Christians, What Do You Make Of The Decline Of Your Religion?

[Miles]

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Or doesn't it matter?

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[TRANSPONDER]

Christians, What Do You Make Of The Decline Of Your Religion?

The question assumes facts not in evidence.

There are more Christians today than at any time in the past. And Christians constitute a growing percentage of the world's population.

Your answer assumes that as fact and does not match the evidence

"The decline of Christianity in the Western world is the decreasing Christian affiliation in the Western world. While most countries in the Western world were historically almost exclusively Christian, the post-World War II era has seen developed countries with modern, secular educational facilities shifting towards post-Christian, secular, globalized, multicultural and multifaith societies. While Christianity is currently the predominant religion in Latin America,[1] Europe,[2] Canada[3][4] and the United States,[5] the religion is declining in many of these areas, including Western Europe,[6][7] North America,[8] and Oceania. A decline in Christianity among countries in Latin America's Southern Cone has also contributed to a rise in irreligion in Latin America." [Wiki]

It may be true that there are more Christians now because of an overall increase in population, but (except perhaps in China) the Christian percentage per demographic appears to be decreasing. Significantly.

[historia]

There are more Christians today than at any time in the past. And Christians constitute a growing percentage of the world's population.

Your answer assumes that as fact and does not match the evidence

My comment here is not an assumption. It is based on demographic data.

It may be true that there are more Christians now because of an overall increase in population, but (except perhaps in China) the Christian percentage per demographic appears to be decreasing. Significantly.

Nope, this is simply mistaken. Christians are not only increasing in absolute numbers worldwide, but are increasing as a percentage of the world's population as well.

By comparison, atheists and agnostics have been steadily declining as a percentage of the world's population since 1970, and are projected to decline in absolute numbers by 2050.

Your uncited quote only addressed a few geographic regions, and so doesn't tell us about worldwide trends.

[Miles]

Christians, What Do You Make Of The Decline Of Your Religion?

The question assumes facts not in evidence.

There are more Christians today than at any time in the past. And Christians constitute a growing percentage of the world's population.

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It should be patently obvious the thread here only considers Christians in the United States, but even as a worldwide enterprise Christianity is struggling to hold on by its fingernails.

"Since 1900, the share of Christians has actually fallen. At the turn of the 20th century, 34.5% of the world was Christian. By the time we entered the 21st century, that number had fallen to 32.2%, where it remains."

"While Christianity is growing numerically, Christians make up a smaller share of the world's population now than they did in 1900, according to the 2022 State of Global Christianity."

"Globally, Christianity (1.17%) is growing slower than Hinduism (1.21%), Sikhism (1.52%), and Islam (1.93%), according to the 2022 State of Global Christianity."

"Currently, more than 4 in 5 non-Christians around the world (81.7%) do not even know a Christian, according to the 2022 State of Global Christianity. "

"More than 2.2 billion living on Earth today have never been told of Jesus, according to the 2022 State of Global Christianity."
source

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[Miles]

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It is at best a misunderstanding and at worse a deliberate scam, to claim that being a good person will save. A plaster saint of a Sunni will not get saved, unless they believe in Jesus - as the resurrected son of God, not just a 'prophet'. We know this and good works are a shell game.

Of course sinning can lose you salvation. Paul makes that clear and the 'once saved, always saved' lark is a crock. If you deface the books, you can lose your library ticket and don't let any Calvinist or whatever tell you different. These people either do not know or understand their scripture or do not care.

Thus, No; Hitler or any other Christian criminal may lose the grace given by Jesusfaith (provided their Denomination is not too outre). And repentance may do it (if sincere) to gain forgiveness. If there is a real intent not to sin again and the mean it.
...

You seem to think faith and belief are the same, why so?

I think the whole "Jesusfaith" idea is wrong, or not accurate enough, because it is said that only righteous will have eternal life. If person is not righteous, any "belief" or "faith" is not useful for to get the life. People who think empty words are enough, maybe disappointed in the end.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.
Matt. 25:46

...the one practicing righteousness is righteous, even as that One is righteous. The one practicing sin is of the Devil, because the Devil sins from the beginning. For this the Son of God was revealed, that He undo the works of the Devil. Everyone who has been begotten of God does not sin, because His seed abides in him, and he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the Devil are revealed: Everyone not practicing righteousness is not of God; also the one not loving his brother.
1 Joh. 3:7-10

Faith and belief are similar, but Belief implies thinking a thing is so for good reasons, while Faith implies believing it in spite of good reasons not to.

