christianity is a force for good in the world

I am pretty sure that Doctor Evil (1) would say that the Catholic Church gives evil organisations a bad name. Evil organisations do not ask for forgiveness, Evil organisations are not made up of individuals that sacrifice much of their life for others. For all their power and influence the Catholic Church and the combined Christian Churches are punching well below their weight in the evil organisational stakes, so much so that they do immeasurably more good than harm. Before I go any further, I will point out that the topic of this debate is not whether "Christians have done bad things"; it is whether "Christianity is a force for good". Like any 2000 year old group that has and continues to consist of billions of individuals it will have some blemishes but that still doesn't negate the fact that it's primary focus and outcomes are positive ones. I will not defend the churches actions it has apologised for and asked for forgiveness. To do so would justify these actions which they dare not be justified. The Catholic Church may have an issue with condoms, but this must be tempered with the fact that they have a much more failsafe preventative suggestion, that of abstinence, which has been shown to be the most effective way of remaining STD free. It is quite disappointing that critics of the church's stance on sexual matters do not realise that one of the main reasons for these restrictions (and many others) are for infection control, and these were well in place thousands of years before our knowledge of bacterial and viral biology was known. It is illogical to suggest those in Africa will not wear condoms because of a Papal decree, yet then ignore the even larger transgression of extra marital sex. The truck drivers who are having sex at truck stop brothels are not forgoing condoms because of the pontifications of the Pope. Many Africans believe AIDS prevention is the white man's ploy to stop the local population from having more black children by wearing condoms - The President of South Africa infamously down played the extent and existence of AIDS to the detriment of his citizens. (2) The Catholic Church in this instance are putting forward a solution to manage the issue that has proven to work by those that follow its guidance - they should not be deemed evil for the poor choices people make when disregarding this advice. Whether some of Jesus' doctrines were in existence in Buddhism or original in thought is irrelevant to whether they are a force for good or not. Buddhism didn't make its way to the west for many centuries after 520 BCE, so these doctrines would not have been able to be taken advantage of by the general populace who had no access to Google. As far as baggage goes, you only bring along what you choose to. Christianity is pretty simple, your sins are forgiven, don't sin anymore, be excellent to one another. The other options to loving your enemy is to hate them, to resent them, to bear a grudge towards them - all of which require negative emotional energy that stops you from moving on. Forgiveness is the key and has been scientifically proven to provide better health outcomes for those that do it. (3) I would consider it very unwise to interpret a parable to justify killing someone - especially if it goes against the grain of the rest of Jesus's teaching. The parable of the minas talks about Jesus's return and not about our interactions with other faiths in the interim. It is also not a central element of Christianity - if it was the indiscriminate killing of non-Christians for being non-Christians would have been undertaken consistently over the last two thousand years, and this has not been the case. We were tasked to spread the good news, not to slay as we did so. Western democracies that have a Christian heritage are the most free and open societies in the world where freedom of religion is enshrined in their constitutions and bills of rights. Sexual crimes committed by the clergy are appalling and unfortunately mirror what also occurs in secular society. Molesting children is not a Christian doctrine and reflects the imperfect nature of humans rather than the values of the Christian faith. Not to justify these actions or downplay their impact on the victims involved, but it would be remiss to not point out that in the USA alone Christian schools educate over four million students. So rather than the picture my opponent paints of a school boy smorgasbord, Christian education benefits millions of children each year. This education is so highly valued that parents without strong, if any, religious beliefs will send their children to these schools to obtain what they perceive as a better educational outcome for the children. There is no question that non-Christians can do good, but that is not the topic for debate. Christianity motivates people to do good deeds as can be seen the countless institutions they have established for this very purpose and the millions of people and clergy that volunteer, are employed or manage these institutions. That being said, if we look at some of the secular institutions that my opponent has listed and look at the background of their founders we find that their founders are: -Amnesty International - Jewish -Doctors without Borders - Jewish -Foundation Beyond Belief - Christian (4) -Goodwill Industries. - Christian (established by a Reverend no less) My opponent is right; the list does go on and on. My ironically favourite is Foundation Beyond Belief as it has been set up by a Christian who after viewing the collection plate going around at church realised that atheists did not have the same opportunity to give as Christians did. Not only are Christians motivated to do good, they are motivating and facilitating others to do the same. Although Amnesty and Doctors Without Borders were founded by Jews I have included them in this list as Christianity was also founded by a Jew and they share much in common. Christian establishments both teach and treat women, Christian aid agencies provide small business loans and aid to women. Also two of the countries that my opponent listed, Yemen and Bangladesh do not even have a statistically sizable Christian population. This suggests that a lack of Christian values is likely to be the very cause of the gross inequalities and destitution that these countries have encountered. The great thing about providing education to women is that it enables them to make their own informed decisions and destiny, and this is what we see throughout the world as women are given this opportunity. To put things once more in context I will revisit the fact that at least a quarter of all health facilities around the globe are managed by the Catholic Church alone, let alone other denominations. So at least a billion people are dependent on Christian supplied healthcare - this figure then grows further when you include all of the secular organisations that were established by either Christians or their Jewish doctrinal relatives. Christians may oppose stem cell research, not due to its scientific basis, but its ethical basis. Science does not speak to ethics and it is up to members of the population to speak up when they believe it has crossed the line. There are a lot of medical practices that can be justified by scientific grounds, e.g. the forced sterilisation of those of marginal intellect in order to improve the gene pool - but it doesn't necessarily mean it is the right thing to do. My opponent has repeated his argument in regards to Galileo, which was an ignorant response by not only the church but also the scientific and philosophic community, who did not appreciate the challenge of the scientific understanding of the time. Galileo was a Christian himself and was educated in Christian institutions. His discoveries still stand to the benefit of us all. If it wasn't for these inputs from the Church it is doubtful that he would have come to the discoveries that he did later in life Despite its hiccups along the way, Christianity is an undeniable force for good. 1. http://en.m.wikipedia.org... 2. http://en.m.wikipedia.org... 3. http://inspiyr.com... 4. http://en.m.wikipedia.org... 5. http://en.m.wikipedia.org...