Is Christianity a force for good in the world? I think so

lol pog

My personal opinion on the matter is that Christianity can be a good force, fundraising, good spirits and helping others but recently it has become a weapon used by political parties, and that I disagree with. so it really depends of which way you see the quick red fox jump over the big brown fence. <3 hope that helps.

Thank you for your insightful replies, besties. XDXDXDXD lulz : ))))))))

I think it is a force of good, and the decline of Christianity will inevitably correlate with an increase in degeneracy and indulgence is what I think. As ancient Greek philosophy would call it: people will follow their lower desires, instead of their higher ones. The 7 Christian virtues include the 4 already existing virtues in the ethics of Aristotle, which he thought to be the key components to a good and happy life (not just for you, but for others around you as well).

Christianity is definitely a force for good in the world (I'm not even Christian). 

Christianity, like other religions, is not a monolith; it consists of many diverse ranges of cultures and people, so asking if Christianity itself is a force for good is not a good question.

Its the most popular form of judaism; with atheism coming in second followed by islam. 

Nope, religion poisons everything.

I think the decline in Christianity is showing truly how horrid of a theism. It in history has been used for a lot of hate and lies, for example the incorrect translations of the bible. Translated by those who had an idea of the language, but not enough to correctly translate what was written. Christianity has never been a "force of good", pressing the religion on those who want to practice their own and putting them to death if they didn't follow the religion, no good.

Atheist/former Christian here. I like this question. it's very interesting to think about and discuss, so i'd like to give my personal insight. I would like to start off by saying that I do not care what religion you practice, but it should never by any means be forced upon others or used to spread hate, which brings me to my point.

depends

depends

depends

Do you think we'd lose something if we abandoned Christianity?
No. 

Do you believe Christianity is a force for good in the world?
No. If Christians God created earth and our lives, he is an evil God. Why? The way life is constructed. If he wasn't evil we would have perfect lives,  but we suffer.

Desire,
Attachment, 
Pain,
Reproduction,
Addiction,

..and more, are all very big problems of our lives.
The cycle of desire is evil.

-> Need something -> Work for it -> Replenish -> Need it again

And the cycle continues
Death is our escape, a perfect paradise elsewhere

If your God is said to be real, there is no way you can believe he isn't an evil God.

If he wasn't, we would have perfect lives in a perfect paradise

Look around yourself and tell me thing's aren't horrible

We have so many issues and if your God is real he wouldn't have made our lives so hellish

Here are our issues:

Desire,

Pain,

Struggle,

(Negative) Value,

Opinion,

Attachment,

Indifference

Shall we start with desire

It’s a deprivation, a need, and not having it; that void. Desiring something is like valuing  it without having it. Creating a dissatisfaction

People say “You can obtain it though” True, but you don’t instantly have it, it’s not an unlimited source (and you struggle to obtain it). It’s an endless desire, an endless need for something, a craving or an addiction, meaning it’s a game you’re playing, for example you’re almost like a hamster in a wheel, it’s the value trap of life, you always struggle to obtain something you need.

It's a cycle

Using -> Work -> Struggle -> Obtain -> Replenish -> Need of more -> using...

The eternal cycle

Struggle

Struggle is the process of obtaining a value, like working, or walking somewhere, or even cleaning your room

So, why is bad?

It prolongs that feeling of emptiness. rather than having it automatically, which you don’t and never will 

You work for almost everything you obtain, and if you didn’t work for it you or someone else struggled to bring it in your life, either way it’s a struggle and a process to fulfill that temporary void and it leaves you in  a cycle of working, struggling, obtaining, using

(N) Value

Pretty much the stuff you don’t desire upon yourself

Ex: losing a limb, pain, etc. 

