The reason why Christianity is so popular.

[herushura]

The Main reason Christianity is soo populer is thank to the British Empire, they brought christianity to South Africa, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Hong kong, India, Jamaica and other places that was in the british empire

But then its thanks to the Romans for bring Christianity to Britian, replacing the Celtic Religion.

 

[crystalonyx]

This fails to explain why it got popular in the first place...

The carrot, stick, and sword.

 

[Arkangel]

One of the reasons could be that at the time Roman elite was so disconnected with the rest of populace it would have been an herculean task of quelling rebellions. They needed something which united people under some common cause and it needed to be from the poor disconnected people. The smart ones saw opportunity in Christianity and used it to connect back to the people, its one hypothesis.

The Roman Catholic/Orthodox hold all the power, the Vatican remains despite the demise of the Roman Empire. Its evolution, the Roman empire evolved into what now is the Christian nations.

There is no doubt that it was the Romans who spread the words of the bible. Who says they didn't author the book itself. What words Jesus preached and what words people follow today has only one connection, the Bible. Who gets the rights on it gets the power on who ever follows it.

Popularity has nothing to do with appeal but on advertising. Christians had a better spin doctor

 

[emiliano]

They did, i thought it was common knowledge. However, some people do like to ignore it since it puts a black mark against christianity. What are you preaching to me for, i didn't do any crusading. Im not telling you anything other than that the crusades were christianity spread via a sword. Is it that hard to grasp?

My point was there is nothing to believe. They were driven back many times by Saladin. They should have quit while they were ahead, its just embarrassing as much as its embarrassing when people try and dodge some simple facts about the crusades.

So its about politics is it? What amuses me is how people can say how tolerant and loving christians are. Just look at this. They were given free passage at all times. But that wasn't good enough so they conquered the city and put taxes on everyone else. Not very friendly if you ask me.

Let find some logic into this, how is it possible to convert anybody by the sword?
By killing them? How is that possible dead people converted to Christianity? Are you kidding me?
Giving them a monumental beating, some kind of exorcism or beating the hell out of them? Not likely mate!
By executing their mothers in law? You may have something there.
By charging taxes and charges for protection? Are you crazy?
As for your amusement, they took the City because they wanted the lot, they did not want them making business and not paying taxes to the rulers of the City, to be the ruler they have to take the city, that what political systems do, is it not? Have I ever tell you that I have a gram of tolerance for the anti-Christians of this world?
I am glad that you do have a point, one they I will work out what it is.:sarcastic
There has to be other reasons:shout

 

[emiliano]

One of the reasons could be that at the time Roman elite was so disconnected with the rest of populace it would have been an herculean task of quelling rebellions. They needed something which united people under some common cause and it needed to be from the poor disconnected people. The smart ones saw opportunity in Christianity and used it to connect back to the people, its one hypothesis.

The Roman Catholic/Orthodox hold all the power, the Vatican remains despite the demise of the Roman Empire. Its evolution, the Roman empire evolved into what now is the Christian nations.

There is no doubt that it was the Romans who spread the words of the bible. Who says they didn't author the book itself. What words Jesus preached and what words people follow today has only one connection, the Bible. Who gets the rights on it gets the power on who ever follows it.

Popularity has nothing to do with appeal but on advertising. Christians had a better spin doctor

Good one, that is a theory, it got to do with the power of the Gospels of Jesus as preached by the inspired word of God the Bible. Not the sword, but the word of God that never returns empty. Zec 4:6 Then he answered and spoke to me, saying, This is the Word of Jehovah to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says Jehovah of Hosts.

 

[gnomon]

This fails to explain why it got popular in the first place...

People don't care about that. It's easier to pick an event many centuries later and use that as the defining tenor of Christianity.

We call this effort stupidity.

