Why has the church done so little good and so much harm in 2000 years;?

Question

Why has the church done so little good and so much harm in 2000 years, while science has demonstrated remarkable progress in only 500 years? Why is the period when the church dominated western history universally referred to as the Dark Ages, while the period of breaking away from church dogma is called the Enlightenment?

Answer 1

Because the church is a societal institution created by the establishment, and not by God. The church was founded in alliance with the Roman state in the year 325 AD, and it decided to choose Christ's name to designate itself, simply because Christ was so popular, that his followship could not be oppressed. The church took away Christianity from the people to whom Jesus gave it, and built its enormous empire on it. The church became the biggest land-owner whilst millions lived in destitution. This is not to deny the great work that individual men and women did throughout the church's existence. But these were personal sacrifices.

The most bloody crusade against knowledge and the Truth was wedged by the church against the Cathars, who were annihilated by the pope's army in 1244. The Cathars were the most sophisticated and advanced community on Earth, and their only "guilt" was that, like Christ, they were attracting a growng number of followers, and the pope was losing power, as the result. The Cathars taught the original teachings of Christ, and their leaders lived up to them. The leaders lived in humility, and the people lived in comfort, and the church considered this to be a dangerous example, impossible to tolerate.

How did the inquisition and the crusades tally against Christ's teachings?

Even today, how does the roman catholic belief and instructions on contraception advance, or educate, poor countries with overpopulation and an explosion of AIDS? And what did the current pope do to diffuse the tensions in the middle East?

The point here is simple: No institution can ever serve God and those in power at the same time. And it is obvious from the 17 hundred years of the existence of the church, whom this institution was designed to serve.

For more on Cathars, click on "What is Spirituality" and "Rational Spirituality" on the Dhaxem website.

Answer 2

Because of an increase in our desires' development.

Humanity has developed over many lifetimes; first resembling beasts, with desires only for food, family, sex and shelter; then developing through stages of wealth, power, honor and knowledge.

At the first stage of development, desires for food, family, sex and shelter are a person’s only desires. Even a totally isolated individual has these desires and tries to fulfill them. Desires conditioned by society’s influence (desires for wealth, power and honor) emerge at the next stage.

Afterwards, the desire for knowledge appears. Sciences flourish as we set out to discover where everything comes from, to find our roots.

The church posed a framework which once worked, when people had very small desires.

However, when peoples' desires increased; so we see how things became more complicated, as the people involved with church also started having to deal with bigger desires for wealth, power, and honor, etc.

It's not their fault or anything, it's just that desires increased in them, forcing them to do things that some may view as "bad" in order to fulfill those bigger desires for money, honor, and power.

And we can see how the church also changed its framework to incorporate these growing desires.

Then, the desire for knowledge really did sprout about 500 years ago, in the Enlightenment (or you can say, the Renaissance before that). Why did it emerge? Because our previous levels of desire left us unfulfilled, so we started seeking "what more can we achieve?"

Now, science is also reaching a point of its own limitation, discovering that nothing can be said about anything outside of a person's perception, and scientists see their own crisis in describing any kind of external phenomena.

This is now the period where the desire for knowledge leaves us unfulfilled, and more and more people either hold on strongly to beliefs, or end up facing a new, empty space that stands ahead of us.

This empty space is titled by the open questions of "What is the meaning of life?" "Who am I?" "Where did I really come from? Where am I headed?" "Why is there more and more suffering in the world?"

The first stages of the desire for spirituality are sprouting in our area.

Answer 3

The Christian church was an evil, evil organization that only consisted of Catholicism until Martin Luther lead the Reformation, after nearly 1500 years. They believed in superstitions and questioning these superstitions got you tortured, killed, or both. Science was seen as an affront to God by these people. Education was the last thing the Church wanted to see, as they were nothing more than overlords. Even to this day, Catholics arent allowed to read books listed on the Codex of Forbidden Books (which includes anything that remotely questions Catholicism). A mild amount of research will not only verify this, but will also show you how large scale this oppression was.

Answer 4

In 2000 years, the Church has helped bring billions around the world to Christ, and spared them the condemnation of Hell.

Science has saved no one.

It's funny that it is called the "Age of Enlightenment", when the supposedly most brilliant thinkers of the time had decided that all the knowledge of the world that would amount to anything had already been discovered. This has to be one of the most stupid and naive comments that I have ever heard. We will never even get close to discovering ALL of what there is to know on this planet.

BTW, my degree is in chemistry, and I believe in the Big Bang and the theory of evolution. These however are mere mechanisms that happened after the Creation.

Answer 5

The Catholic Church took advantage of their power and perverted doctrine to some extent. Then Martin Luther came along and addressed a lot of these problems. The church has been doing a lot ever since, and some of history's greatest scientists were Christians. Think Newton. Oh, and of course, the Church has been saving souls and performing charitable works for a long time now.

Answer 6

For starters, history is a timeline. The juxtaposition of two events does not mean causation cf. church and dark ages.
Good and harm? Read Tawney's The Rise of Capitalism on what the faith has empowered. Gaze upon the Cistine Chapel or listen to Bach. Acknowledged it was primitive, but for 2000 years the church was society's legal basis and psychological aid. The entire social service sector arises from the church's teachings.

Answer 7

Is it the church and what it teaches or is it man that uses the good the church tries to do to his greed and evil ends that is the problem?

The bible teaches, do unto others as you would have them do to you. Just because some people use the bible to steal and control does not mean it is the bibles fault.

Answer 8

I think you are misinformed. During the dark ages the church kept literacy aalive by producing books and teaching others how to read. The funded schools, hospitals and fed the poor. Without the church and the crusades we would be ruled by the arabs, and we can all see how they are doing....

Answer 9

Churches are like any other business. They only care about making money not doing "good". Don't be scammed. If you're gonna donate any money do it to a reputable charity not a church.

Answer 10

the church has committed many atrocities against mankind, but if you think it has done little good you are narrow minded and need to do more research my friend