Anonymous wrote:Think Christianity is dying? No, Christianity is shifting dramatically

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/05/20/think-christianity-is-dying-no-christianity-is-shifting-dramatically/%3foutputType=amp

While Christianity may be on the decline in the United States, the world is becoming more religious, not less. While rising numbers of “nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation when asked — claim the attention of religious pundits, the world tells a different story. Religious convictions are growing and shifting geographically in several dramatic ways.

The colonial era is over, btw.

Anonymous wrote:Think Christianity is dying? No, Christianity is shifting dramatically

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/05/20/think-christianity-is-dying-no-christianity-is-shifting-dramatically/%3foutputType=amp

While Christianity may be on the decline in the United States, the world is becoming more religious, not less. While rising numbers of “nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation when asked — claim the attention of religious pundits, the world tells a different story. Religious convictions are growing and shifting geographically in several dramatic ways.

The colonial era is over, btw.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hell is frequently imagined as a burning wasteland, a dungeon full of cauldrons and pitchforks, or an underground city filled with ghosts and goblins. Popular depictions of hell often involve a flaming torture chamber or a spiritual jail where evil things reside—and where good things travel to battle evil. This version of hell does not exist.

The Bible actually gives very few particulars about hell. We know that it was originally intended for demonic spiritual beings, not people (Matthew 25:41).

The experience of being in hell is compared to burning (Mark 9:43; 9:48; Matthew 18:9; Luke 16:24). At the same time, hell is compared to darkness (Matthew 22:13) and associated with intense grief (Matthew 8:12) and horror (Mark 9:44).

In short, the Bible tells us only what being in hell is “like”; it does not explicitly say what hell is or how exactly it functions. What the Bible does make clear is that hell is real, eternal, and to be avoided at all costs (Matthew 5:29–30).

Hell is a place of suffering originally prepared by God for the devil and his angels (Matthew 18:9; 25:41).

Our culture defines a “loving God” as a completely non-confrontational being who tolerates anything we want to do. But that is not a biblical definition. First John 4:16 says that God is love. That means that He does not possess love as we do; He is the very definition of love and therefore cannot do anything that is unloving. The law of non-contradiction states that something cannot be both true and untrue at the same time. So, if God IS love, then He cannot be at the same time unloving.

The fallacy presented by the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” concerns the word send, which denotes an action only on the part of the sender. If a man sends a letter, sends a request, or sends a gift, all action was done by that man. No action was taken on the part of the letter, request, or gift. However, this understanding of the word send cannot be applied to the question at hand because God has given human beings freedom to participate in their life choices and eternal destinations (John 3:16–18). The way this question is worded implies that, if anyone goes to hell, it is the result of God’s unilateral action, and the person being sent to hell is a passive victim. Such an idea completely disregards the personal responsibility God has entrusted to each of us.

Yes -- simply believe in "the personal responsibility God has entrusted to each of us" (thank you god, for being so trusting! /s) and it's totally understandable that he sends us to hell for being personally irresponsible. /s

Also - Thank you God, for making your servants so clever that they (or at least some of them - the GOOD ones) can find so many ways to rationalize your ways. /s

Because if they didn't, Christianity would be dying. Opps - it IS dying!

Christianity has been estimated to be growing rapidly in South America, Africa, and Asia. In Africa, for instance, in 1900, there were only 8.7 million adherents of Christianity; now there are 390 million, and it is expected that by 2025 there will be 600 million Christians in Africa.

Christianity rank at first place in net gains through religious conversion. According to "The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion", approximately 15.5 million converting to Christianity from another religion, while approximately 11.7 million leave Christianity, and most of them become irreligious, resulting in a net gain of 3.8 million.

While Muslims have an average of 3.1 children per woman—the highest rate of all religious groups—Christians are second, with 2.7 children per woman. By the Pew Research Center's estimates, the Muslim fertility rate and Christian fertility rate will converge by 2040.

Studies estimate significantly more people have converted from Islam to Christianity in the 21st century than at any other point in Islamic history. Conversion to Christianity has also been well documented, and reports estimate that hundreds of thousands of Muslims convert to Christianity annually. https://denverseminary.edu/article/a-wind-in-the-house-of-islam/


Many of the Muslims who convert to Christianity face social rejection or imprisonment and sometimes murder or penalty, for becoming Christians.

Conversion into Christianity has significantly increased among Korean, Chinese, and Japanese in the United States. In 2012, the percentage of Christians in these communities were 71%, 30% and 37% respectively.

Anonymous wrote:The Changing Global Religious Landscape
Babies born to Muslims will begin to outnumber Christian births by 2035; people with no religion face a birth dearth

https://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/

Anonymous wrote:The Changing Global Religious Landscape
Babies born to Muslims will begin to outnumber Christian births by 2035; people with no religion face a birth dearth

https://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/

Anonymous wrote:

good images

In truth and fact, the trend is going to be (globally) an increase in the pattern of growth in religious populations vs a decrease in percentage of unaffiliated people. The populations with high birth rates are embracing religion, and countries with aging populations and low and declining birth rates that are the places where unaffiliated populations (atheists, agnostics, people who don’t identify with a religion or organized religious beliefs) are highly concentrated. Though the numbers of unaffiliated people increase, they will decrease as total percentage. So the trend globally is increasing for religious people.

