runner,
Strangely enough, I was reading something this afternoon that links with your post. It concerned the modern Christian stance of focusing entirely on man and his achievements. It turns away from the natural world to find transcendence....and underestimates the very fragile cyclic substance of nature that nourishes and gives symbol and meaning and to existence.
I'm with Squeers in asking what Christianity ever did for indigenous peoples, except to destroy their cultures without a second glance.
In fact, your post reminds me of the story of the big Australian mining firm that silted up a river in Papua New Guinea, destroying the livelihoods of the local indigenous people, but left them with a school and a hospital...things that they'd done without for millenia. Funnily enough, the one thing they couldn't do without was their river...but there you go...can't argue with progress, right?

Left wing anarchism is what you have, the hatred of everyone and everything; and as it may well be an utter surprise to some here, and that is Atheism.
Australia as far as European settlement was perhaps the less violent out of any in the History of Imperialism, and to romanticize about primitive man in nature is in essence an absurd consideration; people use the technologies of modern time, and the only institution of today that oppresses Aboriginal people is THE STATE; No matter how much pathological lies and absolute denials of the fact. It will never change.

And to answer what Christianity has ever done; It gave you the chance at reasoned civilization; But Atheism killed that notion by fatalistic dogmatism;
It is the same fatalism that existed in Socialist Germany in the pathological hatred for the Jews, Thus exacerbated more so here on this forum with many, Now aimed at Christianity;
Christian Dogma had never harmed or caused any harm to anyone; In fact , it has become more Anti Christian than some of the Marxian Atheists for they had followed the collectivist philosophy and accepted the Mental state of Dialectical Materialism , and near abandoned utilitarian Christian principles of reasoned theory. Just as the Atheistic despots do.

I would have a guess that the Ignorance of many would not actually know what Atheism is, or how it was that for it to come to fruition ; Clearly there is a robotic State indoctrination so spasmodic not even they know what they are saying.

All-

I wouldn't call myself an atheist - merely someone who, like many others is looking for meaning. Afterall, God is the "mysterium tremendum".

The question is how one perceives "God".
For some, that perception is realized in the notion that man is immersed in the natural world - and that this natural world reveals something of God...early Christianity was more inclined to this view of man's position.
Since the enlightenment, man (and Christianity) has viewed nature merely as a mechanistic entity and consequently he has treated nature not as a revelation of God - or meaning - but as something to be exploited for profitable ends.
It's all too simple to denigrate people with false assumptions in order to dismiss their arguments against unfettered progress.

Squeers

'So tell me, Runner, how do you account for the miserable wretches we've made of the aborigines?'

I think you would find that many of the early missionaries vehemently opposed allowing aborigines alcohol. Call it racism but it certainly would of saved many lives and stopped many a woman beating had the secularist not demanded their way. Maybe Christians also largely stopped 50 year old elders taking promised 12 year old girls. Secularism however with its moral relativism seem to have no problem with that sort of behaviour. Showing the aborigines also that some of their practices which would be banned mentioning here were not healthy was probably another good thing.

Funny enough many of the PNG people you refer to Poirot are doing very nicely here in Australia in the mining industry. They are actually extremely thankful to those who sacrificed their own lives to teach these guys to read and write.

My philosophy can be seen in action wherever there are consensual transactions. Nobody thinks we need government departments to decide who should fall in love with whom, how to make a salad, what the rules of grammar should be, what makes art beautiful, nor how best to make socks, pizza, a car, nor how best to shear sheep, grow wheat, make bread or tables or websites.

But imagine if we had a big government Department of Sexual Relations, or a Department of Food. Don’t laugh - it’s no less ridiculous than having a Department of Industrial Relations, or a Department of Water.

When the Soviets tried to nationalize food, the result was mass starvation. Now we have nationalized water, and the result is similar planned chaos, such as NSW Water recently dumping a Sydney-Harbour’s worth of water down the Murrumbidgee during flood times.

The argument is that a society based on consensual transactions produces processes and outcomes that are better in ethics and in practice than ones based on coercive transactions, and in particular, in rationalising the use of scarce resources to their most valued ends.

While the state does provide valuable services paid for by taxation, it is not true that only the state can provide those services, nor that the state provides them better, cheaper or more ethically.

Forcibly confiscating their revenue, or forcibly excluding competition, are no argument, but that’s all that the state has to prove its case – otherwise there’d be no need for force, would there?

We don’t have government “services” because it’s necessary or desirable for the government to provide them, we have them because it’s very difficult to stop people from trying to live at others’ expense using force and fraud whenever they can. The state is a machine for making it safe, that is all.

That is so true Poirot , But the last sentence you wrote is a near word for word for the Atheist Bias doctrine ; It is right because they say so, and any argument against progressives , it is wrong because they are.
And that is where the doctrine dictates to liquidate the dissenters , it is democratic , so it is good. Fatalistic Despotism used throughout history.
This part is more important because of the Industrial revolution. Who can get their hands on the new found wealth.
Marxism 101 Atheism and the self proclaimed God of Progressivism and the modern Mohammad ,Despotism , but under the guise of Science, Often called now days “Progressivism”.
It sounds more enticing than the reality of its dictates , for retrogression is what it is , and is the inevitable retrogression is the end result.

The Irony is that it was of then , as it is now , all the not so well intellectually endowed , and not so well to do , Aristocratic Overly indulgent gentry who proselytises such garbage ; Somehow has morphed to be the new Gods to save the Working man whilst robbing him and enslaving him at the same time.

And we are all meant to feel good about it.