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.................................."ₙₒw ᵢ ᵢₛ 𝄴ₒₙ𝆑ᵤₛₑd"

..............scroll over ->Actually, it's pretty good<-
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Well, belief and faith are obviously similar, being credibility - responses to claims, statements or arguments. One believes, accepts, trusts or credits them.

We could look at definitions, but I make a distinction between belief as more mundane credibility and faith as a more hopeful belief. I have 'Faith my car will start', because I know how a car works - or sometimes doesn't. Faith in Jesus coming again is a hope and trust based on a claim in an old book, and looks like it should have happened within a century of the crucifixion. After 2,000 years the reasons to believe it are rather thin.

On the other hand, 'Faith' in evolution is actually belief on hard evidence. I assure you that back in the 70's -80's there was some questioning of it on evidential grounds and I wanted to know. Animal evolution seemed pretty sound, but I kept an open mind about human evolution, really until Lucy which was something of a 'missing link'. And then DNA confirmation of primate descent made it a credible buy - in.,

At no time, then or now, was it - or anything else - a Faithbased 'Believe - or not' situation.

Now of course there is evidence - based argument for the Bible, which is fine. It's what I'm here for, even though it is faith -based and evidence and logic is fiddled and if necessary dismissed supposedly leaving the Faith - claim as believe or not. This is a different way of crediting claims and does not conform with logic and reason, but Faith, even in the face of evidence against.

I hope that explains how I see the difference, and I use the two somewhat synonymous terms to denote the difference in basis, method and the reasons (or not) to believe.

Personally, I've always considered belief to be an acceptance of something that's unsupported by fact, while faith is an unwavering trust in a belief

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[TRANSPONDER]

There are more Christians today than at any time in the past. And Christians constitute a growing percentage of the world's population.

Your answer assumes that as fact and does not match the evidence

My comment here is not an assumption. It is based on demographic data.

It may be true that there are more Christians now because of an overall increase in population, but (except perhaps in China) the Christian percentage per demographic appears to be decreasing. Significantly.

Nope, this is simply mistaken. Christians are not only increasing in absolute numbers worldwide, but are increasing as a percentage of the world's population as well.

By comparison, atheists and agnostics have been steadily declining as a percentage of the world's population since 1970, and are projected to decline in absolute numbers by 2050.

Your uncited quote only addressed a few geographic regions, and so doesn't tell us about worldwide trends.

Since this is not borne out by anything I've been able to find, I think you'd have to support that assertion with something more than the claim.

[TRANSPONDER]

...
It is at best a misunderstanding and at worse a deliberate scam, to claim that being a good person will save. A plaster saint of a Sunni will not get saved, unless they believe in Jesus - as the resurrected son of God, not just a 'prophet'. We know this and good works are a shell game.

Of course sinning can lose you salvation. Paul makes that clear and the 'once saved, always saved' lark is a crock. If you deface the books, you can lose your library ticket and don't let any Calvinist or whatever tell you different. These people either do not know or understand their scripture or do not care.

Thus, No; Hitler or any other Christian criminal may lose the grace given by Jesusfaith (provided their Denomination is not too outre). And repentance may do it (if sincere) to gain forgiveness. If there is a real intent not to sin again and the mean it.
...

You seem to think faith and belief are the same, why so?

I think the whole "Jesusfaith" idea is wrong, or not accurate enough, because it is said that only righteous will have eternal life. If person is not righteous, any "belief" or "faith" is not useful for to get the life. People who think empty words are enough, maybe disappointed in the end.

And these shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into everlasting life.
Matt. 25:46

...the one practicing righteousness is righteous, even as that One is righteous. The one practicing sin is of the Devil, because the Devil sins from the beginning. For this the Son of God was revealed, that He undo the works of the Devil. Everyone who has been begotten of God does not sin, because His seed abides in him, and he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the Devil are revealed: Everyone not practicing righteousness is not of God; also the one not loving his brother.
1 Joh. 3:7-10

Faith and belief are similar, but Belief implies thinking a thing is so for good reasons, while Faith implies believing it in spite of good reasons not to.

