There are 300 FEWER ATHEISTS today than there were yesterday.

[Danno 1,228]

Thriving Christianity

Its numbers increase worldwide with every new day.

Most secular media in the U.S. imply that the world is largely dividing between resurgent Islam and enlightened secularists, with isolated evangelicals and Catholics left on the sideline. A recent report by the ;International Bulletin of Missionary Research indicates otherwise, with one third of the world professing Christianity, virtually unchanged as a global percentage since 100 years ago. Christians today are estimated to number about 2.3 billion. About 1.5 billion are estimated to attend church regularly at over 5 million congregations, up from 400,000 100 years ago.

There are 1.6 estimated Muslims, 951 million Hindus, and 468 million Buddhists. Atheists are thought to be 137 million, a declining number. The report estimates about 80,000 new Christians every day, 79,000 new Muslims every day, and 300 fewer atheists every day. These atheists are presumably disproportionately represented in the West, while religion is thriving in the Global South, where charismatic Christianity is exploding. Over 600 million Christians, including millions of Roman Catholics, are charismatic or Pentecostal.

Where Christians live has shifted dramatically of course. Once Christian Europe is now largely secularized, while "heathen" Africa is largely now either Christian or Islamic. China is on its way to possibly becoming the nation with the most practicing Christians. And Latin America has surging Catholic and evangelical populations. Contrary to common assumptions, America remains about as religious as ever. A 2008 Baylor University survey showed the percentage of American atheists at about 4 percent, unchanged since 1944. The survey also showed that only about 10 percent of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, unlike the 15 percent or so claimed in other recent surveys that claim growing secularization. Baylor found that many "unaffiliated" are actually tied to non-denominational churches or spiritual groups. Mainline Protestantism continues its 45-year meltdown, with Americans less and less identified with old denominations. But Americans by and large are attending churches at about the same rate they have for most of the last 70 years. About one third of Americans are now evangelical. Fewer and fewer attend, or even have a cultural memory of, oldline Episcopal or Presbyterian churches. Many stately old urban sanctuaries sit empty, while nearby thriving congregations meet in school gymnasiums or hotel ballrooms, if they haven't already built a mega-church campus.

A Gallup poll in 2010 showed the percentage of Americans reporting to attend church regularly (at least monthly) was 43 percent. In 1937 it was 37 percent, was slightly lower in the early 1940s, reached 49 percent during the 1950s, and settled at 42 percent in 1969, where it has remained steady for the last 40 years. Current church membership is about 61 percent of Americans, lower than the 73 percent reported 70 years ago, but also reflecting the increased fluidity of Americans religious affiliation and not a reduction in religious belief or practice. Many evangelical churches especially deemphasize membership and instead focus on attendance at worship and in small groups. A Pew survey found that about 44 percent of Americans have switched religious affiliations since childhood. Mostly they are switching away from Mainline Protestantism. Forty-five years ago, about 30 million Americans belonged to the top 7 Mainline denominations, accounting for about one sixth of Americans. Today, it's about 20 million, accounting for about one fifteenth.

One standout from the Mainline implosion is the United Methodist Church. It has lost over 3 million U.S. members since the 1960s, more than any other U.S. church. But, almost uniquely among U.S. denominations, its membership is international, and it now has more than 4.4 million members overseas, mostly in Africa. The church's global membership just surpassed 12 million for the first time in its history. Just released data shows the U.S. church lost more than 300,000 members just across four recent years, while the African churches gained almost 1 million. The denomination's most liberal U.S. regions, on the West Coast and in the Northeast, were the fastest declining, while the relatively more moderate Southeast remained almost steady. The United Methodist News Service quoted a U.S. academic faulting U.S. church decline on a U.S. population shift from the country to urban areas. This is nonsense of course. Like all Mainline denominations, United Methodism's many once potent urban downtown churches are largely shells of their former glory. Its growing, mostly conservative U.S. congregations are in Sun Belt suburbs. The nearly century old Mainline Protestant liberal project, so preoccupied by secular fads rather than the historic faith, is collapsing from its own irrelevance.