 

[darkendless]

Let find some logic into this, how is it possible to convert anybody by the sword?
By killing them? How is that possible dead people converted to Christianity? Are you kidding me?
Giving them a monumental beating, some kind of exorcism or beating the hell out of them? Not likely mate!
By executing their mothers in law? You may have something there.
By charging taxes and charges for protection? Are you crazy?
As for your amusement, they took the City because they wanted the lot, they did not want them making business and not paying taxes to the rulers of the City, to be the ruler they have to take the city, that what political systems do, is it not? Have I ever tell you that I have a gram of tolerance for the anti-Christians of this world?
I am glad that you do have a point, one they I will work out what it is.:sarcastic
There has to be other reasons:shout

Once again im not justifying it, im telling you what happened are you blind? They didn't kill everyone, just those who picked up a sword against them. I suppose once they had the city they could send the riches back to their Pontiff, so he got richer while his subjects in distant lands starved under christian patriarchal rules.

It was claimed that the city had "religious importance" to the Christians so i guess they wanted the whole cake and not a slice. Im glad they lost the city, they didn't deserve to win and hold it in the first place.

 

[ChristineES]

Christianity was different than other faiths in the beginning. It was one of the first to actively proselytize. Other faiths would stay within a community and/or country- but Christianity, mainly Paul, actively went to other communities to spread the word to others. That is why when Sunstone said that Christianity is popular because they proselytize, I agreed. Think about it- Judaism wasn't spread to the Romans.

 

[Stellify]

Let find some logic into this, how is it possible to convert anybody by the sword?
By killing them? How is that possible dead people converted to Christianity? Are you kidding me?

No ..I would think fear of the sword would be enough, in many cases. Kill a few to prove you mean business, and the rest will join you out of fear. The choice between life or death can be a strong motivation.
Kind of like the people who convert to Christianity just because they fear hell/damnation.

 

[emiliano]

No ..I would think fear of the sword would be enough, in many cases. Kill a few to prove you mean business, and the rest will join you out of fear. The choice between life or death can be a strong motivation.
Kind of like the people who convert to Christianity just because they fear hell/damnation.

Ok here we go again, to convert to a faith you need to believe or you are not converted, what you are referring to is, that you can threat a person to the point that he/she will say I am of that faith that you want me to be, is that a converted person? The spreading of Christianity requires witnessing for it spreading, what would their witnessing be like? The choice between life and death is a good motivation to do what? To go around town telling everybody the wonder and power of your conversion? How many follower this witnessing can bring to the faith? I have not heard many hell damnation witnessing and I don’t care much for them, do you know many people that have converted to Christianity that way? I did it because I love God, there are no godless people in my family and the reason is that we all have come to faith in a personal way and have witness the experience to one another.

 

[arcanum]

What do you mean? god loves to kill people he did it all the time he even wiped out practically all life on earth.
Not to mention he watched his son tortured and murdered. Im pretty sure he like it.

troll alert

 

[Stellify]

Ok here we go again, to convert to a faith you need to believe or you are not converted, what you are referring to is, that you can threat a person to the point that he/she will say I am of that faith that you want me to be, is that a converted person? The spreading of Christianity requires witnessing for it spreading, what would their witnessing be like? The choice between life and death is a good motivation to do what? To go around town telling everybody the wonder and power of your conversion? How many follower this witnessing can bring to the faith? I have not heard many hell damnation witnessing and I don’t care much for them, do you know many people that have converted to Christianity that way? I did it because I love God, there are no godless people in my family and the reason is that we all have come to faith in a personal way and have witness the experience to one another.

I'm very glad you and your kin have done it because you love God. I personally believe that's the right way to go about it.
But sadly, yes, I have known people to convert or stay to a particular religion just because they feared the consequences.
As for the first part of your quote...even if someone is "converted" by force and doesn't truly believe, the fact that they're willing to act like they're Christian would have it's affect on a community. And if they were forced to raise their children as Christians, don't you think the children would be believers, since it's all they know?
Forcing religion upon people is by no means a good thing, but it can be effective.

 

[Elessar]

I'm very glad you and your kin have done it because you love God. I personally believe that's the right way to go about it.
But sadly, yes, I have known people to convert or stay to a particular religion just because they feared the consequences.
As for the first part of your quote...even if someone is "converted" by force and doesn't truly believe, the fact that they're willing to act like they're Christian would have it's affect on a community. And if they were forced to raise their children as Christians, don't you think the children would be believers, since it's all they know?
Forcing religion upon people is by no means a good thing, but it can be effective.

