How did Christianity become so popular

[Mystic]

I think the Bible is explicit with a lot of truths more implicit in Quran. And people love those explicit truths and emphasis. Quran, when you get, use it is more like the logic Vulcans use to control their emotions and discipline themselves.

The other thing is people love to be controlled and taught authoritatively. The Church provides that structure, and Islam although forbid such a structure, ended up having it.

It would not a be a problem to follow anyone except that if we truly love God more than anything else, we would be terrified out of that love from following but his light revealed and his path and way.

And fallible leaders - church - Marjaas - Muftis - Mullahs, cannot take the position of Moses, Aaron, Jesus etc...

I pretty sure Jehova Witnesses are right as far their insight into leadership and authority being that of God, but their way of coming to together to understand the Bible is not correct either and does away with the very arguments of the need have people like Jesus to guide and be the face of God in the first place.

A book is always coupled with one who teaches it. That is the rope, the handle to hold on to, light by light by light.

[Der/die AtheistIn]

Perhaps, but that is taken into account in the projections. In addition, nothing you pointed out means that all these nominal Christians or Muslims don't believe in God. They can believe in God and not participate or like organized religion. 

The Christian church continues to grow freely. I posted this in another thread recently. 

Maybe not all of them are atheists, but it could be that most of them are. Also, if they don't practice organized religion, The Church will lose followers. Whenever you like it or not, the church is the sourse of christianity, and without it people will eventually lose interest in religion.

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, approximately 2.7 million converting to Christianity annually from another religion, World Christian Encyclopedia also cited that Christianity rank at first place in net gains through religious conversion.

So it's the religion with the most conversions. While there are atheistic religions, many atheists are nonreligious, so there are still chances that Atheism is growing more than Christianity.

Studies estimate significantly more people have converted from Islam to Christianity in the 21st century than at any other point in Islamic history.[8] Conversion into Christianity have also been well documented, and reports estimate that hundreds of thousands of Muslims convert to Christianity annually, significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity can be found in Afghanistan, Albania,[9] Azerbaijan,[10][11] Algeria,[12] Belgium,[13] Bulgaria,[14][15] France,[16] Germany,[17] Indonesia,[18] Iran,[19][20][21][22] Kazakhstan,[23]Kyrgyzstan,[24] Malaysia,[25] Morocco,[26][27] Netherlands,[28] Russia,[29] Saudi Arabia,[30] Tunisia,[31] Turkey,[32][33][34][35] Kosovo,[36] The United States[37] and Central Asia etc.[38][39] Many of the Muslims who convert to Christianity faces social rejection or imprisonment and sometimes murder or penalty, for becoming Christians.

Many muslims migrate to chrisitian countries, where their religion isn't seen as very good. That could be a reason why many of them convert to Christianity.

Data from the Pew Research Center that as of 2013, about 1.6 million adult American Jews identify themselves as Christians, most are Protestant.[41][42][43] According to same data most of the Jews who identify themselves as some sort of Christian (1.6 million) were raised as Jews or are Jews by ancestry.[42] Data from 2013, show that 64,000 Argentine Jews identify themselves as Christians.[44] According to 2012 study 17% of Jews in Russia identify themselves as Christians.[45]

Christianity did originate from Judaism, and there are people from all countries and nationalities who change their religion. Many Jews also live in christian countries, so they might've been influenced by it. There are some christians that blame them for the death of Jesus after all.

It's been also reported that conversion into Christianity is significantly increasing among Korean,[47] Chinese,[48] and Japanese in the United States. In 2012, the percentage of Christians of these communities were 71%, more than 30% and 37% respectively. [50]

• Due to conversion, the number of Chinese Christians has increased significantly; from 4 million before 1949 to 67 million in 2010.[51]
  
  
• Due to conversion, Christianity has grown in South Korea, from 2.0% in 1945[53] to 29.3% in 2010.
  

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth#cite_note-projects.pewforum.org-50][/url]

Same arguments as for muslims and jews, besides the fact that the people in these examples aren't as much discriminated against.

[Brian37]

How did Christianity become the biggest religion in the first place?

Rome adopted it, end of.

Missionary zeal pales in comparison to the point of a sword.

Yep, that is all that happened. Rome went from polytheism to monotheism, because of marketing, not magic, not a sky wizard. It didn't happen over night, but that is still all that happened. Nobody with a cosmic magic wand made that happen, humans simply out competed the old group in marketing then the powers saw the trend and saw it as politically useful.

[Mister Agenda]

How did Christianity become the biggest religion in the first place?

It isn't the biggest, who told you that? Islam is. But when you take into account all 7 billion humans, Christians and Muslims and Jews don't add up together to be the majority. "Other" when you include Buddhists and Hindus and Sikhs and all other small religions they constitute the bulk of our world population.

Islam is still number two, at around 1.8 billion compared to Christianity's 2.4 billion...though the number of Muslims is greater than the number of Catholics or Protestants, Christians tend to be lumpers when estimating their numbers and count Catholics and Protestants together to get the number of Christians. The Abrahamic religions combined are about 55% of the world's population (23.2% Muslims, 31.5% Christians, and maybe 1% Jews).

