Christian Legacy (Amazon Kindle Edition)    (B&N Nook book)

In this monumental treatise that analyzes the history of Western civilization, Edgar Eckfeldt goes beyond the popular deconstruction and exposés of Christianity by its detractors, and develops a scientific and historical argument that shows the exceptional power of Christianity in the evolution of Western social consciousness, and suggests that a very real power is at work to explain its extraordinary effect and beneficial uniqueness over time in transforming an entire civilization.

Our fractured and divided world, with its culture wars, reflects the absence of the Christian values that enabled the humanization of civilization. In our modern world, some secularists have come to believe that eradication of religion is the key to improving the well-being of humanity and a few express their opposition forthrightly, as Bertrand Russell has done in his book, Why I Am Not a Christian. Recently three more cogent arguments for atheism have appeared: Christopher Hitchens’ book: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything; Richard Dawkins’ book: The God Delusion; and Sam Harris’s book: The End of Faith. Eckfeldt persuasively argues that these “scientific” refutations of God and religion are wrong.

Eckfeldt, who is also a scientist, argues that, whether or not it is scientifically proven that God exists, if human beings want peace, prosperity, and happiness, it is in the interest of society to act as if He does. For all its faults and limitations, Christianity and its faith in God is the ultimate reason Western civilization, including the sciences practiced by skeptics and atheists, exists. For without the unselfish social conscience that Christianity, and its image of Jesus, has bequeathed to us, we would be in the perpetual state of war described by Thomas Hobbes, the founder of modern political science.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1        A People Divided        
2        Impact of Science    
3        The Physical World and Its Life Forms        
4        Human Beginnings    
5        Our Animal Instincts    
6        An Inward Look    
7        Emergence of Civilization    
8        Flaws in Civilizations    
9        Brutal Despair in Ancient Rome    
10        Persistent Cruelty    
11        The Search for Ethics in Antiquity    
12        Ecclesiastical Search for Ethics in Christianity    
13        The Gospel’s Ethical Impact    
14        Ethical Impact in Multi-invaded Britannia    
15        Ethical Impact in Seeking Freedom    
16        Rather Humanitarian Britain    
17        Rather Humanitarian United States    
18        The Goal of the Gospel        
Conclusion
References