SNIP

for more-

http://spectator.org/archives/2011/02/28/thriving-christianity

[bigdog 376]

Bad times, people seek a religion they can relate to.

[웃 910]

Christians today are estimated to number about 2.3 billion. About 1.5 billion are estimated to attend church regularly at over 5 million congregations, up from 400,000 100 years ago.

There are 1.6 estimated Muslims, 951 million Hindus, and 468 million Buddhists. Atheists are thought to be 137 million, a declining number. The report estimates about 80,000 new Christians every day, 79,000 new Muslims every day, and 300 fewer atheists every day. T

Very sad statistics

[Danno 1,228]

Very sad statistics

NOt to be overtly crass but... maybe people are buying, what works?

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Very sad statistics

Dubious you mean, and poorly written?

[Misha & Ira 113]

Very sad statistics

Why sad?

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Muslims are widely undercounted. Many Muslim countries don't keep accurate census, and, in the west, Muslims are counted by who attends masjid. That leaves a large number, mainly women and chikdren, uncounted, since masjid attendance is an obligation for men only, and not all of them can leave work each Friday afternoon to pray.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Why sad?

To LI, those numbers mean the world is full of lunatics who believe in fantasies.

[Misha & Ira 113]

To LI, those numbers mean the world is full of lunatics who believe in fantasies.

[웃 910]

To LI, those numbers mean the world is full of lunatics who believe in fantasies.

Took the words right out of my mouth!

[The_Dude 1,142]

Muslims are widely undercounted. Many Muslim countries don't keep accurate census, and, in the west, Muslims are counted by who attends masjid. That leaves a large number, mainly women and chikdren, uncounted, since masjid attendance is an obligation for men only, and not all of them can leave work each Friday afternoon to pray.

More deluded souls in the world is not a good thing . Ignorance may be bliss for you, but not for world peace.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Took the words right out of my mouth!

I know you all too well

More deluded souls in the world is not a good thing . Ignorance may be bliss for you, but not for world peace.

Disrespecting people of faith doesn't encourage world peace either.

[Azzudiin 26]

No way numbers could be remotely accurate, the Buddist numbers are prime example of how flawed this data is. China would have the largest population of Buddist in the world and no census data has ever been released by Chinese Government in regards to religon

[Danno 1,228]

More deluded souls in the world is not a good thing . Ignorance may be bliss for you, but not for world peace.

Really?

Why don't you point out these places founded on Atheism in which peace was the hallmark of their great society?

Seems to me we have recent reminders in Communism with their "re education camps" ..... museums of "proof" of Atheism" and the effort and money spent to indoctrinate children.

The fruit was unparalleled killing and abuse on wholesale levels.

Don't try to deny it either, Atheism was a principle in which Laws and Punishment was meted out accordingly.

They didn't go to the effort and expense to demolish places of worship to reuse the rubble.

[웃 910]

Really?

Why don't you point out these places founded on Atheism in which peace was the hallmark of their great society?

Seems to me we have recent reminders in Communism with their "re education camps" ..... museums of "proof" of Atheism" and the effort and money spent to indoctrinate children.

The fruit was unparalleled killing and abuse on wholesale levels.

Don't try to deny it either, Atheism was a principle in which Laws and Punishment was meted out accordingly.

They didn't go to the effort and expense to demolish places of worship to reuse the rubble.

Danno- Have you ever heard of the NAS?

http://en.wikipedia....emy_of_Sciences

http://www.nasonline...nas/membership/

They are our nations most elite scientists. About 10% of them hold Nobel Prizes (and not in Bullsh!t like Peace or Literature). We are talking biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, mathematics, etc.). There advanced work are things that you and I could NEVER understand, ever.

93% of the group identify as atheists.

Oh, and the US prison population? About 1/5th of 1% are atheists.

Edited October 29, 2011 by Lord Infamous