Church History In Plain Language (5th edition)

Source please.

Well...thats a hard statistic to nail down.

Wiki:

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In 2018, the Chinese government declared that there are over 44 million Christians in China. On the other hand, some international Christian organizations estimate that there are tens of millions more, who choose not to publicly identify as such.

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I had heard the 300 million figure and didnt bother to verify it, but I do suspect that Christians do in fact choose not to publicly
identify as such. AZ is not a Christian and in fact charges that war is indirectly caused by Christianity. My argument is that war is caused by many other things than ideology.
So I will retract the 300 million figure in deference to your "facts" mantra, but you have a warped view of reality anyway.
Interestingly enough, the Pew research center has the following graph, if Percy will let me link it.
<link removed>Apparently not! The graph can be found online.

quote:

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The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050

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If current trends continue, by 2050 …

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The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.
Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.
The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.
In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.
India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.
In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion. Muslims will be more numerous in the U.S. than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.
Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.

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These are among the global religious trends highlighted in new demographic projections by the Pew Research Center. The projections take into account the current size and geographic distribution of the world’s major religions, age differences, fertility and mortality rates, international migration and patterns in conversion.

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Now I will discuss what the book says about these future trends, as it has had a revision by Bruce Shelley's son, Marshall Shelley.

One issue that you and I can discuss is whether Cultural "Brainwashing" is limited to cults in general, mainstream religions (and if so is it all of them?) and non-religious sources such as the PRC (Peoples Republic of China) government. So to begin with, what in your mind constitutes a cult? While I wont defend Jesus Camp in any way, I resent the insinuation that religion in general is divorced from reality. Point taken. But allow me to discuss the book.

So you tried to pull a fast one. Again.
No it is not a hard statistic to nail down. Even if there are 10's of millions more it is not 300 million.

quote:

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2010: the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life estimated over 67 million Christians in China,[104] of which 35 million "independent" Protestants, 23 million Three-Self Protestants, 9 million Catholics and 20,000 Orthodox Christians.

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Christianity in China - Wikipedia
There is your 10's of millions. From where? What was your source? No shit. You never do. What you suspect is irrelevant. Disinformation is more reputable than facts? I am the warped one?Everything else is irrelevant to my post.

No he doesn't. Message 873

OK...

AZPaul3:

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they are a major player in supporting and recruiting for their war lord’s benefit.

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It seems you support the antichrist agenda for a one world religion free governing body. Silly humans. Tricks are for kids.

You have a problem with talking/cooperating with other humans? Is the need for an enemy so strong in your soul?Who is this satan telling you international structures for resolving economic, political, social conflicts are bad? We can solve these things without bringing a knife, a gun, a bomb.International conflict resolution without the war and the blood and you call this evil?Who's feeding you this crap, Phat? It isn't anyone christian.

AZPaul3 does have a point. You seem to hold that solutions that exclude religion and guns and that bring people together in peace are evil.What kind of world do you want? Don't you want one where the nations of the world work out their differences peacefully, and where national boundaries become more administrative than political? How do you imagine religion and guns helping reach that goal?All this is against a backdrop of rising world temperatures causing more and more extreme weather events and climate conditions and displacing more and more people. Your solution is to throw more guns at the problem, as if we shot all the migrants or make their conditions so squalid they die that the problem would be solved.A problem slave, back in the day, is this same problem in microcosm. If a slave is stubborn or obstinate or lazy or keeps trying to escape then the answer is more beatings and whippings, more confinements, harder work, less food and water, and more God since religion was complicit in Southern slavery. These are the kinds of answers you seem to prefer for solving the world's problems, but their record of failure and inhumanity is splattered across millennia.About this: People who don't accept the existence of Christ are unlikely to believe in an Antichrist, either.--Percy

Now we've got a conversation going! So you *do* recognize my standards. Christians are ideally NOT Warlords, correct? Have they been? Are any of them? The United Nations is/was a precursor to a One World governing body. And yet Russia is a permanent member of the UN security council.
In the tribute thread, you brought up a nostalgic picture of Sin'ead O'Connor bashing Pope John Paul II. "The real evil". By your standards, he was not Christian. And yet you do recognize a standard because you chastised me! I was proud of the fact that you defended Christianity by scolding me for not being more Christian.Russia and China are now allies and yet both sit on the UN Security Council. So back to Taiwan. We condemned Vladimir Putin and John Paul II. What about Xi? Can we resolve Taiwan peacefully without sinking anybody's boat?The UN Security council has everyone at the table. So why is there war in Ukraine and why are some of us feeding guns and knives and bombs into it and why are dead babies coming out of it?Will we (as in we the people of the planet) do anything better in negotiations regarding Taiwan?

