How did Christianity become so popular

[Whateverist]

Sure wasn't by publishing a page-turner.

[KevinM1]

Steve's trying to pull a fast one with his "atheism isn't even projected to grow as a %" line.

It's technically true due to a few factors:

1. Projected increases of the human population across the board. While atheism will see gains, especially in educated, modernized countries, those gains will not match the growth of the human race. So, there will be more atheists than ever before, but the overall percentage will be lower because the pace of our gains is slower than the pace of people breeding overall. And since the vast majority of people remain in the same religion in which they were born, well, it's not really a surprise.

2. Christianity is seeing its best gains in countries that aren't educated and modernized, as well as China (which, from the outside, looks like a cultural push back against the communist regime).

3. None of this matters because the legitimacy of an idea doesn't depend on its popularity, much like the quality of McDonald's hamburgers isn't bolstered by billions being served. It's an immature, facile, fallacious argument that Steve clings to because, frankly, he's got nothing else.

[Simon Moon]

3 Things - Missionary zeal, Emperor Constantine, Colonialism.

Petty much.

If Constantine glommed on to Zoroastrianism instead of Christianity, there would most likely be 2 billion Zoroastrians today, instead of Christians.

I'd still be an atheist.

[Harry Nevis]

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

There is more information supporting the beginnings of Christianity than any other religion...by far. The message/teachings of Jesus are far more compelling than other religions...by far. Christianity answers the most pressing questions that humans ask (origins, purpose, value, morality, where are we going, etc.) better than any other religions do.

Of course you feel that way.  You believe.

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

Before you buy the line of Christianity depends on children being brainwashed before they can think critically to sustain itself...

Sorry. Gave up after seeing the source, "world christian encyclopedia".

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Ok, get your God on the Maury Povitch show and get him to pony up with his god goo to prove he is the father of the baby.

Otherwise, I could give a shit less what you think is "true". All you have is a history of myth being handed down.

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You, "That is not true"

So talking snakes, talking donkeys, talking bushes, women magically popping out of a man's rib, immoral stories of murdering off the Egyptian first born, the genocide of the flood, babies having magic super powers whom grow up to magically survive rigor mortis.

And I am the crazy one? Thank's for the lecture.

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If popularity were evidence of fact the earth really would be flat. It isn't so regardless of your claims that Christianity is the most popular I could give a shit less. Humans once owned slaves too and that was popular too.

LOL, so your argument is that you can make stuff up because you don't believe in any of it. Intellectual honesty at it's best!! I wasn't really interested in discussing anything with you, I just didn't want your nonsense to go unchallenged--especially when the question comes from a very naive young person who might mistakenly believe the stupid things you post.

Another irony meter blown away.

[Brian37]

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%).

1.8 billion is still less than 7 billion and 2. 5 billion is still less than 7 billion.

What I do know is that both the head characters stem from Abraham and funny that, nobody outside Mesopotamia heard of either until HUMANS spread them.

It can't be that the God of Jews and Christians and Muslims ARE THE SAME DAMNED character. It cant be that all of them arose out of each other, and monotheism arose out of prior polytheism.

I will say this. I find it extremely hard to swallow the logic of "all powerful" if the best this alleged being is to leave humans for 200,000 years in ignorance, only to wait 10,000 years ago to get to writing, and even after that the tribes sill murder each other over the competing gang manuals to this day. Sounds totally efficient.

[mordant]

A better question might be, if Christianity has any relationship with actual reality, why, after 2,000 years, has it only achieved 33% market penetration by even the most charitable standard (cultural Christianity)? Why is it about to lose majority status to Islam? Why is it fractured into countless denominations, often with mutually conflicting truth claims?

[Mister Agenda]

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%).

1.8 billion is still less than 7 billion and 2. 5 billion is still less than 7 billion.

That is true, but irrelevant to my comment or the context of it, which was you claiming that Islam is the biggest religion, and me explaining that it's really just not.

[SteveII]

Steve's trying to pull a fast one with his "atheism isn't even projected to grow as a %" line.

It's technically true due to a few factors:

1. Projected increases of the human population across the board.  While atheism will see gains, especially in educated, modernized countries, those gains will not match the growth of the human race.  So, there will be more atheists than ever before, but the overall percentage will be lower because the pace of our gains is slower than the pace of people breeding overall.  And since the vast majority of people remain in the same religion in which they were born, well, it's not really a surprise.

2. Christianity is seeing its best gains in countries that aren't educated and modernized, as well as China (which, from the outside, looks like a cultural push back against the communist regime).

3. None of this matters because the legitimacy of an idea doesn't depend on its popularity, much like the quality of McDonald's hamburgers isn't bolstered by billions being served.  It's an immature, facile, fallacious argument that Steve clings to because, frankly, he's got nothing else.

First, I was merely pointing out facts and not proposing an argument. 

1. Kind of sucks for you that you have to make these distinctions. Seems obvious that atheism should at least keep up with the population growth. Oh well. 

2. You seem to be making an argument that lower education levels and modernization are causes of increased rates of conversion from another religion or no religion to Christianity. I don't think you have support for that. These people did not believe in Jesus at one point and now do. You would have to show that there is some information they did not have that would have made a difference. Since we all know that no such information exists, all you have is a correlation, not a cause and as such, not an argument, but an opinion. 

3. We can certainly infer from the billions of people who do find the message of the NT compelling that...billions of people find the NT compelling--which is very germane to the OP.

[The Grand Nudger]

Technically, your authority calls conversions from one branch of christianity to another conversions to christianity...but hey, you be you, lol.

[Harry Nevis]

Steve's trying to pull a fast one with his "atheism isn't even projected to grow as a %" line.

It's technically true due to a few factors:

1. Projected increases of the human population across the board.  While atheism will see gains, especially in educated, modernized countries, those gains will not match the growth of the human race.  So, there will be more atheists than ever before, but the overall percentage will be lower because the pace of our gains is slower than the pace of people breeding overall.  And since the vast majority of people remain in the same religion in which they were born, well, it's not really a surprise.

2. Christianity is seeing its best gains in countries that aren't educated and modernized, as well as China (which, from the outside, looks like a cultural push back against the communist regime).

3. None of this matters because the legitimacy of an idea doesn't depend on its popularity, much like the quality of McDonald's hamburgers isn't bolstered by billions being served.  It's an immature, facile, fallacious argument that Steve clings to because, frankly, he's got nothing else.

First, I was merely pointing out facts and not proposing an argument. 

1. Kind of sucks for you that you have to make these distinctions. Seems obvious that atheism should at least keep up with the population growth. Oh well. 

2. You seem to be making an argument that lower education levels and modernization are causes of increased rates of conversion from another religion or no religion to Christianity. I don't think you have support for that. These people did not believe in Jesus at one point and now do. You would have to show that there is some information they did not have that would have made a difference. Since we all know that no such information exists, all you have is a correlation, not a cause and as such, not an argument, but an opinion. 

3. We can certainly infer from the billions of people who do find the message of the NT compelling that...billions of people find the NT compelling--which is very germane to the OP.

I could give a fuck about popularity of an idea.  It's still emotional claptrap.