re: #222 c6gunner

Horrible example to start with. It has nothing to do with what was being discussed. Whether hospitals were started in the US by churches is irrelevant - hospitals existed prior to that point, and would have existed regardless of Church involvement. Far from listing thousands of good things which would not exist without religion, I sincerely doubt that you could list even one. I welcome you to try - just please, put a little more thought into it than you did with your first “example”.

You’re assuming then that society would have evolved into this modern state without the need for religion on many levels. For the most part society evolved around religion so to venture into a “what if” scenario would have limited results. Religion played an important role in the cultural evolution of man over thousands of years. This is not say that its role was always positive. Regardless, whether good or bad that’s the cultural record.