Religious Conversions

Ok, im game, except when you click the link you provided it goes here: Claims to be the fastest-growing religionHow about we go here: Religious ConversionWhich would you rather talk about since it's your thread?I'd rather talk about conversions but growing religions is fine too.I guess if you're choosing a religion or converting you are still technically choosing.For instance, I was raised a Catholic. I made my communion, comformation etc. I went to sunday school. I grew up in a laid back religious environment, basically non-religious. None of my family members were Born-again and hardly would be called practicing Catholics. I was the first to accept Christ in my family.I wasn't really a practicing Catholic so im not even sure it's considered a conversion from catholicism to Christianity. There are so many differences with the two. Im not sure it's what you want to discuss but catholics teach you are born-again at baptism as a newborn. The Bible teaches: Nonetheless, people are joining/converting to certain religions. My contention is that Islam in particular is often compared to Christianity as the same in being "extreme" fundamentalists'.Mr. Dawkins likes to compare us both in the same light. My point in showing that Muslims in particular (although other religions are converting to Christianity also) convert more to Christianity than the other way around is to show Christianity is more believable as a faith than Islam and IMO gives some validity to the Bible and Christianity as a whole.We don't have to discuss this in particular, im just using it as an example. We can disuss conversions or the link you provided which refers to growing religions.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.Edited by Chuck77, : No reason given.

Funnily enough, that sounds almost exactly like what is written at your link about Russian Muslims converting to Christianity: So, if you and Mr. Silyantev are correct, the same thing applies both ways - the ultra-commited in any faith tend to stay there, while the rest can flop around willy-nilly between religions depending on social pressurs or whim. I don't know if this is true, from personal experience it seems to me that some people have a tendency towards fanatacism, and have no problem swinging from one fanatacism to another, but if it is true it's probably true of all faiths, rather than just Christianity.You also have to realise here that your own faith may make it hard for you ro interpret the evidence you see. Because you're firmly committed to the truth of Christianity, and you know in your heart of hearts that it's right, it seems intuitively wrong to you that someone can genuinely believe the tenets of Christianity and then switch to another faith. You're already primed to see converts away from Christianity as not being real, genuinely believing Christians. Last night I dreamt that my girlfriend had dyed her hair really light blonde, and, depsite thinking it looked stupid on her, I had to pretend that I liked it to avoid upsetting her. Why's god forsaken me?On a more relevant note, I think you misunderstand what Straggler meant when he asks why it matters. Of course, if your interpretation of Christianity is correct, then it matters whether people accept Jesus into their lives, since this determines theit eternal fate. What he was asking, however, is whether people converting from faith A to faith B is evidence for the truth of faith B. It could just mean that faith B is more attractive, or has better missionaries, or it could just be a reflection of some particular social pressure, or just arbitrary drift.----I don't think the data actually exists which would enable us to judge which faith is converting more of the other. It's not really collected systematically, and census data on religion is open to all sorts of problems. As you mentioned, conversions might well be hidden in a strongly Muslim country to avoid persecution, people may hide their beliefs from family and friends to avoid ostracism, and people mean different things when they answer 'what religion are you'?

Mais certainment!First source is Kent Hovind. ... OK, now that you've cleaned the coffee off your monitor screen ... In his fourth seminar video (downloaded from his site circa 2003) at about 42 minutes 55 seconds, he displays a slide that quotes from a Jeremiah Films video, Let My Children Go, by Caryl Matritiano:

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75% of all children raised in Christian homes who attend public schools will reject the Christian faith by their first year of college.

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The video promotes home-schooling, so obviously the statistic was cited by both Matritiano and Hovind as evidence of public education being hostile to religious beliefs. My interpretation of that statistic is that the religious beliefs being taught those kids are false and cannot withstand exposure to the real world. But regardless of what cause or causes we assign to that statistic, it does still represent a high rate of loss.My primary source, however, is from a review for a book, Generation Ex-Christian: Why Young Adults Are Leaving the Faith. . .and How to Bring Them Back by Drew Dyck. The review is at http://thechapel.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/6885/ and the book's amazon.com page is at http://www.amazon.com/...ving-Faith/dp/0802443559/ref=sr_1_1. The pertinent quote from the review is taken from the book's product description which is also posted on amazon.com, so I'll copy it from there (besides which, web filters here at work block the review site):

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Young people aren’t walking away from the churchthey’re sprinting. According to a recent study by Ranier Research, 70 percent of youth leave church by the time they are 22 years old. Barna Group estimates that 80 percent of those reared in the church will be disengaged by the time they are 29 years old. Unlike earlier generations of church dropouts, these leavers are unlikely to seek out alternative forms of Christian community such as home churches and small groups. When they leave church, many leave the faith as well.

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Drawing on recent research and in-depth interviews with young leavers, Generation Ex-Christian will shine a light on this crisis and propose effective responses that go beyond slick services or edgy outreach.

