Lest we forget

[TomOfSweden]

In much of the Christian world, literacy was restricted to the wealthy and the ruling elite. Very few middle class members were able to read Latin, and almost none of the poor. And the Church made sure that almost everything was written in Latin. Actually, I believe the Jews, and possibly the Arabs, were among the most literate in Europe and Western Asia. Almost every Jewish boy had to learn to read Hebrew so that he could read the Torah. I don't know about the Chinese or Japanese, but I expect that they were also very literate.

Yes, and these few litterate created masterpieces. Thomas of Aquinas would never have happened without the church. I'm sure of it. He was a monk who devoted his entire life to proving gods existance but all he did was to make it clear that god probably doesn't exist. It just took 700 years before people caught on and started putting two and two together. Or Schopenhauer did. People have extreme subconcious fears of breaking with the social norms. Even the people who try their hardest to do it rarely do. Just look at the Indie pop kids. They all try so hard to be different they all look the same.

Freeing your mind and thinking in new ways is extremly rare and far apart. It can take centuries before there comes a guy with a new idea. When did atheism have it's big breakthrough? 150 years ago, and we've still got religious people around. Aristotle gave us the logical system with which we today can invalidate all the supernatural claims of any religion. This was 2300 years ago. Ideas catch on so extremly sloooooow.

While I will admit that religions in general have sometimes had a positive effect in the world, overall I believe they've done more to hold back progress and divide people than any other institution.

You still haven't answered why anybody would convert to christianity to begin with. Why and what could they gain from it?