Not at all. I deplored that picture that AZ posted. Religion *is* evil. Relationship with Jesus Christ is not. I felt an antichrist spirit when I saw IT. Sin'ead O'Connor would have ripped that picture to shreds! The War in Ukraine is accelerating the speed of climate change and causing harm to everyone...yet Russia *is* wrong! Ukraine does have a right to exist and initially refused to be bullied. Zelensky became Time Magazine Man Of The Year. And yet even AZPaul the antitheist chided me for acting unchristian! Hopefully the world can stop acting unchristian and resolve these conflicts peacefully.

You're missing the point. The problem isn't too much unchristian behavior. The problem is too much religiously motivated behavior. Major world religious bad actors, off the top of my head, are Israel, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Then there are the local religious bad actors, such as evangelicalism and FLDS in the U.S., and various sects throughout the world.--Percy

You really should do research before you speak. Few are at the table. Are you truly this ignorant of everything you hate and attack? Do you have a plan? A solution?

Reading this book was in fact research. Its certainly far better than listening to an atheist critic like Richard Carrier!We will get around to discussing the book. Bruce Shelley certainly does not see early Christianity through rose colored glasses. If by that you mean Vladimir Putin you are correct. It would be nice to get honest dialogue between him, Zelensky, and perhaps Biden or Anthony Blinken. Keep in mind that he distrusts the West (and may have been referring to Zelensky as the Jewish element that was complicating annexation within Ukraine)Percy mentions Israel as a "religious bad actor" but I will tell you that Israel has a more powerful military than either Iran or Russia ever thought of having. One problem in the Middle East is that Saudi Arabia is starting to cozy up to China over the United States which is one reason why the US Dollars best days are behind it. You dont tell your trading partner that you are going green overnight and cause them to question the petro dollars future value to them.

I can't figure out what you're talking about.What standards? Christians NOT warlords? Friends, supporters, enablers? Does the word matter? Christians have been or supported, worked for, sanctioned, some of the worst warlords in history. What are you trying to get at with this revisionist twist on history?You are complaining that we presently do not have the organizations to stop Russia, to stop China. Earlier you were arguing that such were instruments of satan. You say that an international organization with the power, the force, the influence, to stop China from making war is evil.The UN is not effective as an international enforcer. We know that. Why do you bring this up? Did you think the UN was supposed to be the world police?What are you bitchin about?

This doesn't tie into the discussion at all. Why did you go out of your way to be wrong? Israel at 11th *does* have a more powerful military than Iran at 20th, but Russia has the 2nd most powerful military in the world, 2nd only to the U.S. Why on earth would you claim Israel's is more powerful. Just the fact that Russia is so much larger than Israel in terms of people (15 times more) and land area (nearly 800 times more) should have made you question what you were saying before you ever posted. Please stop saying anything about financial matters. You have no idea what you're talking about. You're parroting what you hear on YouTube videos intended to scare you into buying gold. Please stop polluting threads with this garbage. We've heard it long enough. You should find an appropriate thread for discussing this topic and post only there about it. Definitely don't start talking about it in threads like this one titled Church History In Plain Language (5th edition). China is transitioning from fossil fuels even faster than the US. Their largest auto company is an EV company, BYD, whose annual sales are around $61 billion, about three quarters of Tesla's $81 billion, but it is growing twice as fast as Tesla.Why don't you ever look stuff up and do some thinking before putting your fingers in gear? Wouldn't you like to occasionally have people post responses to you that say things like, "Astute observation" or "Well argued." You instead seemed determined to draw as much ridicule and derision as possible by issuing a continuous stream of obvious and blatant errors.The whole Internet is out there. Use it, especially Wikipedia. I bet it would reduce your error rate by 90%. Nobody's perfect, everyone makes mistakes, but you can't seem to get through even a single sentence without getting at least three things wrong.--Percy