How did Christianity become so popular

[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.

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.

Steve:

1. Why does it seem obvious that atheism should keep up with the birthrates of Christians? Even though Chrisitan birthrates are down, they're still higher than atheist birthrates. Part of that stems from your religion, literally, having a "be fruitful and multiply" decree built in. It seems obvious that, despite our numbers growing, the percentages will shift in your favor because your numbers are growing faster. You have a far larger base, so even if our birthrate outpaced yours, it would take a lot for our percentage to gain ground.

2. The areas where Christianity is gaining the most ground typically happen to be the places where access to quality education is severely limited. Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and traditionally Muslim areas. While the gains in South Korea and Japan buck the trend, the rest are places where exposure to other ideas, as well as critical thinking (which is a skill honed through quality education), aren't happening. These also tend to be places where whatever the local warlord or despot says is law. It's not a mystery why, by 2050, 40% of all Christians will be living in sub-Saharan Africa.

3. But your mistake/delusion is thinking that all of these people come to the NT after considering alternatives. In a lot of cases, that's simply not true. It's either a culture they were born into, a cultural reaction to something else (Muslims no longer wanting to be associated with the assholes beheading people, Chinese pushing back against the communist regime, etc.), or done by force (see: Lord's Resistance Army as an example).

You keep thinking that all Christians are those who calmly examined the religion, and decided that, compared to others that they have also explored, it's the correct one. That's simply not the case. In many cases, people don't have much of a choice in the matter. And it's intellectually dishonest to pretend otherwise.

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

Also, this. No matter how hard Steve tries, the popularity of an idea doesn't equate to the value or truthiness of the idea. It's one of the most basic logical fallacies.