Anonymous wrote:Hell is the destination for those who have died, whose soul has deliberately rejected God's love after having felt or experienced it. If you bother to research old Catholic sources, there have been accounts of souls who appeared from hell to warn those still alive that there is indeed such a state of being. There is no purpose of hell to scare people - it is a real consequence of where one will be if they choose to reject God after God has revealed His love, either during life on earth or after death (nothing is impossible for God to show Himself to non-believing souls).

Souls who do not reject God, but have sinned on earth, go through puritification, which Catholics call purgatory. There is a place in Europe where marks of souls in purgatory have been documented. These souls are not in Hell, but their souls are cleansed for sins committed on earth. Check it out.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/museum-holy-souls-purgatory

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hell is frequently imagined as a burning wasteland, a dungeon full of cauldrons and pitchforks, or an underground city filled with ghosts and goblins. Popular depictions of hell often involve a flaming torture chamber or a spiritual jail where evil things reside—and where good things travel to battle evil. This version of hell does not exist.

The Bible actually gives very few particulars about hell. We know that it was originally intended for demonic spiritual beings, not people (Matthew 25:41).

The experience of being in hell is compared to burning (Mark 9:43; 9:48; Matthew 18:9; Luke 16:24). At the same time, hell is compared to darkness (Matthew 22:13) and associated with intense grief (Matthew 8:12) and horror (Mark 9:44).

In short, the Bible tells us only what being in hell is “like”; it does not explicitly say what hell is or how exactly it functions. What the Bible does make clear is that hell is real, eternal, and to be avoided at all costs (Matthew 5:29–30).

Hell is a place of suffering originally prepared by God for the devil and his angels (Matthew 18:9; 25:41).

Our culture defines a “loving God” as a completely non-confrontational being who tolerates anything we want to do. But that is not a biblical definition. First John 4:16 says that God is love. That means that He does not possess love as we do; He is the very definition of love and therefore cannot do anything that is unloving. The law of non-contradiction states that something cannot be both true and untrue at the same time. So, if God IS love, then He cannot be at the same time unloving.

The fallacy presented by the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” concerns the word send, which denotes an action only on the part of the sender. If a man sends a letter, sends a request, or sends a gift, all action was done by that man. No action was taken on the part of the letter, request, or gift. However, this understanding of the word send cannot be applied to the question at hand because God has given human beings freedom to participate in their life choices and eternal destinations (John 3:16–18). The way this question is worded implies that, if anyone goes to hell, it is the result of God’s unilateral action, and the person being sent to hell is a passive victim. Such an idea completely disregards the personal responsibility God has entrusted to each of us.

Yes -- simply believe in "the personal responsibility God has entrusted to each of us" (thank you god, for being so trusting! /s) and it's totally understandable that he sends us to hell for being personally irresponsible. /s

Also - Thank you God, for making your servants so clever that they (or at least some of them - the GOOD ones) can find so many ways to rationalize your ways. /s

Because if they didn't, Christianity would be dying. Opps - it IS dying!

Anonymous wrote:Hell is frequently imagined as a burning wasteland, a dungeon full of cauldrons and pitchforks, or an underground city filled with ghosts and goblins. Popular depictions of hell often involve a flaming torture chamber or a spiritual jail where evil things reside—and where good things travel to battle evil. This version of hell does not exist.

The Bible actually gives very few particulars about hell. We know that it was originally intended for demonic spiritual beings, not people (Matthew 25:41).

The experience of being in hell is compared to burning (Mark 9:43; 9:48; Matthew 18:9; Luke 16:24). At the same time, hell is compared to darkness (Matthew 22:13) and associated with intense grief (Matthew 8:12) and horror (Mark 9:44).

In short, the Bible tells us only what being in hell is “like”; it does not explicitly say what hell is or how exactly it functions. What the Bible does make clear is that hell is real, eternal, and to be avoided at all costs (Matthew 5:29–30).

Hell is a place of suffering originally prepared by God for the devil and his angels (Matthew 18:9; 25:41).

Our culture defines a “loving God” as a completely non-confrontational being who tolerates anything we want to do. But that is not a biblical definition. First John 4:16 says that God is love. That means that He does not possess love as we do; He is the very definition of love and therefore cannot do anything that is unloving. The law of non-contradiction states that something cannot be both true and untrue at the same time. So, if God IS love, then He cannot be at the same time unloving.

The fallacy presented by the question “how can a loving God send someone to hell?” concerns the word send, which denotes an action only on the part of the sender. If a man sends a letter, sends a request, or sends a gift, all action was done by that man. No action was taken on the part of the letter, request, or gift. However, this understanding of the word send cannot be applied to the question at hand because God has given human beings freedom to participate in their life choices and eternal destinations (John 3:16–18). The way this question is worded implies that, if anyone goes to hell, it is the result of God’s unilateral action, and the person being sent to hell is a passive victim. Such an idea completely disregards the personal responsibility God has entrusted to each of us.