>Time will tell who's right... No, time WON'T tell who's right since the growth of christians in the future is not what is in debate. Why must you always insist on attempting to debate things not in debate. I'll tell you what. I'm gonna stipulate again. I'll stipulate that the FUTURE growth of christianity is going to be SO explosive the EVERY SINGLE PERSON will be a christian by 2025. Happy? Now, lets get back to what is in question. Shoe Myth #1 That PRESENTLY christian growth is explosive. JB
Once again you completely DODGE the issue. Your original assertion was that of current explosive christian growth. NOT FUTURE PREDICTED GROWTH, etc So stop with all the forecasting OK??? Since you didnt bother to do you homework and answer my challenge, here are some numbers from www.globalchristianity.org http://www.globalchristianity.org/wct-10-2.pdf They show the the WORLD population and CHRISTIAN population numbers for the years 1800, till now roughly. If you do the math, here is the PERCENTAGE of world population that is CHRISTIAN for the years they list. 1800 - 22% 1900 - 34% - peak 1970 - 33.5% - decline mid 2000 - 33% - decline 2002 - 17% - decline Looks like christianity peaked out a while ago. Now tell me SHOE... do you see current EXPLOSIVE christian growth rates going on? What is the current trend Shoe? Up or DOWN???? If you dodge this question, we will know you have absolutely NO INTENTION to debate, but instead to blow smoke and dodge the entire issue. peace axeman
As I mentioned already I extrapolate present growth rate numbers from the following logic: If Christian global growth is projected to be 2% in 2005, 2006, 2007 and onward, we can assume that it was close to 2% in 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001 and so on. If you do not accept that argument, then fine. Let's just agree to disagree...
It obviously depends which researcher you choose. At least I am willing to admit that. I have posted both sides of the issue. You guys once again play "alpha dog" and will only talk about your side of any ssue. Fine, you take your researcher and I'll take mine. We'll make this into a courtroom drama with each of us having our expert witnesses...
Notice - you did not answer my question. More importantly, it DOES NOT depend on the "researcher" because you have not supplied **ANY DATA** on GLOBAL christianity AT ALL. You have posted both sides? All you post is stuff not relevant to your original assertion. Here are the plain facts Shoe: Christianity is in a DECLINE and losing ground globally. I have supplied the objective numbers on global christianity from a christian source. None of your irrelevant numbers are applicable and refute that statement. LOOK AT THOSE NUMBERS SHOE. Do they show explosive growth?? Of course not! Do your southern hemisphere numbers refute the LARGER SUPERSET of numbers? Of course not. You clearly have no case. Its so blatantly obvious, but you insist on dodging question, and blowing smoke screens by focusing on subsets of data and irrelevant future growth predictions. AGAIN - I repeat. THE NUMBERS SHOW A CLEAR DECLINE IN CHRISTIANITY SINCE 1970. Are you saying this christian organization FUDGED their numbers? Care to post another SOURCE with **comparable* numbers that refute these?? Can you? peace axeman
Why would you need to assert current growth ONLY by producing future projections? Why don't you just come up with CURRENT numbers to support CURRENT growth. This seems like a very logical and reasonable thing to do. This is a very unusual situation. Normally, researchers attempt to learn from current/past trends and use this data to predict the future. This is the first time I have even seen anyone needing to use future predictions to support past/current trends. Would you not agree that it would be more accurate to actually USE past/current data to report on past/current trends? JB
Im still waiting for Shoe to produce numbers that refute these: 1800 - 22% 1900 - 34% - peak 1970 - 33.5% - decline mid 2000 - 33% - decline 2002 - 17% - decline Notice, these are GLOBAL numbers. Subset numbers dont apply. Future numbers dont apply. These numbers shatter his assertion of CURRENT explosive christian growth. So far... this is an open and shut case. It seems Shoe simply isnt capable of admitting he is wrong so he will continue to dance around other issues instead. peace axeman
>It obviously depends which researcher you choose. Prerhaps it does, but we don't know that yet because you WON'T POST ANY CURRENT/PAST numbers. >I have posted both sides of the issue. You haven't even posted ONE side of the issue. You continue to post on ANOTHER issue -- one that i have already stipulated. JB
hey guys - TIME OUT! for a brief moment there we were (almost) all being civil with each other, can we take a step back and try this "growth" thing again? http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm according to this, there is disagreement on both the defining and counting of c'ians, so i doubt we're going to solve anything here. i think we can all agree there are tons and tons of c'ians in the world, and growth rate is probably not huge in terms of percentages but probably is large in terms of absolute numbers. can we get back to more interesting questions?
I like this question...think I'll keep asking it. Shoe, Why would you need to assert current growth ONLY by producing future projections? Why don't you just come up with CURRENT numbers to support CURRENT growth. This seems like a very logical and reasonable thing to do. JB