The Great News Of The Gospel

[Mattnxtc 0]

I wanted to start a post in an attempt to keep christians on the site excited about the Gospel. One of the greatest events of the 20th century was the rise of christianity. You dont hear much about it b/c of the secular news but it was even more abundant than you ever here about. So lets get some statistics out there that are meant as encouragementIn 1970 it was reported that there were 77 million christians in the world (not including catholics)In 2000 there were 707 million christians (11% of the entire population)between 1998-2000 Christian leaders in South America had a goal of planting 500,000 churchs in a 10 year span. As of 2006 they had to change the goal as it was already met. If the growth trend stayed constant by 2030 the entire population of the earth would be christian. In china the underground church has actually surpassed the number of communist party members. More muslims came to Christ in the past 10 years than in the past 100 before that. 90% of the muslims who come to Christ do so b/c of Jesus coming to them in a dream. Finally the Washington Post which all will agree is by no means going to be christian leaning in any sort wrote a piece on a lady in china. She was dying of an unknown illness. The doctors didnt have any sort of explanation for this. Well a local pastor came in to see the woman and with the womans entire buddist family watchin on, he healed her instantly. These stories and stats are amazing. The secular media isnt going to focus on any of these but they are being reported all over the place. The name of Jesus is healing so many where the name of allah, kreshna, budda and so forth arent. Praise the Lord

[LongLiveYorke 38]

In 1970 it was reported that there were 77 million christians in the world (not including catholics)In 2000 there were 707 million christians (11% of the entire population)If the growth trend stayed constant by 2030 the entire population of the earth would be christian.

These statistics couldn't be more wrong. Want to post any sources? http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globa...y/resources.htmIn 1970:Roman Catholics- About 665 MillionNon Catholics- About 506 MillionIn 2000:Roman Catholics- About 1 BillionNon Catholics- About 1 BillionThe growth rate statistic about the whole earth becoming Christian makes no sense whatsoever.Also:

The name of Jesus is healing so many where the name of allah, kreshna, budda and so forth arent.

This is just offensive.

[timwakefield 68]

"The name of Jesus is healing so many where the name of allah, kreshna, budda and so forth arent."This is just offensive.

Extremely. And also uninformed, uncapitalized (showing no respect), etc. Matt: I have no problem with you talking up Christianity, but if you are going to criticize other religions, at least have some basis for it. And check your spelling.

[Mattnxtc 0]

These statistics couldn't be more wrong. Want to post any sources? http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globa...y/resources.htmIn 1970:Roman Catholics- About 665 MillionNon Catholics- About 506 MillionIn 2000:Roman Catholics- About 1 BillionNon Catholics- About 1 BillionThe growth rate statistic about the whole earth becoming Christian makes no sense whatsoever.This was evengelical christians. Not the generally said ones..so the statistics arent wrong. The growth rate is correct as well....Like I said..I went to the site that talked about the stats but they werent anywhere clearly located. Also:This is just offensive.Maybe offensive but it is also true. Its hard for americans to believe b/c we dont live in these cultures but yes it is true

Extremely. And also uninformed, uncapitalized (showing no respect), etc. Matt: I have no problem with you talking up Christianity, but if you are going to criticize other religions, at least have some basis for it. And check your spelling.

Im sorry but it isnt uninformed. And Tim it was never my intention to offend any other religion, merely to point out that contrary to what the media tells us...christianity is flourishing in these other cultures where other religions are supposedly the strongest

[timwakefield 68]

Im sorry but it isnt uninformed.

Then can you please explain how none of those religious figures is "healing so many" these days? I think you would find billions of people who disagree.

And Tim it was never my intention to offend any other religion, merely to point out that contrary to what the media tells us...christianity is flourishing in these other cultures where other religions are supposedly the strongest

It might not have been your intention to offend...but would you be offended if I say something like 'Buddha is healing more people than jeses'?

[Mattnxtc 0]

It might not have been your intention to offend...but would you be offended if I say something like 'Buddha is healing more people than jeses'?

