Argument:

No, the church promoted Jesus‘ s teachings because he’s the central character of the religion.

Rebuttal:

Jesus FOUNDED the one true holy apostolic roman catholic church. The Catholic Church was built by Jesus on Saint Peter the rock chief apostle who along with the other disciples was commanded by Jesus to teach/promote his teachings.

	“And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. [19] Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” - Matthew 28:19

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Jesus was not for freedom of religion, freethought, making observations about the nature of reality outside the purview of his cult, or even handwashing.

Rebuttal:

Jesus created man with the natural law inscribed in his heart.

	“For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these having not the law are a law to themselves.” - Romans 2:14

The natural law being discernible by reason boils down to this

	“Do good and avoid evil.” - Saint Thomas Aquinas

Freedom of religion and thought are natural rights given to men by God.

	“From the beginning of the 16th century the traditional Catholic conception of man and of his relation to God and to the world had been assaulted by the rise of humanism, by the Protestant Reformation and by Age of Exploration, which brought on mistreatment of humans on a massive scale. These new problems were addressed by the School of Salamanca.

	The juridical doctrine of the School of Salamanca represented the end of medieval concepts of law, with a revindication of liberty not popular in Europe of that time. The natural rights of man came to be, in one form or another, the center of attention, including rights as a corporeal being (right to life, economic rights such as the right to own property) and spiritual rights (the right to freedom of thought and to human dignity). The School of Salamanca reformulated the concept of natural law: law originating in nature itself, with all that exists in the natural order sharing in this law. Their conclusion was, given that all humans share the same nature, they also share the same rights to life and liberty.” - The Libertarian Catholic

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Western values spit in the face of biblical values including those perpetuated by Jesus. 1/

Rebuttal:

Western values are built on catholic values. Canon law being one of many examples.

	“Western Law itself is very largely a gift of the Church. Canon Law was the first modern legal system in Europe, proving that a sophisticated, coherent body of law could be assembled from the hodgepodge of frequently contradicting statutes, traditions, and local customs, and the like with which both the Church and state were faced in the Middle Ages. According to legal scholar Harold Berman, “[I]t was the church that first taught Western man what a modern legal system is like. The church first taught that conflicting customs, statues, cases, and doctrines may be reconciled by analysis and synthesis.”” - Thomas E. Woods”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

What we consider great Western values were not proposed until about 1500 years after Jesus supposedly died.

Rebuttal:

You have yet to define “we”. Post-reformation secularists/humanists? If so that is false as natural law was developed in the middle ages by Catholic Thomas Aquinas CENTURIES before “The Enlightenment”.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

That’s an extreme delay if the values came from him, and the proceeding church operated as a totalitarian government of much of the world a few centuries after he died. 2/

Rebuttal:

	The Protestant Reformation led by humanists Martin Luther & John Calvin was a philosophical dispute and separation with medieval scholasticism. Luther’s philosophy (conceptualism, nominalism) was at odds with classical realism. It was said philosophy that resulted in replacement of Church authority with biblical authority. This gave birth to the CHURCH OF SECULARISM that you are a religious member of today. Hardly the fault of a “totalitarian government” but rather bad philosophy that has no basis in reality.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

And that brings us to truth. Faith isn’t truth. Faith as Jesus used it is belief without evidence.
Defining truth as “God,“ means that truth can be whatever you say that it is because you have categorized it as an ethereal being.

Rebuttal:

Secularist’s definition of faith is akin to the following:

	“Faith is a state of mind that leads people to believe something—it doesn’t matter what—in the total absence of supporting evidence. If there were good supporting evidence then faith would be superfluous, for the evidence would compel us to believe it anyway” - Richard Dawkins

Said type of faith is what secularists such as yourself have to possess in order to believe that modern philosophy based on non-realism can tell us about REALITY. Evolutionary biology requires precisely this kind of faith.

Catholic  definition of faith is akin to the following:

	“Objectively, it stands for the sum of truths revealed by God in Scripture and tradition and which the Church presents to us in a brief form in her creeds, subjectively, faith stands for the habit or virtue by which we assent to those truths. It is with this subjective aspect of faith that we are here primarily concerned. Before we proceed to analyze the term faith, certain preliminary notions must be made clear.”

There is truth discernible by reason and faith. We use reason to prove the existence of god for instance but it is faith that teaches man of the Holy Trinity. Faith and reason are complimentary in knowing the truth. Hardly at odds.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

No, truth is that which conforms to reality.3/3

Rebuttal:

“Truth” that doesn’t confirm to reality such as naturalism that tends to reject the existence of immaterial truth (formal and final causes)? Science operating on two of aristotle’s 4 hardly conforms to reality.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

This is the no true Scotsman fallacy. No, the Roman catholic church founded by Peter is not morally superior to the Vatican II.

Rebuttal:

No it is not. The Vatican II Counter Church by its nature has to oppose the One True Holy Apostolic Roman Catholic Church established by Jesus Christ. The two stand in contrast to one another. Yes the RCC is superior to the Vatican II counter church. RCC is founded by Christ. VIICC is not.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Personnel that were killed were killed by the Roman Catholic Church. You didn’t bother to read what I shared, did you?

Rebuttal:

What you shared is irrelevant as the Vatican II Counter Church cannot speak on behalf of a church that it is not a part of. Heretics cannot be popes and speak on behalf of the church.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Pure pulpit propaganda. If you want to share a link I can read, go for it, but this is Church-peddled damage control.