'Irreligion' is 16.3%, more than Hinduism (15%) or Buddhism (7.1%).

[SteveII]

Perhaps, but that is taken into account in the projections. In addition, nothing you pointed out means that all these nominal Christians or Muslims don't believe in God. They can believe in God and not participate or like organized religion. 

The Christian church continues to grow freely. I posted this in another thread recently. 

Maybe not all of them are atheists, but it could be that most of them are. Also, if they don't practice organized religion, The Church will lose followers. Whenever you like it or not, the church is the sourse of christianity, and without it people will eventually lose interest in religion.

Dropoff rates are nothing new and are accounted for. Also, I think you are confusing your idea of "the Church" with a capital "C" with Christianity. It is the far less structured Protestant and independent end of the spectrum that is growing worldwide. There is no one organization that is responsible for this--so nothing for people to leave and certainly none of this leads to a conclusion that without some sort of capital "C" Church, "people will eventually lose interest in religion". 

According to the World Christian Encyclopedia, approximately 2.7 million converting to Christianity annually from another religion, World Christian Encyclopedia also cited that Christianity rank at first place in net gains through religious conversion.

So it's the religion with the most conversions. While there are atheistic religions, many atheists are nonreligious, so there are still chances that Atheism is growing more than Christianity.

But atheism is not and is not projected to even grow (as a % of population) --let along grow more than Christianity. 

Studies estimate significantly more people have converted from Islam to Christianity in the 21st century than at any other point in Islamic history.[8] Conversion into Christianity have also been well documented, and reports estimate that hundreds of thousands of Muslims convert to Christianity annually, significant numbers of Muslims converts to Christianity can be found in Afghanistan, Albania,[9] Azerbaijan,[10][11] Algeria,[12] Belgium,[13] Bulgaria,[14][15] France,[16] Germany,[17] Indonesia,[18] Iran,[19][20][21][22] Kazakhstan,[23]Kyrgyzstan,[24] Malaysia,[25] Morocco,[26][27] Netherlands,[28] Russia,[29] Saudi Arabia,[30] Tunisia,[31] Turkey,[32][33][34][35] Kosovo,[36] The United States[37] and Central Asia etc.[38][39] Many of the Muslims who convert to Christianity faces social rejection or imprisonment and sometimes murder or penalty, for becoming Christians.

Many muslims migrate to chrisitian countries, where their religion isn't seen as very good. That could be a reason why many of them convert to Christianity.

That's really weak. How about the countries on the list that are predominately Muslim or have large Muslim populations? Family pressure would apply no matter where you moved. 

Data from the Pew Research Center that as of 2013, about 1.6 million adult American Jews identify themselves as Christians, most are Protestant.[41][42][43] According to same data most of the Jews who identify themselves as some sort of Christian (1.6 million) were raised as Jews or are Jews by ancestry.[42] Data from 2013, show that 64,000 Argentine Jews identify themselves as Christians.[44] According to 2012 study 17% of Jews in Russia identify themselves as Christians.[45]

Christianity did originate from Judaism, and there are people from all countries and nationalities who change their religion. Many Jews also live in christian countries, so they might've been influenced by it. There are some christians that blame them for the death of Jesus after all.

Or...some Jews find Christianity more compelling. 

It's been also reported that conversion into Christianity is significantly increasing among Korean,[47] Chinese,[48] and Japanese in the United States. In 2012, the percentage of Christians of these communities were 71%, more than 30% and 37% respectively. [50]

• Due to conversion, the number of Chinese Christians has increased significantly; from 4 million before 1949 to 67 million in 2010.[51]
  
  
• Due to conversion, Christianity has grown in South Korea, from 2.0% in 1945[53] to 29.3% in 2010.
  

[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth#cite_note-projects.pewforum.org-50][/url]

Same arguments as for muslims and jews, besides the fact that the people in these examples aren't as much discriminated against.

In all these cases, you are assigning alternate reasons other than the default  reason for a freely-chosen religious conversion: that individual finds the message compelling. You are guessing as to other's motive with no evidence and your reason seems to be "there must be another reason".

[brewer]

Stevie tells us that christianity is a popularity contest. Big fucking woop. 

Who's going to be king and queen of the prom?

[Brian37]

Maybe not all of them are atheists, but it could be that most of them are. Also, if they don't practice organized religion, The Church will lose followers. Whenever you like it or not, the church is the sourse of christianity, and without it people will eventually lose interest in religion.

Dropoff rates are nothing new and are accounted for. Also, I think you are confusing your idea of "the Church" with a capital "C" with Christianity. It is the far less structured Protestant and independent end of the spectrum that is growing worldwide. There is no one organization that is responsible for this--so nothing for people to leave and certainly none of this leads to a conclusion that without some sort of capital "C" Church, "people will eventually lose interest in religion". 

So it's the religion with the most conversions. While there are atheistic religions, many atheists are nonreligious, so there are still chances that Atheism is growing more than Christianity.

