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Debate Info

114
86
Christianity, mostly to blame. Islam, mostly to blame.
Debate Score:200
Arguments:154
Total Votes:321
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Argument Ratio

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 Christianity, mostly to blame. (74)
 
 Islam, mostly to blame. (65)

Debate Creator

Warjin(1577) pic



Religion is hurting Humanity.

We Would Literally be Colonizing Space. OR

I get so sad,  every time I look at this graph, I sit back sometimes and wonder what human technological achievements would we have reached if it wasn't for the religion plague.

As you can see religion set us back a 1000 years in scientific advancement.

Christianity and Islam are to blame, now I am sure other religions played there part but for the most part those two religions were mostly to blame. They are the ones that went on a massive 1000 year crusade vs each other and the rest of the world, burning down libraries of knowledge collected over thousands of years and are responsible for crippling humanity in the name of God.

I place the blame on all religion but those two are at the top of my list, I will not rest until I see those religions wiped off the face of this earth, I can not longer see humanity suffer due to the backlash religion has caused on the progress of us all. 

But for the sake of debate who do you think is more to blame if you had to pick one, yes, yes they are both to blame but who do you think hindered humanity most though history?

Christianity, mostly to blame.

Side Score: 114
VS.

Islam, mostly to blame.

Side Score: 86
3 points

Islam actually helped scientific advancement after the fall of the roman empire.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
3 points

False dichotomy. You're presenting data concerning the impact of the Christian dark ages on science; but presenting only "Christianity" and "Islam" as your options. In lieu of the data you've presented, your options should have been limited to Christianity (i.e. "Christianity is to blame" vs. "Christianity is not to blame".

In response to THAT question, I would say that Christianity is NOT to blame because most of the major scientific advances of the time were in fact made by members of the Christian clergy. Add to that, even at the peak of the dark ages, science continued unabated throughout the rest of the world.

You might also find the work of Jim Al-Khalili, an atheist and theoretical physicist of interest. I would particularly urge to you look at his BBC documentary, "Science and Islam" as it might help you to get a better grasp of the material and theoretical sciences.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Sitara(11080) Clarified
1 point

What is a dichotomy ?

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Taqwacore(668) Clarified
2 points

A "false dichotomy" is an attempt to draw comparisons between two things which are totally unrelated and to which no real comparisons can be made.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
ChadOnSunday(1863) Clarified
0 points

You're sitting at a computer. Presumably your computer has the ability to access google.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Warjin(1577) Clarified
1 point

The reason I didn't present "Christianity to blame vs Christianity not to blame" is because everyone with a evolved homosapien brain knows they are to blame.

I also wanted to shed light on how Christians were not alone in the intellectual raping of humanity, Islam played a major role as well as other religions, besides it makes for better debates to put a Christian vs Muslim.

Islam did indeed help science but so long as it didn't contradict God, and that's almost everything, they did however make contributions to mathematics.

Islam was notorious for burring many scientific advancements that might in any way beg to question Muhammad as the profit, so just like the Jesus freaks they played the "pick and choose game" with what they deeded as science and because so we missed the boat on space travel by 1000 years.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Taqwacore(668) Clarified
1 point

"The reason I didn't present "Christianity to blame vs Christianity not to blame" is because everyone with a evolved homosapien brain knows they are to blame."

That's a very poor reason and it belies your emotional reasoning. Please be sure to use logic and reason in future debates, especially when you are creating the propositions.

Thank you.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
2 points

Great chart. I feel like handing it out at churches on Sunday.

I'm only on this side due to power. Christianity has more of it historically and so has been able to cause more damage with it.

They are fundamentally the same thing though. Had Islam been the dominant religion in Europe the Dark Ages would have had Islamic Crusades. If you moved a bunch of fundamental Christians from the U.S. to the Middle East tomorrow, in a decade they would be planning how to fly planes into the "great beast's" buildings.

Both religions believe they have a divine right to the earth. Both believe they have some calling to make others think like them. Both are afraid of advancements in society because it clashes with their faulty and primitive world view. Both worship a god who is vengeful and violent, no matter what they claim their religion actually stands for.