Negative feelings

Impermanence 

Indifference is not being able to change your circumstance you don’t want

Despair, powerless

Value / Attachment

Everything you value you will lose ( ex. Loved one, precious items, etc. )

I believe by not reproducing, we would prevent these events from happening

You are attached to the things you value therefore making it fall under the category of attachment or just very similar ( ex. You stay loyal to things you care about (value), If you truly loved it or valued, you would give it up for the value

And now.. for our eternal and paradise state..

Death

Death is a valueless state

Which means you don’t suffer at all, or feel pleasure, a neutral state of being.. 

That’s the bliss of death

No struggle, no desires, no indifference, no attachments, no values or N values, nothing, But death isn’t actually nothing, because nothing is everything; nothing does not exist. There is always something, when you die, you don’t just disappear (this has nothing to do with spirits or souls transcending into ghosts) it’s a blissful state of not needing or wanting anything, that’s paradise, THAT is heaven

Depends on what you mean by "Christianity".

As a religious system run by humans who claim to have access to higher power (*cough cough* the pope), no. People will claim to do some seriously messed up stuff "in God's name". Looking back at history we see a lot of the things so-called Christian rulers have done. Even now, there are churches such as Westboro Baptist that hardly anyone could call a force for good. In fact, the majority of traumatic experiences both long and short term in my childhood, happened in church. I was bullied and ignored, my family looked down upon for being friends with the biggest sinners and pariahs in the community. 

However, there are churches who are a force for good as a whole, though. I've been part of fundraisers to raise money for various illness treatments in Africa... and that's good. Missionaries who have the resources to heal others who can't afford it and devote their entire lives to demonstrating love. Those are good people and I can't imagine the world without them. The way churches are involved in our communities (most of the time) are for the best. 

Christianity, not as a religious group, but groups of individuals who look to God, walk with Him, and hear directly from Him, is an unmistakable force of good. These are the people whose first priority is to demonstrate His love, rather than the rules. People who listen to your struggles and don't force others to believe the same thing, that's beautiful. Even a society that doesn't "need" God couldn't function without people who love like Him.

Christianity is a useful framework, if a little outdated. As atheism is on the rise, so are suicides and general directionlessness. Being Christian actually has a protective effect against depression. So yeah, Christianity is good but should have ZERO say in anything related to the state. Like abortion or gay marriage. 

Now everything's all secular, we use politics and ideologies as poor man's substitutes for community. Which is why we're all sad now :<

I think in the past religion in general was an important community organizing centre and therefore has done good (hospitals, charity, etc.). However, I don't think it's the only way that could have happened in the past, and I don't think it's necessary in the future. 

Historically, and to this day, religion has also done a lot of bad things. There have been wars, colonization, persecuting other opposing religions, promotion of sexism and homophobia, as well as other things. 

Nowadays most of the good things they have done are also done or taken over by non religious groups. While some may be inspired to do great goo by their religion I think that reliance on any one church for social needs will hurt society as a whole because there is some bias there. 

Religions are dying out because people are able to organize community without them now and science is advancing to the point that many are turned away from religious lore.

Religion can be a good or bad force in the world but holding onto it too much will probably hinder society in my opinion. 

I think it has the ability to be good, but it (like many other religions) also has the capacity to be really really bad.

For example, the teachings of Jesus for example promote the idea of love, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, etc etc. These are all inherently good things, and many Christians follow these. They have taken the phrase "Love thy neighbor" seriously, and have promoted those values. However, you also have the people who have twisted these words or ignored them altogether in order to further their own ideas about what is "good" and "right". These are people who have caused harm to others in the name of Jesus, despite them being against what his morals were shown to be.

We've seen this time and time again in many different places at many different points in history.

But this doesn't mean that Christianity is "evil". The truth is, there will always be people who go against the teachings of the spirituality they claim to follow in order to further their own agendas, whatever they may be. Likewise, there will also be people who use their spirituality for good. And unfortunately, many of us (myself included) have had to deal with those people who use Christianity as an excuse to be hateful, which has led to a lot of pain and suffering. Even more unfortunate, these hateful people tend to be who people focus on the most. But religion is not black or white, and it never will be.