..........................
.................................."ₙₒw ᵢ ᵢₛ 𝄴ₒₙ𝆑ᵤₛₑd"

..............scroll over ->Actually, it's pretty good<-
.

Well, belief and faith are obviously similar, being credibility - responses to claims, statements or arguments. One believes, accepts, trusts or credits them.

We could look at definitions, but I make a distinction between belief as more mundane credibility and faith as a more hopeful belief. I have 'Faith my car will start', because I know how a car works - or sometimes doesn't. Faith in Jesus coming again is a hope and trust based on a claim in an old book, and looks like it should have happened within a century of the crucifixion. After 2,000 years the reasons to believe it are rather thin.

On the other hand, 'Faith' in evolution is actually belief on hard evidence. I assure you that back in the 70's -80's there was some questioning of it on evidential grounds and I wanted to know. Animal evolution seemed pretty sound, but I kept an open mind about human evolution, really until Lucy which was something of a 'missing link'. And then DNA confirmation of primate descent made it a credible buy - in.,

At no time, then or now, was it - or anything else - a Faithbased 'Believe - or not' situation.

Now of course there is evidence - based argument for the Bible, which is fine. It's what I'm here for, even though it is faith -based and evidence and logic is fiddled and if necessary dismissed supposedly leaving the Faith - claim as believe or not. This is a different way of crediting claims and does not conform with logic and reason, but Faith, even in the face of evidence against.

I hope that explains how I see the difference, and I use the two somewhat synonymous terms to denote the difference in basis, method and the reasons (or not) to believe.

Personally, I've always considered belief to be an acceptance of something that's unsupported by fact, while faith is an unwavering trust in a belief

.

Since the terms are almost synonymous, they can be used in that way, which is ok if you explain how you use the term (1) . I find it convenient to use belief for a pretty unquestioning acceptance of what are considered to be verified facts. Luke the sun was there before the earth, or certainly, not made after.

I wasn't there, but the science explains how it was supposed to happen and I accept it and see no reason to disbelieve it. Maybe that falls short of Belief or even knowing. I have never seen Everest but I firmly believe it is there. I know Angkor Wat is real because I've been there.

Faith does religious connotation for their particular buy - in and I could say 'Faith - firm belief related to religion'. But Faith in the Theist sense is a bit more. It is total conviction as life - changing Fact what is said in an old book, and with poor evidence. Just how much is believed varies even amongst the believers (not to mention What book is believed). It goes as far as denial of the pretty validated science claims and even dismissal of the possibility of Abiogenesis, not because DNA coming from biochemicals is unfeasible, or because 'Life cannot come from Non - life' is a scientific law rather than a Creationist mantra, but it is Faith-based: God created life is true so Abiogenesis cannot be.

While Abiogenesis is of course one of the big three Bible apologetics with some traction, it is (like cosmic origins) 'We don't really know', not 'Goddunnit until proven 100% that he didn't".
Because these are faith -based beliefs and as such do not operate on the rules of logic, let alone research and verification. They are faith -based and that is why I use Faith in a particular way.

I mentioned John's 'What is Truth' and Jesus (or John, rather') doesn't reply because the answer is: 'I am' or rather 'Faith in me is Truth'. I have good reason believe that this faith comes from a believer's conviction that buying into Christianity allows God to download Truth (in the practical and literal sense) into their heads, so if all the evidence and even Reality, even the Bible - contradicts what they believe, then evidence, Reality and even the Bible is wrong or 'Misunderstood'.

Here endeth the lesson, and thank me for sparing you a dissertation on the link between Religious Faith -based thinking and the debate - methods of fads, cults and conspiracy theories.

(1) the axiom - MY Axiom - is meanings before words. It is a mistake - indeed I think a logical error, not to say a rhetorical fiddle - to make the definition (unless singular and unambiguous) decide what a person is saying. An extreme example was some atheist - hating 'atheist' (a mole for political reasons) who tried to debunk atheism by using the definition of 'God' as 'Something of great importance'. Well, it was a wind - up, pure and simple.

[brunumb]

Nope, this is simply mistaken. Christians are not only increasing in absolute numbers worldwide, but are increasing as a percentage of the world's population as well.

By comparison, atheists and agnostics have been steadily declining as a percentage of the world's population since 1970, and are projected to decline in absolute numbers by 2050.

Your uncited quote only addressed a few geographic regions, and so doesn't tell us about worldwide trends.

