Throughout history this pattern has repeated itself: Catholicism has an explosion of followers and heretics and schismatics start appearing inside the Church, weakening and diluting the faith. Then the heathens start outnumbering the Catholics, persecutions begin and most people depart from the faith. From there, the Catholic Church is greatly reduced in size, but the true Catholic faith shines through; attracting converts. This process historically has repeated itself many times, an probably will continue until the End Times.
Catholics, sure. But it's one sect of Christianity amongst a humorously large field of other denominations (though admittedly the largest of them). Christianity still has about a third of the world's population, Islam a distant second at about 20%.
Personally, I'm most excited about the rise of agnosticism/atheism in the last few decades (at least in census totals, which means there's a slightly larger number in reality because many people are "tacit" theists).
Doubtful. In terms of number of followers, it's increased in intervals throughout history, but that can be attributed primarily to population increase (especially in the last few hundred years). But since the glory days (so to speak) of post-Roman Empire Catholic monopoly on the European spiritual market, I'd venture to say that the percentage of the population that are Catholics has steadily declined.
Currently, the only major increase (in terms of percentages, again, not total followers...for the same reason as stated above) is in the Third World (Africa, mostly).
....
Religion has become much less of a sole possessor of influence in civilized nations, largely due to increases in communications. It remains culturally dominant, but no longer is marooned away from outside influences as it would have been in a pre-communications age world. It's likely that religion will stabilize at some point with a worldwide percentage of the population, or that it will slowly decline as more and more individual interpretations begin to muddy the already-saturated totals of denominations for any religion. Such are the dangers of exposure to information (to organized religion, at least). Theism may still remain steady, but adherence to centralized bodies (specific sects or churches) may not.
I of course use qualifying words such as "may" because everything after the "...." demarcation is solely opinion, and mostly speculation (though I hope not without plausibility).
True, the actual number of Catholics has increased but proportionately there have been pretty regular fluctuations. For example, during the time of Charles the Hammer (Middle/Dark Ages) the proportionate Catholic population decreased because of raids and battles with the vastly numerically superior muslims. But you are correct that the Catholic Church has constantly been growing, many thanks to God for that.
Indeed. Though you probably missed the point that it was population increase that causes it. The same could be said for, well, all religions. So praises to God for the non-Catholic converts too, eh?
See, it's wonderful from a believer's perspective just to attribute it to some natural flow of God's Plan, but most increases/decreases in any totals can be directly attributed to historical causes. It's not mystical, it's scientific (and yes, history is a science). For example, the only reason there's Christian/Islamic tension in the world today instead of, say, Mithraism/Islam, or Secular Humanism, or some other philosophy....is that Christianity had the good fortune to gain the favor of a Roman Emperor at a convenient period in history. Burn the old pagan temples, insert angry Caesar's preferred pagan religion. Thus, conversion of the Western world, and why we debate Jesus instead of any number of other possibilities.
...which is a simplification, of course, though not without historical validity. But it's presented only as an example of my point.
Isn't that avoiding the point though. yes it is easy from a believers perspective to attribute this to God's plan, because well.....it's God's plan
And as for the Constantine example, whilst you make a very good point, the flip side is that for what you mentioned to happen to make Christianity the dominant religion was not simply because Constantine and the Council of Nicaea found the Bible to be a darn good read but because they were converts, which really does argue in Christianity's favour. Surely arguing they could have been part of the Roman Army's Mithras cult or one of the numerous surrounding cults or religions is a moot point, because.....well they didn't.
EDIT sorry, after reading this I didn't realise how rude that this post originally sounded, that's not my intention
Not really. That's just employing circular logic to meet one's expectations. Why did it happen? Because it's God's Plan. Why is it God's Plan? Because it happened.
And I still have yet to hear a coherent rationalization of the idea of God's Plan that reconciles it with the Christian conception free will. If we're free apart from his will, shouldn't his "plan" go to pot more often than not? Or if it still goes to his plan, who is really doing the choosing...God or people? And even if we're given autonomy but a plan exists, the silent implication is that we must follow said plan...which becomes a ridiculous foray into subjective introspection to determine the "plan." If it's the latter, I resent the piss-poor methods God left for us to determine such a plan, because failure to discern it and follow it (presuming you believe all of it) leads to the eternal damnation of one's soul. I'd sooner volunteer for such a fate than pay tribute to a deity playing such games with my being.
Well of course. But a bunch of other religions convert people too, and a lot of them are more intelligent and less prone to supernatural explanation than the Romans would have been. So then we either devolve into an argument based on number of adherents (bandwagon propoganda, and not really logically stable) or we concede that a lot of beliefs in lots of different religions are flawed unless they can stand on their own intellectual merits, regardless of the number of followers they have. Because I couldn't care less that Christianity was more influential to the Roman emperor than Mithraism (or any other) simply because neither one makes any sense to me now. And, no offense intended since it speaks merely to the knowledge available at the time, but I consider myself far more qualified than Constantine to determine such things.
So like I said, a historical phenomenon. If you want to interpret it as the superiority of Christianity based simply on the path of history, go right ahead. But it is as tinted with confirmation bias as the circular logic earlier.
Gender: Female Location: at the second star to the right
Who cares if one religion is more popular than another? That's not going to convert anyone who is of a less popular religion and that's not going to make all the agnostics and atheists say to themselves, "Oh, well, there must be something to it so I should follow it." It's the "if everyone jumped off a bridge mentality" if this means anything to you.
The only people that this statement should make remotely happy are obviously Muslims since they are drawing more people into their faith, and then those who just are hostile towards Christians and want all Christians to disappear. How tolerant and open-minded.
I'd say it's God's plan because he knows best not because it happened. I don't believe things always go to plan due to free will.
I go with the latter and I reject your description of a benevolent God's methods. As for this subjective introspection you describe, the only way to get an accurate picture would be to follow God's teachings through scripture and pray so that we may receive an answer.
Failure to discern it doesn't lead to damnation, an act of rejection of it does. Attempting to follow it is the Christian attitude.
Totally agree on the point that it shouldn't be based on numbers I'm sorry if my earlier point seemed to suggest that
Oh I don't view Constantine's "conversion" as an act of the superiority of Christianity at all. I just thought it worth mentioning.
KMC Community Forums
Mar 31st, 2008 04:05 AM
(its a joke people)
i wants to pwn me a 20 year old
I'm sorry if my earlier point seemed to suggest that 
