You get that both Easter, and Christmas are pagan holidays that Christianity usurped, right? As is Halloween. I'm not sure that should be used as a positive influence. Basically Christian theocrats criminalised, and persecuted non-christian religions out of existence. yeah...that was positive. As for art, culture, and philosophy, you should ask Miguel de Cervantes whether he thinks that Christianity was a positive influence on art. The Church used art as propaganda. Nothing more. Just as Hitler commissioned art, in the form of posters, to create propaganda. So, unless you want to suggeswt that Hitler inspired art, your claim is not really accurate. As to culture, and philospohy, I think many imprisoned philosophers during the middle ages, who were imprisoned for their "heretical" ideas would also disagree with that claim.
I find it interesting that da Vinci, and Raphael were included in those great artists that Christianity was responsible for, as both were repeatedly censured, and, in the case of Da Vinci, imprisoned for the very art that they created. It should also be pointed out that while, yes, the Church did create universities, and colleges, it should be noted that they were not the cathedrals of learning, and advances that the article seems to be implying. Copernicus, Keppler, Cecco, among many others were imprisoned, and worse for putting forth scientific theories that conflicted with Church teaching. so, again, trying to portray medieval
Christianity as a supporting influence of learning is more than a little disingenuous.
Again, 'strongly influenced' is not the same as "positively influenced". I won't get into the question of abortion, as I suspect we would have very different opinions on that topic, so let's just agree to leave that one alone, shall we? However, condemning birth control? Really? As far as marital infidelity, or incest, I would submit that Christianity was not necessary for those condemnations. Moving back to the present, I am clearly not a Christian, and I think marital infidelity, and incest is a bad idea. However, I would also submit that The Church didn't have quite as much influence there, as one might think. Want evidence of that? Look at the family lineages of nobility in almost any nation in Europe. Purity of the lineage seems to have been much more important than any ickiness of incest. And men, particularly among the nobility, were quite unfaithful. They were often ******* more than their wives. Hell, in Scotland, the nobility even enjoyed what was known as primae noctis - the right of a Lord to **** your wife, on the first night of your wedding. Yes, that was actually a thing, and it was quite common. So, yeah, not real sure how influential Christianity was in preventing either infidelity, or incest. On the other hand, I would agree that Christianity did have some positive influence on social justice during the medieval period.
How adorable that the article does briefly mention that, yeah, the Church has done some bad stuff, too. In conclussion, yes, the article you cut and pasted has demonstrated a few positive influences Christianity has had on Western Civilisation. However, because of its clear bias, it gave Christianity credit for having positive influences that were clearly not positive, and it glossed over the negative influences from the same period. So, would I conclude that the positive outweighed the bad? Not based on this article.
I also find it amusing that when I asked you to list some of the positive influences that Christianity has had, you were, ultimately, incapable of doing so, and had to go look up a rather biased Wikipedia article to do it for you, while I was able, on my own, with my own intellect, scholarship, and experience able to rattle off numerous examples of Christian atrocities. Rather says a lot about your ability of independent, original critical thinking.
