Straggler wrote
1) What is the actual evidence regarding inter-faith conversions? Are there any reliable statistics on such things?
It's really hard to know what the actual evidence is. Exact numbers I'm sure are impossible to come by, for good reason. Those who leave Islam are under a death sentence so most who leave (especially in Muslim countries) keep it secret if they possibly can. Mark Gabriel, a former professor of Islamic history and doctrine at the Al-Azar University in Egypt, was reminded of that after he told his father he had left Islam and become a Christian. His father immediately pulled out a gun and started shooting at him, he was lucky to escape with his life.
It's a little hard to get volunteers to come forward and share about their conversion experience when it will be fatal for them to do so.
"How many of you have left Islam this week? Come forward to be
beheaded"
That kind of puts a damper on proclamations of newfound faith in Christ in Islamic countries.
Here is a site with a few links on the masses of Muslims who are leaving the "religion of Peace":
http://www.hyscience.com/...ives/2006/01/are_muslims_lea.php
a couple of the links from that page:
This site says 6 million Muslims convert to Christ each year in Africa:
http://www.formermuslims.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=972
2 million Russian muslims baptized into Christianity:
http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=513
As for those converting from Christianity to Islam, that only happens with people who were very nominal Christians - those who were not committed to Christianity at all in the first place. It's hard to imagine someone who understands what Christianity is (including the overwhemling evidence that it is THE only completely true system of belief out there), a belief that says "love your neighbor as yourself, love God above all, be true, fair, honest and honorable in everything that you do and say, and be at peace, if possible, with all men" . . .
.. choosing to abandon that belief system in favor of one that says, "kill anyone who refuses to convert to our belief, and kill anyone who leaves Islam. You are commanded to practice deceit in order to further the dominance of our belief system over the whole world, to subjugate everyone into subservience to the whims and sayings of a murderous 7th century pedophile "prophet" who teaches that the earth is supported on the backs of elephants standing on top of the backs of turtles and that drinking camel urine is a cure.
Nope, can't see it.
Mark Gabriel, during his time as a student, then graduate student and eventually a professor at Al-Azar University, was constantly struck by how wrong Islam seemed to him. How could the real God be one who loved evil, deception, treachery and violent murder? It just didn't seem right. Despondent, he actually had decided to leave Islam before he looked into Christianity BECAUSE Islam was so obviously wrong and opposite all that seemed right to him.
I just can't fathom that that would be a great number, compared to the reverse, and in fact, I challenge anyone to find one person who was a born-again Christian, who clearly lived his/her whole life for the purpose and mission of Christ for any length of time and then converted to Islam. You won't find even one.
But I can find you many who were deeply committed to Islam, living very circumspect and seeking fervently in every area of their life to follow the teaching of "the Prophet" to the letter, who are now glowing, thrilled, committed born-again Christians.
2) More importantly as far as I am concerned - Why does anyone think this matters? What does it tell us about the relative worth of different religions if people are converting from one to another?
Well, the funny thing is that those of us who believe what the Bible says understandably care if people are going to Heaven or Hell. It matters to us and encourages us to see people freed from the demonic chains of enslavement to a Satanically-inspired violent belief system (inside the Kingdom of Darkness) and instead delivered into the Kingdom of Light - loved, forgiven children of their Creator God.
It's exciting to see what God is doing. In a lot of the cases, from what I have heard from missions sources, God is appearing to a lot of these people in their dreams at night, telling them over and over in their sleep, "Jesus is the Son of God."
As far as the relative worth of different religions, you seem to ignore that the Darwinian/atheistic worldview/belief-system essentially is a religion as well, and if you want to compare the relative worth of one system of belief to another, I'd say a belief system that was the basis for over 100 million people dead or disappeared (in the Soviet Union/Eastern bloc over the past century as well as those who perished because of the Nazi rise to power in Germany) is going to look even worse than Islam in the "relative worth" department.
Just because you don't care if you leave this life forgiven or not doesn't mean most people don't care. In fact, most people DO want to have assurance that they are right with God before they leave this life for the afterlife. And it matters infinitely to God who is, apparently in some instances at least, personally enlightening those who diligently want to be following and obeying the Truth.
Personally I have no frikkin idea who is converting from what to what. But I deeply suspect most of the main religions will be claiming converts in some sort of subjective pique of propaganda.
I don't agree. Why would Christians point to conversion numbers to make their case when they have something far more compelling: the actual person and message of Jesus Christ himself and the forgiveness and peace He offers?
But any suggestion that it has to do with the truth of one religion over another is, in the absence of any other evidence, surely just the fallacy of argumentum ad populum is it not?
I disagree (see above arguments). And what "other evidence" would you want?
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