You cannot teach either religion to a large number of people and expect that a large number of those people are not going to be as violent, vengeful, and discriminating as the god their religion is based on. You just can't do it no matter how much you try to modernize the religion.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
2 points

This debate is not for the people who feel that religion hasn't set us back. So i don't approve.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Lynaldea(1231) Disputed
0 points

As opposed to what?

Let's assume Christians did set "us" back.

Where do you believe we would be now had Christians not been existent?

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
Quocalimar(6470) Disputed
1 point

I mean religion in general did not hurt humanity, not just Christianity or Islam. There are tons of religions fighting with one another, to try to say one of the two held society back more is not only wrong but it's racist.

Humanity has will always have been set back in that time, if not by religion then by some other force. Maybe laziness maybe a new discovery of something that they would have tried to work on to no avail for the entire length of that time.

The way this debater posted this debate is why I posted what i did on both sides. it's racist and it's wrong.

What's to say, if any religion held humanity back, that it wasn't Judaism, Buddhism, Scientology, Catholicism, or one of the various cults that pop up every now and then.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
warrior(1854) Disputed
1 point

A bit farther back than ware we are presently because Rome would have still been sacked by marauding pagan Barbarians but this time there were no monasteries to hide certain archives in so the language was lost we would have had to create a whole new one as a-posed to just relearn the current one and of course the roman 12tables where lost so no republics sorry and roman architecture would have also been lost so no concrete.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
1 point

Mars would already be colonized (probably just scientific and mining? colony, something like that, but still). Actually I think some moons orbiting Jupiter could have some small science outposts also. What a loss.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Warjin(1577) Clarified
1 point

We would of reached space travel in the year 1000 according to the graph, a shame indeed.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
warrior(1854) Disputed
1 point

I know damn pagans burning down Rome destroying all that knowledge. At least the Catholic Church was able to preserve some peace's of Roman knowledge so we could begin to rebuild.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
-1 points

Aw how cute.

You verify this based upon mars colonization and the "what if".

Yet you claim the "what if" of other peoples, is invalid.

Hypocrisy much?

You dom realize science is chasing the magic dragon, right?

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
1 point

I love medieval history, but there are so many things that make me want to puke, such as the 'pear of agony' which was used on gays and adulterers. The medieval muslims were cool. They had algebra, medicines and other amazing things. Things flipped a little, as they do.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.

Christians are so SAAAAAAAaaaaaaaavage, they didn't rape enough kids!

Cheers ;)

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
1 point

If not for Islam, even more of the world's knowledge would have been lost than what already was. Especially after the fall of the Roman Empire, and the decline of the Byzantine, Muslim scholars were basically solely responsible for the preservation of much of the ancient world's knowledge, including that of the Greeks and Romans. Muslim scholars also contributed significantly to scientific and cultural growth, both by their own invention and spreading the ideas of other empires from around the known world. Christianity, meanwhile, has basically been good only for untold millions of deaths, countless wars, a drastic decline in science and knowledge just for the sake of keeping the Church in power, and the spread of hatred and bigotry far more than what Islam has spread.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
0 points

Contributions of Muslims:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_contributions_to_Medieval_Europe

Contribution of Christians:

Observatories.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
3 points

This debate is not for the people who feel that religion hasn't set us back. So i don't approve.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
2 points

Sure, blame religion.. easier than looking for the real causes and reasons. I think a lot of things hurt humanity, and you can't put the blame solely on religion.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
1 point

Islam is definitely more idiotic and violent than christianity, there is no contest.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
Sitara(11080) Disputed
2 points

This is the biggest load of uneducated bullshit I have ever heard in my life! Christianity is the bloodiest, most hypocritical religion in existence. Christians have owned the most slaves, started the most wars, stolen the most pagan holidays, oppressed the most Jews, and oppressed the most Muslims. And here I thought you were too smart to buy into their bullshit propaganda. Pfft.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Del1176(4974) Disputed
0 points

I would like to repeat the first sentence of your dispute back at you. That is all.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
warrior(1854) Disputed
-4 points
Warjin(1577) Clarified
1 point

That's a tuff call, Christianity is just more evolved now days, but a few hundred years ago Christianity has done stuff that would make the baby Muhammad cry lol.

They do say that Islam is about 500 years behind Christianity in terms of religious progress so that might be the reason Islam seems more violent today, but Christians today are just as violent but they just do it more under the political radar, like letting a country and it's people starve that won't convert to Christianity.

