christianity is a force for good in the world

In this round I will start by rebutting my opponent's arguments, and then present new ones. The core doctrines/ Jesus' teachings that my opponent present all but loving your enemy where around well before christianity came into play, buddhism for example had notions identical to these and was founded well before christianity came about; buddhism been founded in 520 BCE to be exact. (1) Therefore if christianity was not around we would still have these teachings without all the extra baggage that christianity carries along with it. On the issue of loving your enemy this is known as compulsory love and is a sick element of christianity and can be seen as a similarity to Stockholm Syndrome. "Love your enemy" is also to say to someone of whom you must be afraid, but you must love him, too. If you fail in this duty, you're a wretched sinner. This is not mentally or morally or intellectually healthy, and is an appalling teaching. Also it appears my opponent wants to take the literalist view on the gospel, therefore he must accept jesus' other teaching such as the one which can be found in Luke 19:11-27 "But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them"bring them here and kill them in front of me."" This is literally authorisation for murder for the harmless crime of non belief and this was used to help justify the 'First Crusade' (2) To the point of Australian run catholic secondary schools, I know that they did run schools I went to one of those schools St Stanislaus College nicknamed the 'pedophile paradise' one priest charged with 93 offences (3). Lets go to these orphanages you speak of where Pope Benedict XVI had to issue a dramatic apology to the victims of decades of sex abuse by Catholic priests in Ireland however, it failed to mention the cases of abuse that have emerged in other countries that have rocked the Catholic Church. Priests in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico and in the Pope's former diocese in Germany have been accused of mistreating children (4). From what I can tell these orphanages and schools are 'farms' for these sick priests to abuse children. Make no mistake the church is a cult filled with pedophiles and virgins whom then have the audacity to tell us how to live our sex lives. When you list groups of christian charities you lead the impression that had christianity not been around these people would not be doing charitable work "If the only thing keeping a person descent is the expectation of divine reward then, brother, that person is a piece of $hit" - Rust Chole/ Matthew Mcconaughey However I to can list secular charities that do work for the betterment of man rather than their own selfish aspirations to convert the people they help: -Amnesty International -Doctors without Borders -DonorsChoose.org -EWB-USA.org -Foundation Beyond Belief -Goodwill Industries. Which unlike their counterpart, the Salvation Army which is an evangelical Christian "charity" that is also politically and socially-active promoting their atrocious religion, Goodwill is a secular organization that runs thrift stores coast-to-coast. The list goes on and on (5). You then go on to claim that christianity is not against discovery or science, I must refer you again to my previous point on Galileo who was imprisoned for letting the world know that the Earth rotates around the sun. Also the church strongly opposes stem cell research the best chance we have in curing spinal problems among many other fabulous benefits. That we know of there is only one cure for world poverty and it can be phased very simply 'the empowerment of women', go to Bolivia, Bangladesh, or Yemen (6) (7) (8). Give women control over their reproductive cycle make them not just the beasts of burden and beats of childbearing that they become, give them the right to get a paying job and the floor will rise in that community it has never failed anywhere (6) (7) (8), against this one solution the catholic church has turned it's back(9), the efforts of the missionary church's in the third world mean more people die not less. source 1. http://www.religionfacts.com... 2. http://www.christianity-revealed.com... 3. http://www.smh.com.au... 4. http://www.telegraph.co.uk... (5).http://freethoughtpedia.com... (6) http://en.wikipedia.org... (7) http://www.economist.com... (8)http://en.wikipedia.org... (9)http://womenshistory.about.com...