Moral and Scientific Objections to Christianity

Apologies for late and short round. I have been busy.Preface I will be addressing this debate from the perspective of unpreferable moral implications of Christianity. I will be taking moral within this debate to regard social behaviors, and general perceptions of acceptible behavior within society. Ergo I will be addressing within this round the utility and harm Christianity causes, rather than whether or not it is 'true'. I may expand in the other direction in later rounds.C1. Christianity hinders moral thoughtChristianity holds numerous moral axions, or imperitives to be true, without any consideration as to the value and socio-cultural impact of such an action today. For example, Christianity often holds marriage to be explicitly between man and woman, and Christianity holds the value of God's grace to be above all else.This is problematic for those within Christianity since it tethers any and all moral thought to their religion, hence any moral considerations necessarily involke their religion on some level. This causes Christianity to lag behind modern moral values, such as modern stances on same-sex marriage, abortion, equal rights for those of different race or even sex. With society progressing towards liberalism, Christianity effectively weighs down society with it's inherently conservative values.[http://en.wikipedia.org...] Christianity as a result slows down moral progress.Furthermore, because Christianity hold to imperitives, or axioms, it consequently stops any philosophical inquiry into the validity of said imperitives or axioms. For instance, is the life of a foetus equally morally important as a fully grown human? Without Christianity a healthy dialogue and investigation would follow in determining what exactly it is about humans we find valuable, whether or not it is qualitative or qualitative, and whether or not a foetus would possess such qualities. Moreover investigation would also consider the present day situation, and the moral values of society at the time. Christianity on the other hand would encourage an all-or-nothing approach - either a foetus is a person/human, or it is not, and ignores all the mitigating factors that may or may not be involved.C2. Christianity entails questionable beliefs/motivationsChristianity by it's very nature holds faith as a virtue, and by definition requires belief in supernaturalism. However both are very much divorced from everyday experience, hence it puts Christians into a position to be more likely to be stock into other supernatural phenomenoa, and to require a lower standard of evidence for accepting claims to be true of a subjective nature. Examples of abhorrent actions, including murder, and other violence caused by a persons belief in questionable supernatural motivations are easy to find.[http://www.qcc.cuny.edu...]Since religion gives an additional authority on the believing person, actions which are made in accordance with one's pre-existing beliefs are more likely to be exemplified. The most prolific example of course are the 9/11 bombings. Christianity specifically has the first four of its ten commandments as explicit commands towards God - 'don't worship other Gods, make idols of God, use God's name in vain, keep the Sabbath holy'. Whether or not God exists is irrelevant to the issue that this 'divine motivation' entails less consideration of the people who exist first and foremost on Earth, and encourages actions purely on the virtue towards and from belief in God.Moreover, Christianity contains the fear of living eternity in hell, hence actions are nor purely taken on the virtue of their actual moral value which we can make a reasoned guess into, but on imperitives motivated by avoiding (their believed) eternal torture. An analogy would be having someone with a gun to your head, who will pull the trigger if you displease them - of course you are not going to act in a manner which puts the interests of your fellow comrades as high as it would without that threat in tow.SummaryOut of time, also I need to sleep. I await Pro's rebuttals,m and will expand in later rounds.