up for this crime, and so smirking about someone wanting them "set free" makes no more sense than suggesting that a Marxist like Harold Laski (British Labor Party) should have been "set free" as not guilty of mass murder crimes committed by Mao or Stalin.
The obsession with blaming the group or the ideology, such as blaming Christianity for some wrong medical choices, as in the bilby listing of evils above, would mean that Marxism (and all Marxists?) are to blame for the mass murders committed by Mao and Stalin. This blaming-the-group obsession would have to blame those mass murders on Rosa Luxemburg and Harold Laski and other Marxists. (I had at least 2 college professors who were Marxists -- they should be prosecuted for the murders done by Stalin and Mao?)
Isn't there a difference between blaming an individual for a personal act and blaming that individual's ideology? We should somehow punish (not "set free") that belief or religion or political party, perhaps by prosecuting every member of it, for what certain individuals did? Are all Marxists to blame because of what certain bad people did in the name of Marxism? and likewise all Christians for something bad a few Christians did?
Murderers should all be set free, because people have been committing murders for centuries before they decided to do it.
What "murderers"? Who should not be "set free"? The website sciencebasedmedicine.org which published the above list of evil practices is just as guilty as Christianity of this "murder" that is going on, i.e., of parents "murdering" their children by refusing some medical treatment to them.
By this logic, there are many "murderers" out there who need to be locked up (or not "set free") who are running around loose: In addition to Marxists, who are all guilty of mass murder in this sense, what about
evolution scientists who are guilty of eugenics crimes committed by people who were applying Darwinian natural selection theory in order to perform some selective breeding to produce better humans. Aren't all evolutionists just as guilty of these eugenics crimes as Christians are guilty of encouraging believers to reject a medical procedure?
And what about the mainline doctors who perform a standard medical procedure which backfires and kills the patient -- should those doctors be punished (not "set free") for "committing murders"? Why aren't they just as guilty of "murder" as the parent who turns down a medical treatment (and the child dies) is guilty of "murder" and has to be punished? It's only because the outcome is so bad (the patient dies) that you call it "murder," and yet this also happens in some cases where there is standard treatment and the patient dies, and so why isn't that doctor who did the treatment also guilty of "murder" for the same reason?
What has sciencebasedmedicine.org done to end these evil practices? Nothing -- these practices are still happening, so sciencebasedmedicine.org is just as guilty as anyone else of these "murders" because it has not stopped them from happening.
The practices listed above, falsely blamed on Christianity, can just as easily be blamed on bilby or on sciencebasedmedicine.org or on the Girl Scouts. There's no more connection of those evil practices to Christianity than there is to the Girl Scouts, or to Disneyland, or to a bowl of mush. Millions of people refuse standard medical treatment, for themselves or their children, and whatever they're connected to -- their religion or their political party, any belief system they have, or their hobby or favorite food -- can be blamed for their decision to "murder" their children (i.e., electing to forego some standard medical procedure).
You can't just grab any evil in the world and then lash out at Christianity and say: See, Christianity didn't end this evil practice, so it's guilty of this crime and should not be "set free" from punishment for this evil practice.
When you blame people or their belief system for some evil or crime, you have to show a special connection between the evil and the entity you're blaming for it. You have to show that this entity, i.e., Christianity, did something unique or singular to help cause this evil. The practices named in the bilby list have no unique or special connection or causal connection to Christianity.
Just because the ones listed happened to be Christians doesn't mean there's any connection to Christianity, because there are plenty of people who refuse standard medical care who are not Christian. The list could have been skewed to name only Hindus or only atheists or only Scientologists or only Humanists or only Sagittarians who refused medical care.
Standard medical practice kills far more people than those killed by wrong medical choices by a Christian, like the cases in bilby's listing. When you add all the accidental deaths in hospitals and all the overdoses from medically-prescribed drugs and all the botched surgeries that killed the patient, the total number of patients killed by practitioners is a vastly greater number than those killed by refusing standard medical treatment, like those refused because of religious reasons.
So this "reason to reject Christianity" is also a reason to reject standard medicine.
How is the belief or ideology of a wrong-doer guilty? The criminal's ideology is guilty and should be prosecuted? not the individual who commits a particular criminal act, but his religion or ideology? meaning what? everyone who shares that ideology should be convicted for that criminal act?
If their religion or political party had introduced "murder" as a practice for the first time, or had uniquely encouraged this practice and caused it to increase beyond what had been the case previously, then maybe you could partly blame their religion or political party for their crimes. But the evils noted in bilby's list and blamed on Christianity and Judaism were not introduced or encouraged by them or made worse by them.
And similarly, didn't atheism "hurt" those millions of peasants murdered by Mao and by Stalin? So yes, atheism "most certainly can, and does, hurt." So wag your finger at all of today's atheists and preach at them about all the suffering they caused when their fellow atheists in China and the Soviet Union murdered all those peasants.
Which is the worse crime -- to withhold medical treatment because you believe it won't work as well as some alternative, and the child dies? or to butcher millions of peasants/farmers in order to promote your agrarian reform measure based on your atheistic philosophy?
How much guilt do today's atheists feel for the crimes committed in their name by their fellow atheists Stalin and Mao?
And "Humanists" are also guilty of these crimes, because Karl Marx invoked "humanism" in his writings as the basis for his Communist system. So, according to bilby, all humanists are guilty of the mass murder crimes committed by the humanist Marxists Mao and Stalin.
