What is your opinion of Christianity?

[RFayette]

Above all, it is true. 

[RFayette]

The same as my opinion of all cults: An abusive indoctrination system that has wasted innumerable human lives with its insular delusions and anti-individualism. There were thousands of obscure desert cults in the ancient world, and the fact that this one happened to survive is the only reason why today we treat it any differently from Zeus or the moon goddess Nanna. It is a self-sustaining brainwashing organization that survives by emotionally abusing young people, making them feel as though they only have value as part of a greater community, and transforming them into unthinking, unquestioning followers of doctrine and scripture. The moment that we as a species banish it from our moral philosophy, our lives will be incomparably improved.

If anything, we see evidence that children are born religious and that it is non-religion that requires a self-sustaining system to maintain.  Furthermore, it is unclear that a non-religious society would have incomparably better morality.  Why was slavery uncontroversial in ancient Greece but was abolished due to the efforts of a society - be it in the USA or England - strongly influenced by Christianity? 

[RFayette]

The same as my opinion of all cults: An abusive indoctrination system that has wasted innumerable human lives with its insular delusions and anti-individualism. There were thousands of obscure desert cults in the ancient world, and the fact that this one happened to survive is the only reason why today we treat it any differently from Zeus or the moon goddess Nanna. It is a self-sustaining brainwashing organization that survives by emotionally abusing young people, making them feel as though they only have value as part of a greater community, and transforming them into unthinking, unquestioning followers of doctrine and scripture. The moment that we as a species banish it from our moral philosophy, our lives will be incomparably improved.

If anything, we see evidence that children are born religious and that it is non-religion that requires a self-sustaining system to maintain.  Furthermore, it is unclear that a non-religious society would have incomparably better morality.  Why was slavery uncontroversial in ancient Greece but was abolished due to the efforts of a society - be it in the USA or England - strongly influenced by Christianity? 

I hope you're not implying that ancient Greece was a non-religious society. It was non-Christian, but that's obviously not the same thing.

Sloppy wording, my bad.  My point of ancient Greece was that the moral conclusions we have come to weren’t inherently obvious without an anchor of divine revelation, and there are reasons to believe that Christianity had a large influence on the abolition of slavery and formed the basis of the idea of human rights.  You had less religious groups like the Epicureans that took little interest in the divine, but they still saw no moral problem with slavery.

[RFayette]

Above all, it is true. 

What are you basing this opinion on? Is there any evidence?

There is plenty of evidence - for starters, look into the resurrection.

[RFayette]

I agree with Dr. RI and appreciate that he took the time to make such a detailed post on this matter. 

I would like to add one thing:  the strength of the above evidence is dependent upon how intrinsically probable or improbable you believe miracles are.  Some people, like David Hume, basically take the position that any natural explanation, no matter how far-fetched, is more likely than a miracle.  However, if there are independent reasons to believe there is an omnipotent God that by definition can perform miracles, then the evidence for the resurrection is much more powerful. 

While there are many arguments for the existence of God, I think Aquinas's first 3 ways are the most compelling.  These are considered cosmological arguments and argue that an unconditioned, non-contingent reality with the divine attributes is necessary to ground the continuing existence of our universe as well as the change and cause/effect that takes place within it.  I would encourage people to research more into it - this is a good *introduction* to these kinds of arguments.