So yeah, Christianity can be a force of good, but it's important to know that there are really awful people out there who can and will use it for awful reasons. 

christians are inherently not what they show. what they preach is not as they practice. most christians only do good deeds to reap their benefits of salvation. if there was no heaven christians wouldn’t nearly care as much as doing good to the world as they seem to do. it’s not a bad thing good actions and bad intentions is better than vice versa but one should not praise these hypocrites either.

Personally, i believe christianity has caused more pain than good

but of course, im no expert lol

the intent of framing Christendom as a "force" is already considerably something which strikes me as somewhat questionable. I very much am a Christian by all means, but to relegate Christianity to a word with such an oppressive connotation is very reductive by all means and really does indicate a solid summary of what religion's place is in our social dichotomy. When I look to the world I wish for nothing more than Christ's Gospel to be the one dominant philosophy by which we rule ourselves, but in the course of human history men who have held the same sentiments have saw to Christendom to be some sort of authority on conformity. As if concepts of the Masculine and the Feminine were not derived from desire and aren't nothing more than human hierarchy. To truly know this, you must resist the materialist part of yourself which wishes to heed to the "benefit" of desire and of the ambition to be a statue of man. Did the Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists, Pentecostals, or Presbyterians think this? No of course not! And that is precisely the problem. The bigger the lie, the easier to believe. Do you think our definitions of man and of woman were taken from Christ? They were taken from the mouths of the men who, hundreds of years later, spoke for him and to those who didn't or couldn't even read! This, of course, is NOT scripture's fault. Today we have the majority, and I mean the majority, of the southern United States worshipping in some mega-church, each of which insist on selling their own T-shirts. The better the consumer the better the Christian, right? And it's all retributive as well. The viewers of Fox News don't care for you, nor do those of CNN. It's about appealing to the man, not knowing him. But they do care to know God, and they do, they just don't know how well.

the teachings of christ are a good force, but the church ran by man is not and has rarely ever been in history

Christianity is a force for good, since "good" literally comes from God.

Better than atheists. Worse than everyone else (barring notable exceptions).

If Christians actually followed the word of Christ, the world would be better. 

The Prosperity Gospel has overridden the word of Christ, and put Money in his place. 

Jesus said rich men have to struggle to enter heaven, but according to the Prosperity Gospel, getting rich means God loves you. However, money is of man, and the only way to get a lot of money is to exploit others or to inherit it from someone who exploited others. That is explicitly against what Christ taught. 

In addition, the goal of Christianity is to end the world. That's why none of these Christians care about making the planet hospitable for future generations, because they think they'll get raptured while everyone else deals with the mess left behind. 

So, tl;dr - Christianity (and the other Abrahamic religions) are driving the planet to its death and will only benefit the rich, white, and male along the way. 

If Christians actually followed the word of Christ, the world would be better. 

The Prosperity Gospel has overridden the word of Christ, and put Money in his place. 

Jesus said rich men have to struggle to enter heaven, but according to the Prosperity Gospel, getting rich means God loves you. However, money is of man, and the only way to get a lot of money is to exploit others or to inherit it from someone who exploited others. That is explicitly against what Christ taught. 

In addition, the goal of Christianity is to end the world. That's why none of these Christians care about making the planet hospitable for future generations, because they think they'll get raptured while everyone else deals with the mess left behind. 

So, tl;dr - Christianity (and the other Abrahamic religions) are driving the planet to its death and will only benefit the rich, white, and male along the way. 

I find the Bible an interesting piece, recording the raw emotions of an imperfect humanity.

As for the falsehood of the prosperity gospel and the Organized Church in general.

1Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying,
2“Son
of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and tell
them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Woe to the shepherds of
Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their
flock?
3You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock.

4You
have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured,
brought back the strays, or searched for the lost. Instead, you have
ruled them with violence and cruelty.
5They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild beasts.
6My
flock went astray on all the mountains and every high hill. They were
scattered over the face of all the earth, with no one to search for them
or seek them out.’

7Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD:
8‘As
surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, because My flock lacks a
shepherd and has become prey and food for every wild beast, and because
My shepherds did not search for My flock but fed themselves instead,
9therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD!’

Romans 8:26-7

Nietzsche was rite about us christians being cryptocommies but he was wrong about that being bad its actually freakin based

if you consider a force of good: charity that raised 10k for a sick child or a mass feeding homeless ppl then yeah sure Christians are a force of good we can surely forget how it is seemingly the only Abrahamic religion that created divisions and hatred with discrimination onto the globe. 

Christians don't represent Christianity im not saying that a person within an organization is the organization itself but looking within the essence of Christianity and the havoc its rules reek onto the world... it is marketed only for simple people who cant wrap their mind around a "trinity" like normal people yet accepts it without a though because a good bunch of the time Christians are just inbred rather than newly joined!

 just to name a few horrible things a force representing any section of Christianity: all wars imaginableeeeeeee.

christianity as a religion has always been about promoting peace and kindness above all else. but christianity is a religion, and religions are used for tools of evil people who wanna use that shit for their own gain you feel me? there's those tradcaths or whatever who call themselves catholics but they really just worship the nazis. i'm like agnostic but i aint gonna rag on anyone who believes in christianity but most havent read the bible ever ever so they use it so they can say the crusades were actually good and not terrible atrocities

Christianity is good. Viva Cristo Rei!

Christianity is in my opinion a source of good in the world, the problem is you got Christians out here misrepresenting how one Christian should act. They act judgemental and they condemn people who aren't Christian, when the bible literally teaches that everyone including Christians is imperfect and sinful. Humility should be one of the first attitudes someone naturally cultivates if they become Christian. Sure, The Christian God is a God of discipline and justice, But He's also a God of mercy, love, and compassion. Yeah, rebuking is part of Godly love but its kind of a butthole move if you straight up tell someone "Hey, you're going to hell stop that." Evangelising to someone takes time, patience, and carefulness.

i think christianity (like many things in our modern world) is a scapegoat for people to force their ideology onto. good or bad. so many acts of terrorism are done in the name of christianity as well as philanthropy, it really just depends who is the one on the other side.

Feels odd I don't see anyone mentions the most significant counter example (in my view) to Christianity being a force for good, namely, the number of extraordinarily violent and bloody wars in Europe being groups with differing interpretations of Christianity. The crusades were often a maelstrom of mob violence. The Wars of the Three Kingdoms were the bloodiest war in the British Isles in history (Where religion played a very important role) and in particular Cromwell's brutal conquest of Ireland killed as much as 15-20% of the Irish population. This likely because of the animosity towards the Catholic Irish. 

But by far the outlier, so much so it seems odd no one mentioned it, is the Thirty years war. The primary factor behind the war was religious differences, which sparked an almost incomprehensible amount of bloodshed, leaving somewhere between 4.5-8 million dead, including more than half the population of some parts of Germany! To do this date it remains one of 10 bloodiest wars in history, the only European ones with a higher bodycount being WW1 and WW2.

Suffice to say, if Christianity actually has any effective ability to improve people's characters and make them more loving and gentle to one another, how can it be that one of the most impressive outpourings of cruelty and violence in history could be done more or less explicity because of it!?

No, we don´t lose anything. Because God loves us, The Lord doesn´t worry about our faith in him or another divinity. He just wants us to be kind with the others and respect us liberty.

or that I believe, but to be honest, I don´t know anything xd.

I do agree that Christianity has made the world a better place ik I might be biased since I myself am a Christian but it rlly has helped me from being a rlly hateful person who held grudges and was self destructive turn me into a better person ik I will never be perfect but if for some reason Christianity just stopped being practiced  feel the world would be a lot worse

look at non-european christians to see if religion brought them anything good

Depends on who the believers are. 

the belief system will never change, but the people and their attitudes will be the driving pinnacle towards the notion of the "force" that christianity has on this world.