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Drew Dyck is the editorial manager of the ministry team at Christianity Today International. This is a Christian book that finally addresses a serious problem that churches have been unable or unwilling to handle. The first two reader reviews are from youth ministry leaders who have first-hand experience with the problem.Of course, most Christians will simply go into denial about this problem. Dawn did, insisting that they weren't "real Christians" to begin with. I'm sure the Chuck77 will do the same, even though we also have his favorite kind of evidence, anecdotal.For example, there are the several "evolutionists" here who used to be creationists. I've got links to stories by ex-creationists on my links page. And there's also ex-Christian forums like ex-christian.net that's just chock full of anecdotal evidence. What more could Chuck ask for?Now, I think though that the real question is not how many are converting/deconverting/cross-converting, but rather why? Dyck found that there's no one answer to that.

Here's an analogy. An important statistic for councils of Boy Scouts of America, Inc, is the number of boys being served by that council. If you look at a graph of membership over the year, you will notice something interesting. It starts out low in February and climbs throughout the year, never dipping down anywhere, exhibits a sharp upward surge in September, continues to climb, and then suddenly plummets way down in February, whereupon it starts its steady climb again.The explanation for the behavior of that curve is that it does not reflect reality. Throughout the year, you have boys joining and leaving units all the time, sometimes to go to another unit and oftentimes dropping out of the program, but BSA only tracks the boys joining and never the ones who leave. Then every February all the units recharter with the council, turning in everyone's annual dues as well as a roster of who all is actually in the unit. It is only then that BSA can take into account everybody who's left during the year, which explains why membership suddenly plummets in February. And the sharp upwards spike in September is due to the massive signing up of new cub scouts at the start of the school year.So except for that one time of the year, BSA is grossly inflating its membership figures. A cynic would also note that teh amount of aid BSA receives from charities is often tied to those inflated membership figures. But what is the alternative? How can BSA track those kids who leave? Take attendence all the time like the public schools do? Federal and state funding for the schools is based on those daily attendence figures, so taking attendence is very serious business. But would that work for BSA? Could that work? And what incentive does BSA have to implement such intensive records-keeping?I see religions and churches in a very similar situation to BSA's. They can and do record new members joining, but they don't really have any way to track who's leaving. Also, they do have incentives to record new members, but no incentive to record departing members. Besides, most who leave simply disappear from the church and it isn't until later that someone might comment that they hadn't seen so-n-so for a while. And religions don't usually have something like BSA's annual rechartering to reset their numbers back to reality, at least for one instant each year.The Unitarian-Universalist Association (UUA) has the opposite problem from BSA's. In census and opinion polling, many times more respondents self-identify as UU than are members of the UUA. We're just to darned independent!

So Catholics are not Christians? But alas you provide absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Just because you continue to say it does not make it so. Provide evidence and someone might believe you. Why?
Actually your opinion has no affect on reality.

Joel C. Rosenberg?? Really. He writes christian end time thrillers. He is an end time nutball. Three months? Three whole months? Where in the mideast? Egypt? Syria?, Iraq? or maybe Israel. SourceI have spent 3 months in Israel. I guess that makes me a mideast expert too.I will tell Joel the same thing as you. Provide evidence and tell us why it matters.

Are you actually going to provide some basis for this claim of yours that "there are MANY more muslims converting to christianity than the other way around".....? Or not? Yes - And if you had read past the title you would have seen that it discusses the different ways religions grow. One of the ways in which religions grow, and that the link discusses, is by conversion. Conversion is the topic. And with regard to conversion the link I provided says: Wiki on religious conversionsNow I have no idea how the Guinness Book of Records assesses such things. But I would hazard a guess that they have done more research than you have. So.....1) If you think this is inaccurate can you provide a more authoritative and equally nonpartisan source that contradicts this?
2) Do you think that the number of conversion a religion has is in some way indicative of the truth of that religion over others?In short - On what basis are you so convinced that "there are MANY more muslims converting to christianity than the other way around" and why on Earth do you think it matters who is converting from what to what anyway?Do you think you could actually address these questions in your next post?

I thought I did but you seem to gloss over everything I write. Every single reference I gave you. For not. You seem more concerened about the guiness book of world records for some reason. Oh, so every source you cite is acceptable. Even tho we have no idead how that source get there sources.You want to say they have done more research than me BUT Joel C. Rosenberg is not good enough for you? Have you done more research than him? Yeah, I didn't think so.Im trying to have a debate here and you have completley ignored my last two posts.let me know when you actually want to deabte and not play games. I already did. Try moving the debate forward instead of staying stuck in neutral.

What research has he done?You say that he has lived in the Middle East for three months. That in itself does not constitute research on the subject on which you quoted him, namely the whole of human history.