But atheism is not and is not projected to even grow (as a % of population) --let along grow more than Christianity. 

Many muslims migrate to chrisitian countries, where their religion isn't seen as very good. That could be a reason why many of them convert to Christianity.

That's really weak. How about the countries on the list that are predominately Muslim or have large Muslim populations? Family pressure would apply no matter where you moved. 

Christianity did originate from Judaism, and there are people from all countries and nationalities who change their religion. Many Jews also live in christian countries, so they might've been influenced by it. There are some christians that blame them for the death of Jesus after all.

Or...some Jews find Christianity more compelling. 

Same arguments as for muslims and jews, besides the fact that the people in these examples aren't as much discriminated against.

In all these cases, you are assigning alternate reasons other than the default  reason for a freely-chosen religious conversion: that individual finds the message compelling. You are guessing as to other's motive with no evidence and your reason seems to be "there must be another reason".

We don't care Steve, big numbers in believing in old mythology does not make an invisible sky wizard real.

It merely means humans MOSTLY get passed the idea at birth prior to developing critical thinking skills.

Allah isn't real because of numbers, Yahweh isn't real because of numbers. 

I hate to burst your bubble buddy, but just like neither humans nor religion existed 4 billion years ago, religion nor humans will exist, in 5 billion years. I am sorry it bothers you to hear that you are finite, but there is no sky hero helping humans.

[Aoi Magi]

Christianity is popular because it started off with a gullible ignorant base who were easy to brainwash.
Is proselytizing in nature, and has set up a good central authoritative structure to keep it updated from time to time.
Got backing from politicians who wanted to be that central authority and in charge of the brainwashing aspect, instead of the multitudes of priests of older polytheistic religions.


Eastern religions like Hinduism lose out because
They are generally non-proselytizing
They don't have much of a central authority to keep up with the changing times (Buddhism does have a central authority figure, and that's why it's still able to maintain it's base, but it's still not as frequently updated or reinterpreted as Christianity so it isn't expanding much)
Due to the above, there's lot less financial backing from the politicians (though that is changing quite fast nowadays)

[Angrboda]

The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements is a 1951 social psychology book by American writer Eric Hoffer, in which the author discusses the psychological causes of fanaticism.

Hoffer analyzes and attempts to explain the motives of the various types of personalities that give rise to mass movements; why and how mass movements start, progress and end; and the similarities between them, whether religious, political, radical or reactionary. He argues that even when their stated goals or values differ, mass movements are interchangeable, that adherents will often flip from one movement to another, and that the motivations for mass movements are interchangeable. Thus, religious, nationalist and social movements, whether radical or reactionary, tend to attract the same type of followers, behave in the same way and use the same tactics and rhetorical tools. As examples, he often refers to Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Christianity, Protestantism, and Islam.

The first and best-known of Hoffer's books, The True Believer has been published in 23 editions between 1951 and 2002.
. . . . .
While mass movements are usually some blend of nationalist, political and religious ideas, Hoffer argues there are two important commonalities: "All mass movements are competitive" and perceive the supply of converts as zero-sum; and "all mass movements are interchangeable."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer

[Der/die AtheistIn]

Dropoff rates are nothing new and are accounted for. Also, I think you are confusing your idea of "the Church" with a capital "C" with Christianity. It is the far less structured Protestant and independent end of the spectrum that is growing worldwide. There is no one organization that is responsible for this--so nothing for people to leave and certainly none of this leads to a conclusion that without some sort of capital "C" Church, "people will eventually lose interest in religion". 

Democracy needs rulers in order to exist. If the system was something else, there still could be people who identify themselved as democrates, but that would not change the fact the the country itself isn't.

But atheism is not and is not projected to even grow (as a % of population) --let along grow more than Christianity. 

There are very many in the closet atheists, Poles reflect what the majority say out loud. Also, atheism is more popular on the Internet than religion. 

That's really weak. How about the countries on the list that are predominately Muslim or have large Muslim populations? Family pressure would apply no matter where you moved. 

I didn't say that this is the only reason, or even the biggest reason. But if you want a better argument, you've helped me find it, thank you very much! Many muslims feel pressured to keep their faith and have seen the horrors that their religion is capable of, so they want to leave their faith. At the same time, they might still feel the need to follow a religion, because the belief in a god makes them happy, and since Christianity today isn't as dangerous as Islamism, and it's also a very big religion, they feel tempted to follow it.

Or...some Jews find Christianity more compelling. 

Again, I didn't generalize, I said some of them, not all of them. And about those who find "Christianity more compelling", for some of them it can be because Christianity is more popular, and humans usually search after what's popular, no matter the quality.

In all these cases, you are assigning alternate reasons other than the default  reason for a freely-chosen religious conversion: that individual finds the message compelling. You are guessing as to other's motive with no evidence and your reason seems to be "there must be another reason".

In all my examples, I didn't state that every single one of them has the exact same reasons, I didn't generalize. People can freely convert to religions for reasons other than a compelling message. And even if they find the message compelling, it doesn't mean that it truly is, people are and have been wrong about many things. Everyone, myself included, isn't flawless.