Today most Christians wouldn't blow themselves up in the name of Jesus but they have in the past went on suicide missions for there cause many times throughout history.

Overall me personally I think Christianity hindered human progress more.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Del1176(4974) Disputed
2 points

Read the Qur'an then read the Bible.

The New Testament Bible is an elaborate storybook as is the old one. The Qur'an is a psychopathic Arab's irrational rants.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.

Islamics are more violent then Christians, Usually when Muslims take over a governemnt the Muslims will do just about anything they say.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
1 point

Real mature guys. Who the fuck keeps down voting me huh? Be a man and come forward.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
1 point

I say we blame no one just in case one of them is real and I do not get cursed for eternity

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
1 point

Guys, can you really blame it on the religon? People use religon as a powerful pretense to justify their actions. While christians may undoubtedly have done the most damage, that's just a number made by people, not religon. Right now. it's the Islam, and maybe these people actually believe. Of course, then there's the question if our technological advances are actually a good thing.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
0 points

So instead of debate me I see you Guys chose instead to down vote all my arguments well I suppose that is one cheap way to move your team ahead when you can't stack up against certain opponents head to head. Men you guys are pathetic.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
Cuaroc(8829) Disputed
0 points

So instead of debate me I see you Guys chose instead to down vote all my arguments

Just returning the favor.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
0 points

And can some body tell me since when did Jesus own a gun huh? Guns didn't even exist back then. My god you atheists you make me sick some times.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
0 points

Okay this chronic down voting needs to stop. It doesn't matter who started it its gotten out of hand. Truce?

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
-1 points

On yeah who's just down voting instead of debating now Quaroc you little bitch.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
-3 points
Cuaroc(8829) Disputed
2 points

Islam has done more harm than good

Far from true Islamic cities were far more advanced then european cities during the middle ages.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
1 point

down voting instead of disputing now warrior?

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
-3 points
Cuaroc(8829) Disputed
2 points

true but islam has done far more in the advancement of knowledge after the fall of rome.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
1 point

down voting instead of disputing now warrior?

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Warjin(1577) Disputed
2 points

I wouldn't know I have never read up on anything about the language, so you might be right but that's still besides the point, you act as if the Catholics didn't save language we would all be today making grunting sounds like some cavemen, bottom line is we would of created another language, not only that you act like the European languages was all the world knew, how about the thousands of other languages though out the world.

Also you do know America is not all European decedents right?

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
warrior(1854) Disputed
0 points

I'm saying western culture would have been lost and not just Latin but the idea of the republic, roman architecture including concrete, the roman laws and court system, and thousands of years of history.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.
-5 points
Warjin(1577) Disputed
2 points

I hope you know the Catholic Church was the masterminds behind the dark ages, if there where ever a organization that withhold science that would be the Catholic's.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
Pithy(22) Disputed
1 point

Oh Warrior, do you ever google anything?

PagAn barbarians ransacking Rome and destroying most of its knowledge:

a) Most of that knowledge WAS Pagan: Socrates, Plato, Virgil, Homer, Heroditus, Cicero, Pliny... all Pagans, great christian thinkers prior to the fall of Rome, erm... nope, drawing a blank.

b) The Pagans looted Rome only for gold & valuables, they did not go after the libraries, nor did they set fire to the city. The serious book burning was left to the christians, and later the Arabs (see 'destruction of the great library at Alexandria')

c) English is not derived from Latin, it is a Germanic (pagan at the time) language, such latin-root words we do have were imported from French with the Norman conquest.

d) The Latin Alphabet... developed by pagans.

e) As for your monks writing books (largely christian works, they destroyed all the pagan works on astronomy, mathematics...) at the time of the Roman empire literacy was near universal, the christians on the other hand, jealously guarded literacy and kept it within the church rather than teaching everyone to read and write.

No the vatican was not the first observatory (where do you get this bull?) that was Baghdad, if you discount stonehenge, various greek and babylonian sky gazers etc. etc.

Side: Christianity, mostly to blame.
warrior(1854) Disputed
1 point

The pagans set fire to the city and that destroyed the library's. and yes most of that knowledge was discovered by pagans so what the pagans also destroyed it google isn't always right.

Side: Islam, mostly to blame.