I wasnt sure on the spelling of Buddha..but i thought i spelled it right..im sorry if that offended you. The problem with that statement is that for somebody to say that contradicts the reality of the religionsBuddhism (still not sure i spelled it right) - is all about self enlightenment. Not about others. A general problem with this is that Buddhism doesnt account for osme of those big questions like how the world began and what not. Islam - Islam is a bit more interesting. If you have a koran and are able to look at it, I want you to notice something. They asked Muhammad (spelling?) to perform miracles...he said to go read the koran more. He didnt perform miracles!!!!!....Jesus openly performed them and the bible says that they are performed in his name. Therefore just based off of that more miracles should be performed in Jesus's name. But what we are seeing overseas especially is that christian leaders are healing people in the name of Jesus that others religions werent able to do.

[timwakefield 68]

I wasnt sure on the spelling of Buddha..but i thought i spelled it right..im sorry if that offended you. The problem with that statement is that for somebody to say that contradicts the reality of the religions

The misspellings etc wasn't really offensive....but coupled with the tone of your argument, it was. If I wrote 'jeses was a big jerk,' you would be more inclined to be offended than if I wrote 'Jesus was not so great,' (not that I am trying to say that), and you wouldn't be offended at all if I wrote 'jeses is lord.'I didn't mean to imply that I am offended by a misspelling of the word Buddha, but the fact that you were criticizing these religions and also showing an apparent lack of respect for them is offensive.

Buddhism (still not sure i spelled it right) - is all about self enlightenment. Not about others. A general problem with this is that Buddhism doesnt account for osme of those big questions like how the world began and what not.

Different forms of Buddhism have different allegories for the creation of the world, but the religion is far more focused on the here and now. These Buddhist stories of creation may sound pretty wacky to a Christian, but the story of Adam and Eve (for example) sounds pretty wacky to me. I mean, a talking snake?

[Mattnxtc 0]

The misspellings etc wasn't really offensive....but coupled with the tone of your argument, it was. If I wrote 'jeses was a big jerk,' you would be more inclined to be offended than if I wrote 'Jesus was not so great,' (not that I am trying to say that), and you wouldn't be offended at all if I wrote 'jeses is lord.'

I do see your point..I should have worded it better...but you have to realize that people say Jesus is a big jerk and worse a lot. So I am alright with it. But if you are willing to make that statement (not you but in general) then you better also have reasons as to why you say it otherwise most people will dismiss it.

Different forms of Buddhism have different allegories for the creation of the world, but the religion is far more focused on the here and now. These Buddhist stories of creation may sound pretty wacky to a Christian, but the story of Adam and Eve (for example) sounds pretty wacky to me. I mean, a talking snake?

You will also have to agree that the though that everything on this earth is the product of complete randomness is also a hard one to swallow. Or if you will "Blind intelligence"

[LongLiveYorke 38]

You will also have to agree that the though that everything on this earth is the product of complete randomness is also a hard one to swallow. Or if you will "Blind intelligence"

Not if you consider the scale.

[Mattnxtc 0]

Not if you consider the scale.

ur correct..it becomes harder to fathom it when u think of it on the universal scale

[timwakefield 68]

You will also have to agree that the though that everything on this earth is the product of complete randomness is also a hard one to swallow. Or if you will "Blind intelligence"

Who said anything about randomness? The absence of a creator/controller god does not imply randomness, and evolution is NOT random by any means. It is exactly the opposite.

[crowTrobot 2]

Not if you consider the scale.

christians by nature (matt is a prime example) are locked-in egocentrics and for the most part incapable of even understanding, let alone allowing any type of weak anthropic reasoning or anything else that diminishes the specialness of life, so good luck getting through with that lol.

[Mattnxtc 0]

christians by nature (matt is a prime example) are locked-in egocentrics and for the most part incapable of even understanding, let alone allowing any type of anthropic reasoning or anything else that diminishes the specialness of life, so good luck getting through with that lol.

Hehe welcome back crow...no what you will find is that when somebody tells me that everything on this earth is the product of random chance..I tend to question it since that in it self is not logical...but hey...maybe thats just me

Who said anything about randomness? The absence of a creator/controller god does not imply randomness, and evolution is NOT random by any means. It is exactly the opposite.

was talkin about the creation of the universe...not evolution.

