Sounds pretty snobbish to me. I guess you never wondered WHY they've been persecuted throughout much of their histories? It's because no one can stand being around them when they start up with their snobbery. Duh.

3. Judaism does not proselytize, unlike Christianity or Islam.
4. The centrality of Judaism is completely unlike Christianity or Islam. Due to the oppression, cultural heritage, etc, the bonds between people have a close family-style centrality which are hard for outsiders to enter; Judaism simply does not open up like other major religions.

1. Judaism is tied to a cultural and national heritage rather than simply a belief system, which Islam and Christianity do not have. When I say "national," I mean the definition of a nation as a collective group of people rather than a state.
2. Judaism is historically an extremely repressed religion/culture which resonates powerfully in today's modern life, as much as we'd like to say otherwise. There are so many examples of this: The remnants of the Pale and anti-Semitism in eastern/central Europe, international affairs concerning the State of Israel (the USA is the only country which speaks aloud its support), Middle Eastern oppression of Judaistic nationality (Islam considers Judaism as "people of the book," but with the five billion things going on in the ME due to Israel's existence...), etc.
3. Judaism does not proselytize, unlike Christianity or Islam.
4. The centrality of Judaism is completely unlike Christianity or Islam. Due to the oppression, cultural heritage, etc, the bonds between people have a close family-style centrality which are hard for outsiders to enter; Judaism simply does not open up like other major religions.

I completely disagree with Judaism filling any gap left by another major religion. There are very specific social and cultural reasons why Judaism is not a major (as in, a large amount of members) world religion. I know it's lame to say that and then just end the post, but that's a huuuuuuge discussion I really can't have the time to type out.

I'm just kind of wondering how this topic even exists.
The entire premise is offensive and terrible.
The very fact that mods haven't closed it is beyond me.. I'll explain

I could post examples of greater corruption.. trust me.
My own brothers went to New Orleans after the disaster with a rebuild and help the recovery.
Unlike other churches... Catholics don't run around saying "hey this is who we are this is why we're helping"
We just help, do what we can and live by example and help when it's needed.. if they ask we'll tell em.
But it goes back to
"for who's glory do you pray and worship? for his glory or your own?"

Second set...

Really? a topic "would the world be better without the Catholics?"

How about we turn this a little uglier?
What would the world be without the Jews? Muslims? Africans? Hinduism?
Oh hey... suddenly we went from some form of acceptable bashing to racism and prejudice.

So I'm going to put this out there that it's not suddenly acceptable to bash on a religion or group or creed
just because it seems more culturally acceptable to!

If somebody made a "Things would be better/worse without Jews" topic it woulda been locked faster than you can imagine.


Even if you try saving what is essentially a hate-topic by turning it into an alternate history debate.
It's still what it is at the core. Petty religion bashing hate.

Even if you try saving what is essentially a hate-topic by turning it into an alternate history debate.
It's still what it is at the core. Petty religion bashing hate.

I know what you're getting at but unfortunately alternative reality where the Catholic Church or Religion don't exist are even worse hypotheticals to debate about. We have no idea what our world would be like if these things had never existed and really even guessing is pointless. The world could be in absolute chaos or we could be much better off.

The only possible way to even make this a valid topic for debate would be through use of an alternate reality where the Catholic church never existed (which would cause need to examine the effects that its absence would have on history before considering its effects in present day), or through use of a hypothetical future where Catholic faith has slowly died out or something.

Hypothetical scenarios are fine but if they're too drastic then it's hard to give valid, accurate thought to the effects. At least for me. I don't think anybody would be able to ignore that an entire faith disappeared overnight.

Pretty sure the question is:

"If the Catholic Church seized to exist tomorrow, but with all prior events still existing and recurring in the public's minds, how would the world change?"

off topic: Without religion i believe the whole world would be less civilised, no marriages and possibly no games due to lack of civilisation.

off topic: Without religion i believe the whole world would be less civilised, no marriages and possibly no games due to lack of civilisation.

Depends how far you go back, the Roman Empire used religion to unify itself to an extent and the papal states were only made strong by the Catholic Church. If we eliminate them today however, the world wouldn't be a great deal different. The policy change on use of condoms in Africa would be significant however.