I'm sure you are, Dan S de Merengue.

>>I'm happy for you to tell me why this isn't so<<

But it is your theory, so perhaps it would be polite if you first told me why you believe that it is, as you say, so.

>>Pericles, I thought Berg's article was fairly well supported for one of its length<<

I choose to disagree. The throwaway line that human rights are somehow "drawn from God" is entirely unsubstantiated.

>>That you say he doesn't offer evidence for his contention makes me recall the question raised by Mark Duffett earlier, 'Pericles, did you even read the article?'<<

As I said at the time, yes, I read the article. And I agree with its thrust, which is that a discussion of world history would be incomplete without a reference to Christianity.

What I did disagree with, and the reason I joined the discussion, was the idea that Christianity was somehow uniquely influential, and was not simply "background radiation", so to speak. And, of course, your own stirring-of-the-pot assertion of...

>>...the profound influence Christian thought had in the development of Western science. At it's heart, our scientific pioneers had the confidence to search for the physical laws inherent in the universe as a reflection of the mind of the universe's law giving creator.<<

Which went way beyond anything that the author claimed. A bridge too far, both then and now.

>>But your view of history seems particularly blinkered where God or Christianity is concerned.<<

In what manner does that differ, if I may ask, from your own view?

Simply 'background radiation'. That's all?

Yep.

>>Simply 'background radiation'. That's all?<<

Taken for granted.

So Pericles, if I try and clarify your position,

If you were writing the history curriculum to cover the last Millenium or two, you'd declare the particular influence of Christianity on Western society as simply 'background radiation',  negligible, something close to zero, nothing more than the sun which evenly radiates over the entire world, and that the particular aspects which charicterise Western society were not at all specified by its dominant religion? 

Personally, I wouldn't call the influence of the sun on our planet "negligible", Dan S de Merengue.

>>...negligible, something close to zero, nothing more than the sun which evenly radiates over the entire world<<

I'd say that the sun was pretty much essential, given that our planet would be uninhabitable by humans without it.

However, I would not for a moment suggest that it equates, in any way, to Christianity. The Earth managed pretty well without that particular religion for quite a few years. The absence of the sun over the same period, on the other hand, would have had a more significant impact on our lives. Or lack of such, to be more accurate.

So I'm not entirely sure how that example could possibly help clarify my position.

The sun does of course have an impact on our climate. Which in turn has had an effect upon the way in which the various civilizations have developed. I'm sure you would agree that European civilizations could well have taken a different path had they, say, experienced the climate - and consequent vegetation forms - of central Africa.

In short, while we do indeed experience a form of radiation from the sun, I certainly wouldn't classify it as "background".

Cosmic radiation, on the other hand, is omnipresent, and very much "background". Exactly how it has affected human lives over the years is impossible to tell, because it is not something you can turn off, in order to see what might happen.

Like Christianity in the period under discussion, it is part of the environmental furniture. We can only speculate, in both instances, whether life would have developed differently, or identically, in its absence.

And your speculation is, of course, equally as valid as mine.

But it is still only speculation, is it not?

Unless you can answer the question, what exactly are "the West's particular lines of thought [that were] supplied by the West's dominant religion". In which case we might be able to use that answer to identify Christianity's impact on history in a more constructive manner.

Pericles,
We're not speculating. We're looking at history; looking at what actually happened. Specifically, what happened in the West.

To your question about Christian lines of thought and their impact on the West, this was dealt with to some extent in much of Berg's article. That you ignore it is what makes me and Mark Duffett ask you whether you read the article, and makes wonder what else you're willing to ignore. 

Christianity was the dominant religion in the West. Its impact on our culture was clear and conspicuous, to some degree measurable, especially in comparison to those other cultures whose histories were different.    

To say it's as ineffectual as some background radiation is a rare and probably extreme opinion that I would say could only come from someone strongly prejudiced by atheism, and is out of step with more moderate atheists such as Berg.