[crowTrobot 2]

Hehe welcome back crow...no what you will find is that when somebody tells me that everything on this earth is the product of random chance..I tend to question it since that in it self is not logical...but hey...maybe thats just me

yes because you think complexity beyond your understanding necessarily = "design" yada yada. you are assuming you know enough about how the universe works to judge that it couldn't be like it is if it weren't designed. no human has anything close to the knowledge necessary to make that judgement, but ID proponents always act like they do.simple ignorance about how the universe works does not validate invoking a creator.

[Mattnxtc 0]

yes because you think complexity beyond your understanding necessarily = "design" yada yada. you are assuming you know enough about how the universe works to judge that it couldn't be like it is if it weren't designed. nobody has anything close to the knowledge to make that judgement, but ID proponents always act like they do.simple ignorance about how the universe works does not validate invoking a creator.

do you see how you contradict yourself crow? Lets go through this step by stepFirst off lets start with what we know:The universe isnt infinite If we are to believe that we are the product of randomness then we have a problem. It would roughly take 1 billion years to produce 1 amino acid. You can do the math to see how much time we need for this randomness to exist. Now lets get down to your accusations since thats basically what they are. When did I once say i had enough knowledge of the universe to understand it? I dont believe I have ever said that. I would say that I have said on multiple occasions that I cannot make absolute statements b/c i dont have absolute knowledge. Therefore I freely admit that I could be wrong...But based off of what i do know, it is my belief that there is a God. This is absolutely no different then the exact same reasoning you use except you base ur reasoning on the hope of an answer that may or may not be answered by science. So so far I base off of what i can point to..u base off of what you hope to one day find. Now lets get something else straight. Your knowledge is in no way superior than anybody elses so when you put down my knowledge you also are in the same category. You know nothing else that anybody else doesnt already know so while you attempt to put yourself above us christians you are actually on par.So what are we left with. You put ur faith into science and the hope that one day science will find the answers to questions that you have. I put my faith in book that says it is the Word of God. The next problem you face is that science cannot duplicate creation. This poses a problem for you specifically since you have dismissed the miracles of Jesus on the basis that they are metaphysical and science cannot repeat them. Well unfortunately for you this also applies to creation. Next lets hit morality. I plan in the near future to write out a longer post on this subject but the basic problem is that in order to take out God, morality is thought to have evolved. Now this causes multiple problems mainly b/c this isnt logical in any sense of the word. So what are we left with. Neither of us have complete knowledge...Therefore we are forced to put our beliefs into something. You have chosen to put your belief into science even though it has not answered the major issues yet, it is your hope that it one day will... I have put my belief into God. Both of which are plausible. Both of which cannot be proven to be false at the moment. Both of which will still exist well after you and I die. So you are going to gamble with your life on this one and thats fine but please dont try to make your choices sound superior than a christians b/c honestly..they arent

[Swift_Psycho 1]

More muslims came to Christ in the past 10 years than in the past 100 before that. 90% of the muslims who come to Christ do so b/c of Jesus coming to them in a dream.

I'm not looking to be insulting, but I'm interested in any numbers about Christians becoming muslim or other religions if any of you have some.

[LongLiveYorke 38]

It would roughly take 1 billion years to produce 1 amino acid. You can do the math to see how much time we need for this randomness to exist.

Where did you get this number? It is clearly meaningless and quite wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experimentIf you're going to post statistics, provide links. Otherwise, it looks like you're just making things up.For those too lazy to read the link I provided, the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrates that a mixture of water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen with a little electricity added will form amino acids in significantly less than a billion years.

