I think it’s hard to say historically. Catholicism has done a lot of evil, but this would likely be a feature of any alternative medieval method of organization. The historical existence of the church (and counterparts in the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Taoist worlds) allowed for a dissemination of literacy and learnedness that may not have existed otherwise, slowing civilizational progress

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Absolute lukewarm basic take on the US Politics chat

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I half agree half disagree. The Catholic Church has often been the main driver of scientific and technological progress in the west and only stopped because of the reformation when the church became reactionary. I’d say it’s been a slow downhill over thousands of years.

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organized religion is the biggest inhibitor to social progress, and the best tool for control

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Countless lives have been lost throughout history with religion as their reasoning, so many were killed during crusades, it was the primary defense behind slavery and the Holocaust, historically many of the first churches were founded solely for monetary gain, it has been and continues to be a way to oppress women/marginalized groups and their rights, and in modern day it is more often used as a weapon than an individual source of comfort and enlightenment.

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