Talk:Christianity

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Edits of 71.100.4.72

With everything else that I've seen from the last two days being either trolling or cleaning up after it, I'm not willing to call the edits of 71.100.4.72 ([1]) trolling per se, but they just don't set right with me. S/he seems to be predicting that Christianity as a whole (rather than a few very vocal fringe denominations or sects) will be a bigger thorn in evolution's side in the future, but can we really say that right now? And (although I'm not Christian) wouldn't that be a bit offensive to our non-Creationist Christian readers? --HeroicJay

I added that part. Read Phillip Jenkins "The Next Christendom" amongst other books. In a rather short amount of time, most Christians will not be white and will not live in Europe or America; South America and Africa are the new hearts of Christianity, and these churches are growing up with the type of Biblical literalism that encourages them to adopt Hebrew practices from the OT, speak in tongues, perform excorcisms, and rely very seriously on faith healing. Most of these Pentacostal and charismatic type churches do not believe in evolution, considering their high degrees of Biblical literalism. And no, it does not matter who is offended, those are the facts.-- Count Julian

There's also the whole thing that it sounded like - and still sounds like - a conspiracy theory. But the real thing is; we can't talk about what WILL be because we have no idea what WILL be. We can only talk about past and present, and in past an present, nothing you say really applies. --HeroicJay

It's not a conspiracy theory, you ninny, it's a well known fact. Even today, in the USA, over hlaf of people polled believe that Intelligent Design should be taught alongside evolution; since only about 80% or so are christians and it is hard to see anyone but a Christian (or Orthodox Jew or Muslim, althought they are a very small minority) holding this opinion. And if you would look at the statistics, you would see that the "Southernization" of Christianity is in the here and now. In Germany, there are only about 2 million people going to church regularly each sunday, in england, half that; in France and Germany you have many outspoken atheists, and in Germany you have 25% atheists, with about 90% atheism in east Germany. Church rates are equally abysmal in traditionally catholic Spain and Italy, while in South America and Africa you have regular church attendance and large majorities of Christians in many countries; let's take a look at the top 11 Christian countries according to adherents.com .

1 USA 224,457,000 85%

2 Brazil 139,000,000 93%

3 Mexico 86,120,000 99%

4 Russia 80,000,000 60%

5 China 70,000,000 5.7%

6 Germany 67,000,000 83%

7 Philippines 63,470,000 93%

8 United Kingdom 51,060,000 88%

9 Italy 47,690,000 90%

10 France 44,150,000 98%

11 Nigeria 38,180,000 45%

The number is the actual number of Christians, and the percent is the percent of the total population. Note that the numbers on Europe are grosly inflated. Let's take a look at the top ten non-believing countries to sort that out:

China 1,298,848,000 8 - 14%* 103,907,840 - 181,838,720

Japan 127,333,000 64 - 65% 81,493,120 - 82,766,450

Russia 143,782,000 24 - 48% 34,507,680 - 69,015,360

Vietnam 82,690,000 81% 66,978,900

Germany 82,425,000 41 - 49% 33,794,250 - 40,388,250

France 60,424,000 43 - 54% 25,982,320 - 32,628,960

USA 293,028,000 3 - 9% 8,790,840 - 26,822,520

Britain 60,271,000 31 - 44% 18,684,010 - 26,519,240

South Korea 48,598,000 30 - 52% 14,579,400 - 25,270,960

Canada 32,508,000 19 - 30% 6,176,520 - 9,752,400

The first column is the total number of people in each country, the third is number of atheists/agnostics/non-believers, and the second is the percent of atheism in that country. from this, it is clear to see that the European nations are no longer very religios, and from the chart at the top, it is quite clear that the global south is the new home of Christianity. Pentacostalism is growing there, and other churches, most notably the Roman catholic church, are going charismatic to counter the threat to their membership. Considering that some of these native churches still sacrifice animals to Yahweh in accordance with the OT, I find it highly doubtful that any of these churches would possibly favor teaching evolution alongside genesis, let alone acknowledging the supperiority of science to genesis. Considering the fact that you have provided 100% no statistics, it is you who propound conspiracy theories here, not me. Time to get off the internet and read a book. -- Count Jullian

Sounds like we're all doomed then. 100% no hope.

Seriously though, the page title is Christianity, not Trends Adverse to Science/Evolution, i.e. partisan material should be clearly signposted so that the reader's expectation is set, especially on a wiki like this where many pages are about scientific fact, and as such imply a greater degree of consensus than found in any other walk of life. --Nic 07:40, 25 Oct 2005 (BST)

"As the Orthodox churches, due in large part to decreasing membership..."

Is there any proof of this statement? In Russia, which has the largest Orthodox Church, membership is only increasing (or most certainly not going down, at least), and Protestants convert to Orthodoxy mostly in America, where the number of Orthodox is rather low and, thus, not influential. So I can hardly see how these processes can change the general views of the Church on evolution. On the other hand, the Church itself doesn't have a strict view on evolution, simply because science is not the Church's sphere of affairs. But generally most Orthodox have no problem with accepting 'mainstream' evolutionary theories. There are a few marginal groups of fanatics, which are everywhere, of course, but the negative view on evolution is alien to Orthodoxy and is clearly a Protestant influence, though not because of Protestants converting, but because of a generally low level of the adherents' theological knowledge and the wide availability of Protestant books on the topic after the collapse of the Soviet Union (I can only speak for Russia, of course). The Church as a whole, however, has always traditionally distanced itself from science, and I can't see why this could change somehow. I've thus edited the last part of the article a bit.

That's my two cents on the topic of Christianity and Evolution, just so that contributors could understand that not all Christians are creationists or even proponents of Intelligent Design. I, for one, don't have problems with natural selection, too (in the way that it's not contrary to my religious beliefs - I don't actually care that much about biology per se - that's just not my cup of tea ;) ). And I actually belong to, perhaps, the most conservative Christian denomination out there. -- OlegB

P.S. By the way, shouldn't 'the Church' always be capitalized when referring to a religious body?