Christianity is a weight dragging all of society down with it

Okay. So we are in agreement that: 1. The "weight" in question is metaphorical, and the actual meaning is that Christianity is overall harmful to society today, with my opponent as Pro and me as Con. 2. That the society(s) in question is the United States of America and the United Kingdom. I thank my opponent for these clarifications, and now we shall begin. First of all, let's talk about the Bible's "sexist" and "homophobic" side. In the Old Testament, God did in fact prescribe the death penalty for sodomy and a man lording over several wives was accepted. In the New Testament, for theological reasons, God no longer prescribed the Death Penalty for sexual sins (for instance, Jesus saved the adulteress from being stoned). This most likely also included homosexuality. For instance, in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, an early church was shown to be guilty of sexual immorality, such as incest. https://www.biblegateway.com... The author wished that they would "put out of your fellowship" the perpetrator (key word not being "stone" or "put to death"). That is, Christians were to ostracize believers who would not repent of sexual immorality, and NOT to kill them. Thus, Christianity does not actually endorse the killing of homosexuals, though it does acknowledge homosexual behavior as sinful. As for the Patriarchal system which you have renounced as "sexist", I disagree. Men were to be the head of family units; this is true. Men have a sense of ambition and desire respect and admiration more than most other things. However, with the occasional exception, women are not like that. "Respect", "reputation", and "admiration" are not generally what women desire most (though they may enjoy being respected or having a reputation of greatness). The sex that pretty much lives for this (that is, men), are the group that gets it. Meanwhile, the needs of women (in general) are addressed in Ephesians 5:25. https://www.biblegateway.com... Now, there might be the occasional woman who says "I don't give a *censored* about being loved; gimme glory and power!", but this is not usually the case. Of course, the rules above apply only within the church, and the outside world is pretty much exempt from its teachings. So if a woman outside the church wants to rule over human civilization, there's no reason to forbid this. And, of course, even within the church there are various interpretations as to what the various teachings of Paul many, with some interpretations being not quite as old-fashioned. Today, even in the church, it is relatively rare to hear people preaching on women not being allowed to speak up in church. In fact, it is possible that the command in question was based on cultural norms and had little basis in outside cultures. Either way, it's pretty ridiculous to assume that Christians in general and the Bible as it is interpreted by most Christians is misogynist in any real way. As for homosexuality, like I stated above, the commands on people not being gay only applies to the Church. Now, I'd like to bring up another issue here: the matter of Christians prohibiting homosexual behavior. First of all, this behavior is incredibly risky to those who partake in it. Though they are not the only cause, the AIDS pandemic of the past several decades would've been less severe had it not been for gay men. Also, widespread homosexual activity and abandonment of heterosexual marriage will likely lead to a decline in the birth rate (which is already below replacement level in some groups in the United States), which is harmful to the country. In that respect, the opposite of Christian teachings is what is dragging this country down (I don't really know about the UK, though the situation is probably somewhat similar there). Still, even if we both were to agree that gay is good and the legalization of gay marriage were to lead to milk and honey and dancing unicorns and rainbows, it really doesn't matter what the Christian Right does in this respect, because gay marriage will inevitably be legalized in all 50 states, likely within the next 5 years. So really, this will soon become a moot point; if gay marriage is good, it will have been legalized and the Christian Right's actions on gay marriage no longer relevant because they'd no longer be performing the bad deed of stopping it. If gay marriage is bad, that would be moot too because the Christians would have failed to stop it, meaning that they no longer perform the good deed of stopping it. Now, let's point something else out: besides merely prohibiting adultery, murder, and the likes (though the murder rule would likely still exist without Christianity), Christians on average give more to charity than atheists. http://www.huffingtonpost.com... Now, an atheist will excuse this by saying that much of this "charity" consists of donations to churches, but the fact is that much of church budgets goes to charities. For instance, take the Catholic Church. Here's a rundown of their budget recently: http://www.patheos.com... Now, despite that tiny portion which they designated charity, it turns out that most of this budget is in charity (since when did running schools and healthcare centers not count as charity? Silly atheists :) So you see, Christians are overall more generous. We're the entire American population to turn atheist, it's likely that charitable giving would decline, despite what the Huffington Post and Salon may say. So...I await what you have to say.