Rebuttal:

A historian providing historical facts is “pure pulpit propaganda”. You are a dishonest actor your rejection of the truth is proof of this. No need to share a link when the video provides historical context and fact.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

The majority of people listed above were murdered by the Roman Catholic Church for heresy and other imaginary offenses like witchcraft.

Rebuttal:

Heresy is no “imaginary offense” it is teaching contrary to that of the catholic church. You are a heretic when you misinterpret and lie about the church and its teachings presenting said lies as truth.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Instead of addressing a single argument that I actually made, you just doubled down on your original assertion. This is the sort of intellectual honesty I expect from Catholics and protestants. They’re two factions that pretend to have ultimate truth, but avoid scrutiny. 1/

Rebuttal:

The same can be said of yourself who has demonstrated intellectual dishonestly by peddling lies such as that the Catholic Church was to blame for the fall of rome and when presented with historical fact branding it as “pure pulpit propaganda”. This is to be expected from secularists such as yourself.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

The Western Roman Empire fell in. Political corruption and poor economic decision making was tied to the church. Deny that all you want. Barbarians and Christians civilized over time. There was no white knight savior moment—just warring.2/2

Rebuttal:

Western Rome fell despite the Catholic Church. Taxing the population to finance a war, debasing the currency resulting in hyper-inflation, depriving the population of freedom and justice and allowing barbaric invasion is hardly a demonstration of the teachings that the Catholic Church was founded on namely the new law (love your god and your neighbor) etc. The Catholic Church was the reason that the west civilized over time. Deny that all you want doesn’t change it from being fact.

	“One of the Christian fathers, Saint Gregory Nazianzus, commented that war is the mother of taxes. I think that's a wonderful thing to keep in mind: war is the mother of taxes. And it's also, of course, the mother of inflation. Now, what were the consequences of inflation? One of the odd things about inflation is, in the Roman Empire, that while the state survived — the Roman state was not destroyed by inflation — what was destroyed by inflation was the freedom of the Roman people. Particularly, the first victim was their economic freedom. The economy of the West was perhaps more fatally weakened than that of the East. The early 5th century Christian priest Salvian of Marseille wrote an account of why the Roman state was collapsing in the West — he was writing from France (Gaul). Salvian says that the Roman state is collapsing because it deserves collapse; because it had denied the first premise of good government, which is justice to the people.” By justice he meant a just system of taxation. Salvian tells us, and I don't think he's exaggerating, that one of the reasons why the Roman state collapsed in the 5th century was that the Roman people, the mass of the population, had but one wish after being captured by the barbarians: to never again fall under the rule of the Roman bureaucracy.”  - Joseph R. Peden

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Modern secular values are superior to the antiquated values you’re claiming are objective. It’s completely amazing. You completely dodged talking about biblical values but then doubled down that our modern values are based on them. 1/

Rebuttal:

Subjective morality (is-ought problem) has no basis in reality and is far inferior to the objective morality-natural law. Classical western values > modern secular values (built on classical western values). I didn’t dodge talking about biblical values but clarified what are biblical values the catholic church was founded on (the new law).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Now you are completely ignoring the names of people who were murdered by the church for scientific inquiry and experiment. The church had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern world like a petulant child not getting his way. Denial doesn’t change that. 2/2

Rebuttal:

In 1616 Catholic Church authorities told Galileo to stop teaching Copernican theory as TRUTH treating it as a HYPOTHESIS instead to which he agreed. Pope Urban VIII told Galileo that Copernicanism was never declared heretical and that the Church would never do so. In 1632 Gailileo wrote Dialogue on the Great World Systems but IGNORED the instruction to treat Copernicanism as a HYPOTHESIS rather than as TRUTH. In 1633 he was declared suspect of heresy. Hardly a murder.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Way to completely ignore that massive elephant in the room. The Catholic Church imprisoned, exiled, or killed competitors. The pope essentially provided an art monopoly by commissioning only paintings that were Christian-themed.

Weird pattern, I know.

Rebuttal:

Please provide proof of said imprisonment exile and killings of counter culture competitors.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

That depends on what philosophy you’re talking about. “Secular philosophy“ is not a single monolith. You decide who is heretical? This is why l’m glad the Catholic Church is not in charge of much anymore. They arbitrarily defined what was acceptable and what wasn’t. 1/

Rebuttal:

Secular philosophy is modern philosophy. Post reformation non-realist philosophy that is built on mechanical and efficient causes while ignoring formal and final causes. Individuals who teach in contrast to Catholic Church magisterium are heretics. The Catholic Church defined what was acceptable based on reason and the natural law hardly “arbitrary” unlike subjective morality that secularism is built on.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Argument:

Secular governments permit the study of all philosophy. I will go ahead and point out that the US Constitution is superior to the Bible in every way. It is not a product of Christianity, but secular Western philosophies compiled over a few centuries in spite of the Church. 2/2

Rebuttal:

Secular governments do not permit the study of all philosophy. Separation of church and state implies that the church is not to be taught in secular government schools.  You are contradicting yourself. Also Catholic Church teachings and dogma (based on biblical values) are superior to the US Constitution which has undergone amendments over the centuries correcting interpretations of non free/indian persons being “three fifths of a person”.