Resisting Progress, religiously

THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE AGES, roughly 500-1500 A.D., the Roman catholic church, in its dominance of Europe, forbade translating the Bible from Latin. Only clerics were allowed to be literate in Latin. The church effectively held a monopoly on biblical as well as various secular forms of authority. By discouraging learning, the church retained power, and control over society. The church intimidated Copernicus into withholding knowledge (1543), and persecuted Galileo for sharing it. (1608). Protestantism (1517) allowed biblical translations, but also reacted adversely to any facts which contradicted scripture, which most facts do. The Christian church has always been adverse to non biblical knowledge, which nearly all knowledge is, and remains so today. To deny evolutionary science in favor of mud made mankind because mud made men are biblical is to deny reality in favor of fantasy. Damnable that Christianity is in regard to science, its performance is far worse in its promotion, or lack thereof, of social progress. The Bible condones slavery, and admonishes slaves to respect and obey their masters. Likewise Jesus, who never uttered a word of disapproval for slavery. The Lord liberated his chosen people from hard bondage, using questionable methods, including mass murder by drowning,  while all other enslaved people God allowed to languish  in forced servitude, evidently unchosen. In modern times, slavery was justified and defended  by American slave owners by quoting scripture. Christian ministers cris crossed the country proclaiming the enslavement of inferior races as fulfillment of God's will. In still more modern times homosexuals have been criminalized, persecuted, and marginalized in the name of Christian law. This process is ongoing despite social progress through secular intervention and application of secular law. Science is self improving, , it promotes  social progress, while religion never seeks truth, since it claims to already possess it.