The transcript below is from “Through the Wormhole” S05E01 and concerns analysis of religious census data from around the world. The whole episode focuses on God, but the part referred to below starts at around the 19 minute mark.

Danny Abrams* is an applied mathematician at Northwestern University. Religious affiliation has been tracked via census reports in many countries for up to 250 years in some cases and we can see how the sizes of religious groups have grown and shrunk. We looked at 85 regions around the world and in every case, every place where it’s ever been measured, the fastest growing religious minority is the non-affiliated, the group of people who don’t affiliate with any religion at all.

To find out if this trend will continue, Danny plugged census data from nine different countries (Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand) into his mathematical models and made a surprising prediction. Religion is heading towards a tipping point. According to Danny, by the year 2050, in 6 out of the 9 countries he studied, religiously affiliated people will be a minority.

The wheels of society are making people align. A non-religious majority looks set to emerge.

* https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/ ... iel-CV.pdf

[TRANSPONDER]

Sorry, a 'Page not found' came up. I did find a talking head on declining Christianity taken as known thing, but also in declining Church attendance amongst Christians. I may say that my best pal who was a Catholic and culturally still is, gave up churchgoing because it was boring, and after some decades of discussion (a penetrating one about evolution, I can tell you ) he has gone irreligion and agnostic -deist at best.

The debate with anyone not already with mind closed is going to lead to irreligion, IF atheism and secularism is allowed to speak and able to get the message out (I noted on checking the shroud -coins claim it was only evangelical apologist sites for pages), and despite us having far less support, numbers and funding, the message is getting out, or maybe people just don't see the value of being bored for two hours on a Sunday.



I may say the conviction of motivation is expected and goes with the territory, but as a secularist this 'What can we do to get them going to church' scrapes my chalkboard with this damn' near arrogant conviction that they have a social duty to drag people to church when they would rather not.

I would say it is the duty of these Pastors to consider whether they are peddling a Big Lie, but of course, they won't do that. Or maybe they would and I'd love to debate them here, because deconverting pastors is also part of the decline in Christianity.

I had a look for a talk by a deconverted pastor, but so many are preachers fretting about they can stop the flood of deconverting and the 'now can we best brainwash these people?' is palpable. Sure, they believe they are right and have a duty to keep them going to church. One pastor talking about to 'empathise' with a deconversion was thinly disguised 'how can I cope and silence any doubts I may have myself?'

I see only brainwashed people who want to brainwash others. Like though claiming that Christianity is on the increase without a shred of presented evidence and is denial of what is generally accepted data.

[historia]

It should be patently obvious the thread here only considers Christians in the United States

Sure, but I doubt many Christians would feel that a shrinking percentage of one country's population would constitute the "decline of your religion."

but even as a worldwide enterprise Christianity is struggling to hold on by its fingernails.

"While Christianity is growing numerically, Christians make up a smaller share of the world's population now than they did in 1900, according to the 2022 State of Global Christianity."

And what's the very next sentence after that? Let's look:

The Gordon-Conwell report does predict, however, that Christianity will grow as a share of the world’s population in the coming years after recently reversing the downward trend and drawing even with population growth. In 2050, they estimate Christians will make up 34.2% of Earth’s population.

Ah, so Christians are growing both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of the world's population. And that doesn't even take into account the potentially large expansion of Christianity in China, where reliable figures on religious conversion are unobtainable.

If that's Christianity "struggling to hold on by its fingernails," what do we make of the fact that atheists and agnostics are not only shrinking as a percentage of the world's population, but are, as we speak, likely declining in absolute numbers?

[historia]

Nope, this is simply mistaken. Christians are not only increasing in absolute numbers worldwide, but are increasing as a percentage of the world's population as well.

By comparison, atheists and agnostics have been steadily declining as a percentage of the world's population since 1970, and are projected to decline in absolute numbers by 2050.

Your uncited quote only addressed a few geographic regions, and so doesn't tell us about worldwide trends.

The transcript below is from “Through the Wormhole” S05E01 and concerns analysis of religious census data from around the world. The whole episode focuses on God, but the part referred to below starts at around the 19 minute mark.

We've been over this before. The data cited in this TV show, like the data in the quote provided by TRANSPONDER above, only covers some geographic regions of the world -- not all regions -- and so does not tell us about worldwide trends. These are cherry-picked stats.