Christianity has contributed to many humanitarian acts for years, but its clear to say that the force behind it has also caused bloodshed and wars, anguish, an example being the Inquisition, and many other factors. 

In my humble opinion, so long as the fellow "christians" hold fim and verbatim to their beliefs, then there is no problem so say that is a good force to the world, in order to provide spirtual and emotional comfort with connections for many generations. 

flat out no, however, i don't believe in stripping people's normalcy away from them.

historically, esp. in the present where the issues stem from something beyond an "its the people" explanation.

the bible teaches righteous lessons to those who do believe. too many stories in the text where they demonize and cast out folk for not being believers; and in the most dangerous example where being burned alive is the threat and the solution is to believe in god and all be well.

to make it clear - it's a great thing that people have something to believe in. it's not a great thing when it's been brought up to the stand to defend its actions (the bible) and the immediate kneejerk is interpretation and or / assumed rejection of said righteous lessons.

i don't think anything of value will be lost. nothing wrong with believing in god, but for people who look like me it's very obvious that it wasn't made for us either.

Most religion's are a excuse for violence

I don't believe in anything myself yet most churches throughout the history burned and punished people accused of being "witches" "demons" sinner's " when all they did was simply being different

Most religion's are a excuse for violence

I don't believe in anything myself yet most churches throughout the history burned and punished people accused of being "witches" "demons" sinner's " when all they did was simply being different

Actual Christianity yes, but recently it's been used for evil. I'm not very religious but I think if jesus saw what some churches or "Christians" were  doing in his name he would weep.

1. Introduction to the Problem

What you're bringing up—the idea that morality, goodness and even the meaning of life have been upheld by Christianity, and that its decline leaves a dangerous void—is something Friedrich Nietzsche already warned about in the 19th century. He fully understood the consequences of losing religion as the foundation of ethics and morality.

2. 'God is Dead' as a Metaphor for Cultural Change

Nietzsche didn’t mean that a divine being had literally died. Rather, he argued that belief in God and religious values, which had been the cornerstone of Western civilization for centuries, was losing its power due to the rise of rational thought, science, and secularism. The 'death of God' symbolizes the disappearance of an absolute foundation for morality and life's meaning.

3. The Problem of Nihilism

The issue is that without this foundation, people may fall into nihilism—the belief that nothing has meaning. Nietzsche feared that without a religious structure guiding morality, the world would enter a period of existential emptiness and moral relativism.

4. The Übermensch as a Solution

This is why he proposed the idea of the Übermensch (Overman or Superman), an individual who does not succumb to nihilism but instead creates their own values and gives meaning to their existence in an authentic way. We are not bound to an externally imposed morality; rather, we must forge our own ethical path.

5. Conclusion: The Importance of His Warning

So, what you're thinking about today was already foreseen by Nietzsche over a century ago. His philosophy is not a celebration of atheism but a warning about the void that the loss of religion can create—and a call to actively overcome it.

6. Reflection: Why Defending Christianity Matters

At first glance, Nietzsche’s solution—the Übermensch—might seem empowering, an invitation to self-mastery and individual strength. But in practice, this approach leaves morality entirely subjective and personal, opening the door to ethical chaos and a fractured society. History shows us that when shared values crumble, societies become unstable, and moral relativism often leads to destruction rather than enlightenment.

Western civilization, for all its flaws, has been built on the foundations of Christian values: justice, charity, human dignity, and moral responsibility. These are not mere traditions; they are the very glue that holds our societies together. To defend our culture, to ensure its survival and flourishing, is to defend the ethical framework that sustains it.

If we recognize the dangers Nietzsche foresaw, then we must also recognize the necessity of preserving and promoting Christianity—not as blind dogma, but as the moral compass that has guided the West for centuries. Without it, we risk falling into the very nihilism that Nietzsche warned against, with no clear path to recovery.