My ancestors successfully faked Catholicism in favor of Judaism for nearly four centuries, so, it doesn't necessarily affect the children...

 

[Stellify]

Oh, I know there are exceptions. I was just trying to give an example. Obviously it wasn't a very good one lol. Sorry, I've been in class all day and I'm exhausted :faint:

 

[darkendless]

Ok here we go again, to convert to a faith you need to believe or you are not converted, what you are referring to is, that you can threat a person to the point that he/she will say I am of that faith that you want me to be, is that a converted person? The spreading of Christianity requires witnessing for it spreading, what would their witnessing be like? The choice between life and death is a good motivation to do what? To go around town telling everybody the wonder and power of your conversion? How many follower this witnessing can bring to the faith? I have not heard many hell damnation witnessing and I don’t care much for them, do you know many people that have converted to Christianity that way? I did it because I love God, there are no godless people in my family and the reason is that we all have come to faith in a personal way and have witness the experience to one another.

You really don't get it do you? People became Christians no matter what or they died. Thats just how things worked back then. You can claim what ever you want but the facts are on the table sir.

 

[emiliano]

I'm very glad you and your kin have done it because you love God. I personally believe that's the right way to go about it.
But sadly, yes, I have known people to convert or stay to a particular religion just because they feared the consequences.
As for the first part of your quote...even if someone is "converted" by force and doesn't truly believe, the fact that they're willing to act like they're Christian would have it's affect on a community. And if they were forced to raise their children as Christians, don't you think the children would be believers, since it's all they know?
Forcing religion upon people is by no means a good thing, but it can be effective.

Good, now we are going somewhere; “even if someone is "converted" by force and doesn't truly believe, the fact that they're willing to act like they're Christian would have it's affect on a community” I take it that this mean that the manner in which these people started to act since the day that they said that they believe appeared good to the community at large, that they changed in a positive way , that it was such that they wanted to imitated them, that it was a good thing. The community saw them as changed to their betterment, that it was good to convert. So the why of their influence is their good/moral living after conversion. These changes for the better were noticed by their children, thus their children were also influenced and that is why the Church grew as it did, surely you know that in the times that we are talking about the were lots of pagan and Saracens, acting in a pagan way, all rational being are attracted to what is good, so their families and the whole of the community were influenced by this new way of living, the good.

Forcing religion upon people is by no means a good thing, but it can be effective.

As it has been said, forced conversion were and are hinder to evangelization, it has damage the Church and has not help them in any away, the crusades of so long ago turn people away even tody, so it isn’t effective, on the contrary the human's mistakes of the past make evangelization more difficult. And this argument is absurd.

 

[emiliano]

Darkenless,

I didn't replay to your earlier piece, because it has been said already that the crusades and forced conversion are not the reason for Christianity's popularity and nor it can be, I thought that you would get it from my replies to stellify.

 

[emiliano]

My ancestors successfully faked Catholicism in favor of Judaism for nearly four centuries, so, it doesn't necessarily affect the children...

And there you have it stelltify, faked conversion are not the reasons for Christianity’s popularity. I told you so!

 

[crystalonyx]

Actually, only the conservative faction of Christianity is still popular, the liberal faction has lost many members. It's quite a bit different than it was even 30 years ago.

 

[Reverend Rick]

It could be that the reason Christianity is so popular is because Jesus was the one true Christ. The Holy Ghost gave people a feeling they never had before. Perhaps it was because so many people's prayer where answered or that people figured out just how blessed they had become once they began tithing. Just maybe people that where healed by faith had a profound effect on people who witnessed these miracles personally. Maybe the unbeliever watched the transformation of many wicked souls into productive, kind and caring people. They where intrigued by this transformation and wanted to learn more.

Perhaps people who had little where amazed by the bounty their Christian neighbor reaped living the Christian life style or they just where thankful when their neighbor shared their bounty with them.