If there is anything that undermines personal dignity and integrity, it is Christianity and its dogma that mankind is inherently damaged and that we are all “fallen” — even though the human genome project has proven that Adam and Eve never existed and that there was no “Fall” and hence no need for a Messiah.
Yep. The Christian narrative is false, and its implications are degrading.
Seriously: Has Christianity contributed anything to ethical thought besides Original Sin, the claim that we’re all, innately, no damn good? If so, I can’t think what it might be. The Golden Rule certainly preceded Jesus, and Confucius dismissed turn-the-other-cheek centuries before Jesus’ birth.
I’m probably tedious on the subject, but Nietzsche’s identification of Christianity’s threat to healthy life seems to me to hit the bullseye.
When the centre of gravity of life is placed, not in life itself, but in “the beyond” — in nothingness — then one has taken away its centre of gravity altogether. The vast lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all natural instinct — henceforth, everything in the instincts that is beneficial, that fosters life and that safeguards the future is a cause of suspicion. So to live that life no longer has any meaning: this is now the “meaning” of life … Why be public-spirited? Why take any pride in descent and forefathers? Why labour together, trust one another, or concern one’s self about the common welfare, and try to serve it? … Merely so many “temptations”, so many strayings from the “straight path”.
The Antichrist, §43.