Chuck you have (very belligerently) made a very statistical claim. You didn't say "There are lots of anecdotes of Moslems converting to Christianity". You said "there are MANY more muslims converting to christianity than the other way around". Now unless you are going to gather a testimonial from every single Moslem who ever converted to Christianity and every Christian who ever converted to Islam, add them up and then show your claim to be true, testimonials are not going to support your statistical claim are they?Is there any reliable statistical research basis for your assertion that "there are MANY more muslims converting to christianity than the other way around".....? Or not?If not - Are we just going to quote competing conversion testimonials at each other for the rest of this thread? Well what research has he done? Any wally can assert that they think there are more people converting from one religion to another (you have already demonstrated that). But that doesn't make it true. Not at all. I think the Guinness Book of Records is pretty flawed as sources go. But it at least isn't an overtly religious group with an overt religious agenda. And it at least has a record of doing some sort of research.......If you have a better statistical source I am happy to consider it. But in the meantime - If the Guinness Book of Records claim is indeed correct does this mean that Islam is somehow more true than Christianity?

I think Chuck has the same issue with evidence that Buz does. He truly does not understand what the word means and what we are asking for when we ask for evidence. I think this will be a recurring problem here.

Interesting survey. It looks like Christianity in the U.S. is experiencing net losses, not gains: report: Religion in America: U.S. Religious Data, Demographics and Statistics | Pew Research CenterIf one is attempting to use religious conversion and retention rates as a gauge of truth, it would seem that a largely secular civil society would be ripe ground for statistical evidence of significant rates of conversion, as opposed to, say, areas which have populations with already already deep religious traditions and a proclivity for a belief in God.The "religious free market" of the US, would, I think, be the best ground for a faith to really thrive and grow and assimilate new converts. Why does Christianity appear to be withering on the vine here? And why do so many who start out as children in various Christian churches shed those affiliations later in life?A few more trends (some of the sources are over ten years old, however): Christian trends in the U.S.Edited by Wollysaurus, : No reason given.Edited by Wollysaurus, : added link

Chuck, all anyone is asking is the most basic of questions: "What do you think you know, and why do you think you know it?"You've made the claim that there are more occurrences of one thing ("many more," I believe) than another. How do you know that?The best way to obtain knowledge on the relative quantities of anything is simply by counting - count everything up, and compare the numbers. In this case, the numbers are going to be difficult to get ahold of, wouldn't you think? Typically religious demographic information is obtained by census information and the like - but while these numbers can and do show the relative growth or shrinking numbers of specific faiths, they do not specifically show conversions from religion x to religion y.I can think of places where specific conversions are likely to be found. I understand in an anecdotal sense that in American prisons there is a possible tendency for African-American prisoners to convert to Islam; and that while there is also similar anecdotal evidence regarding the incidence of being "born again" in prison, a Christian experiencing a religious revival isn't really much of a conversion if the individual already considered themselves to be Christian beforehand. Since Christianity in its many flavors tends to demographically dominate the US, I would presume that Islamisc conversions would ironically be higher here, with a higher number of Christians to potentially convert, than in say Iraq, where I would expect to potentially find a few Christian converts from the majority Muslims. But I have no idea of the relative worldwide numbers involved of specific conversions.What makes you believe that there are more Islam > Christian conversions than Christian > Islam conversions? I'm rather impartial; I don't honestly know which religion gains more converts than the other, and don't particularly care (since the popularity of an idea isn't tied to its veracity, that being an appeal to popularity, a logical fallacy) more than a basic sense of curiosity. I'd passingly like to know, since the question has been brought up, but I'll need data to be able to tell which conclusion is more likely to reflect reality. After all, without data upon which to base them, all conclusions are naught but speculation.In the absence of data, with nothing but bare speculation, I tend to prefer the answer "I don't know," rather than picking the most personally preferable conclusion as the most likely to be true. My preferences, as my bank account so often reminds me, have little influence on reality.

It's rather difficult for Christianity to make further gains in a region where most people are already Christian. After all, you can't convert a Christian to Christianity - that's just not a conversion.To the unaffiliated and non-Christian persuasions, however, every Christian is a potential convert.It's basic diminishing returns. As you gain a larger and larger percentage of the population, you have fewer and fewer remaining potential converts. And, of course, the reverse is also true.Combine that with the fact that not being Christian is simply becoming more and more socially acceptable in the US, and you can see why there would be a decrease in the numbers of the faithful.I wouldn't for a moment, however, suggest that Christianity is "withering on the vine" in the US. It's still going strong. The vast majority of people (about 75% by the numbers you provided) still self-identify as Christian of one flavor or another. A declining trend doesn't mean you can just carry the line all the way down and predict the extinction of the Christian religion in the US by 20xx. Religious decline and revival has long been a basic fact of history; there may come a day when Christianity is forgotten into the ancient past, but the current trend is extremely unlikely to be the first step.

Alas, seemingly according to Chuckie you can. Message 16Seemingly he would not count Catholics as Christians, but I think most people do.