[Mattnxtc 0]

I'm not looking to be insulting, but I'm interested in any numbers about Christians becoming muslim or other religions if any of you have some.

great question and honestly i dont know. I searched google and found a site that says 100,000 a year convert to Islam though based off of what the site used as reasons i would suggest that there is some creative accounting going on. Europe is much less accepting of Islam (as we can see from the violence going on) so we are left with Asia and South America. Now South America is flourishing with Christianity at unimagineable rates. Also as I said in the initial post, Asia is seeing a rapid rise in christianity even though a lot of countries are closed to it. As I said China believers have surpassed the number of communist members in the country. Also we can look to the muslim nations and as I said, even there we are seeing a huge rise in the number of muslim christians as compared to what we used to have. I dont know if that helps any Swift but its the best I can do...maybe somebody has better statistics on this

[crowTrobot 2]

do you see how you contradict yourself crow? Lets go through this step by stepFirst off lets start with what we know:The universe isnt infinite

no need to read further after this. you just demonstrated my point about the egocentric assumptions your reasoning is based on. we don't "know" the universe isn't infinite. there are some very good arguments that it may be infinite.

[MDXS 0]

Buddhism (still not sure i spelled it right) - is all about self enlightenment. Not about others. A general problem with this is that Buddhism doesnt account for osme of those big questions like how the world began and what not.

Heh...how the world began is a big religious question? Really?

[Mattnxtc 0]

no need to read further after this. you just demonstrated my point about the egocentric assumptions your reasoning is based on. we don't "know" the universe isn't infinite. there are some very good arguments that it may be infinite.

hahahaha...Pride is going to come back to bite yah one day crow

[Swift_Psycho 1]

great question and honestly i dont know. I searched google and found a site that says 100,000 a year convert to Islam though based off of what the site used as reasons i would suggest that there is some creative accounting going on. Europe is much less accepting of Islam (as we can see from the violence going on) so we are left with Asia and South America. Now South America is flourishing with Christianity at unimagineable rates. Also as I said in the initial post, Asia is seeing a rapid rise in christianity even though a lot of countries are closed to it. As I said China believers have surpassed the number of communist members in the country. Also we can look to the muslim nations and as I said, even there we are seeing a huge rise in the number of muslim christians as compared to what we used to have. I dont know if that helps any Swift but its the best I can do...maybe somebody has better statistics on this

Thanks for the response. It said that 100,000 people per year become Islam, or convert from Christianity to Islam? Just trying to make sure.And of course, if anyone else has other numbers to throw in here, I would be interested to see them.

[Mattnxtc 0]

Where did you get this number? It is clearly meaningless and quite wrong. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experimentIf you're going to post statistics, provide links. Otherwise, it looks like you're just making things up.For those too lazy to read the link I provided, the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrates that a mixture of water, methane, ammonia, and hydrogen with a little electricity added will form amino acids in significantly less than a billion years.

Long..I am sorry but this experiment is out of date by about 20 years or so. When this experiment was done they made the most ideal conditions possible for this "randomness" and then ran the experiment. What NASA then exposed is that the conditions used to do this experiment were in fact wrong. These were not the conditions of early earth and so the experiment now holds no real weight in the scientific community

Heh...how the world began is a big religious question? Really?

no not for a christian b/c we point to what the bible says as the christian explanation. But Buddhism doesnt answre this question at all... So we have a religion that fails to account for how we came to be. Do you see the problem with it?

[LongLiveYorke 38]

Long..I am sorry but this experiment is out of date by about 20 years or so. When this experiment was done they made the most ideal conditions possible for this "randomness" and then ran the experiment. What NASA then exposed is that the conditions used to do this experiment were in fact wrong. These were not the conditions of early earth and so the experiment now holds no real weight in the scientific community

There are many variations on this same experiment using many different combinations of gases, and similar results come from most permutations of gases (see the above link).The real point is, though, that under certain conditions, it is possible to create amino acids and other complicated molecules in less than the billion years that you listed. It doesn't matter how ideal these conditions are, since we have the entirety of the universe to find the most ideal conditions. This is a form of the weak anthropic principle, as Crow T Robot alluded to above.

[crowTrobot 2]

hahahaha...Pride is going to come back to bite yah one day crow

good response. all i said is nobody can prove the universe is or isn't infinite, and it's egocentric to assume it is (or isn't). by egocentric i mean that your assumption, and related assumptions about complexity necessarily equaling design stem directly from your (high) estimation of the significance of your own existence.