hatsoff

Paul wrote to churches in Phillipi, Corinth and Rome, and another somewhere in Galatia. This is quite a wide spectrum, I'd say. Also remember that churches probably flourished in Palestine, Syria and north Africa by the early second century, and possibly in the late first century. It's hard to imagine that only a few thousand Christians would be so widespread across the land.

aa5874

Paul? Do you mean Saul/Paul? I am convinced that he was never even born.

One must bear in mind that conversion rates were very high in the early centuries, once a country was conquered, virtually overnight the new political power would mandate the citizens to follow the religion of the new church. The Roman Catholic had massive conversion rates due to the fact Church and State were a united front.

The Jewish religion, as recorded in the Christian Bible, makes full use of this Church and State unity.

Johnny Skeptic

Not only have you not read 'The Rise of Christianity' in full, which is widely praised among scholars and laymen, your comments show that you have not even taken a cursory glance at the very first chapter, which is where Stark aptly justifies his growth model. Regarding "but I am unsatisfied with Stark's growth model, which, if I remember correctly, is based (arbitrarily, it would seem) on Mormon growth," I am unsatisfied with your inaccurate assessement of a growth model that you know next to nothing about. Stark's discussion of the Mormon church was not anywhere near his main justification for his growth model, and in fact his growth model does not significantly depend upon the growth of the Mormon church. You might say that the growth of the Mormon church was just the icing on the cake. Although I admire Stark, I do not believe that he should have mentioned the Mormon Church because it was founded almost two millennia after Christianity was founded, and in a dramatically differently cultural setting. Stark's extensive corroboration from a noted group of scholars ought to speak for itself, and NONE of the scholars who Stark quoted say anything at all about the Mormon church.

Consider the following from a Mormon church web site at http://www.spiritwatch.org/mormonis.htm:

"An old argument about whether something or another is right or wrong ends with the well-worn cliche 'well, x million people can't be wrong'. If one accepts this reasoning at face value, then the Mormon Church's growth rate in the past 100+ years has been nothing less than a phenomenal vindication of its' truth, a point often asserted by Latter Day Saints. In 1880 there were around 160,000 Latter Day Saints, and sixty more years (1940) would pass until the Church surpassed the million member mark. But only 40 years later - 1980 - that number soared to over 4.5 million, and the Church now - in 1999 - has just over 10 million members. Conservative estimates project that Church membership may rise to as much as 63 million in another 100 years, with a growth rate of 30% per decade (and more liberal estimates place that number at a staggering 267 million). Much of this growth has been attributed to the various moral and social emphases that LDS members utilize in their efforts to reach the masses. Every personal effort they make is to intentionally 'friendship' the prospects that they seek to recruit. They provide a maximal amount of positive regard, warm concern, and personal attention to them, so as to provide personal impetus for seeking and joining Mormonism."

Whether the statistics are true or false, the writer of the article makes a seeming appeal to numbers that I doubt he actually believes, and an appeal that doesn't really make any difference at all unless one attempts to correlate truth with numbers. I debated the issue of the size of the first century Christian church for over a year at the Theology Web. I retired a lot of Christians, but did I really change any of their minds about Christianity being the one and only true religion? I don't think so. Except for a few posts in this thread I don't discuss the size of the early Christian church anymore. I used to debate it because I wanted to present the first century Christian church, and to some extent the second century Christian church, as a very small group of people that the vast majority of people rejected. However, some Christians have agreed with me but told me that it doesn't matter to them what the size of the Christian church was at any time during the last 2,000 years because there is not any provable correlation between how many people believe something and the truth. I now agree with that assessment, and Galileo proved that I and those Christians are right about the fallacy of attempting to correlate truth with numbers.

You don't harbor any ill will toward Christianity or Christians? <edit> The vast majority of fundamentalist Christians oppose physician assisted suicide, homosexuality, and same sex marriage. Their views cause hatred, bitterness, and tangible harm to millions of people. They frequently attempt to hijack, distort, and pervert science in order to back up "the Bible says so." Thanks primarily to fundamentalist Christians, the suicide rate among homosexual teenagers is a good deal higher than among heterosexual teenagers. Many homosexual school children are afraid to go to school because of verbal and sometimes physical abuse from bigots. Bible based homophobia and heterosexism are still rampant in many American schools and cities, most of all in states where there are the most fundamentalist Christians. Many people who are terminally ill, suffering, and want to die detest President Bush for trying to extend their suffering by opposing physician assisted suicide. Many homosexuals, including homosexual children, detest President Bush for depicting them as immoral people who are a threat to American society. If you were gay, had a gay child or a close gay friend who suffered emotional and/or physical damage at the hands of fundamentalist Christians, or if you were terminally ill and wanted to die but were denied help because of fundamentalist Christians, I believe that you would change your opinions a lot. The historical abuses against humanity by the Christian church are too numerous to cover in this post, but I will be happy to debate that issue with you or anyone else in a new thread if you wish. Religion is provably the most divisive and destructive human social institution in history, and yet you find it to be entertaining. You poor soul.

Now I finally believe what you said. Instead of your previous claim "I am only after the truth," you now say that your main motive is entertainment. How does entertainment help you find the truth? How does learning about Christian-related subjects help you find the truth? What kinds of truth are you looking for at this forum? How the universe got here? How humans got here? Whose morality and social values are better? What role should religion play in politics? In this particular thread, what USEFUL and PRACTICAL truths could you possibly learn from debating how big the early Christian was, but whoever said that entertainment had to be useful and practical, right? There is a war of ideas going on around the world, and ideas translate into laws, frequently bad laws, and into how people treat other people, often harshly, but you seem oblivious to it, or uncaring. Do you ever wonder what people will say about you when you die? What do you hope they will say? What are you trying to leave behind for the next generation, tolerance of every world view and every kind of conduct without any protests at all, an appeal to people to seek entertainment at a forum where many of the very people who you seem to protect believe that you deserve to suffer in hell forever because you are a skeptic. What would your philosophy have been if you had been persecuted and killed by the Inquisition?

When you get finished making posts in this thread, you still won't know how big the first century Christian church was (neither do I), and even if you did it would not be of any practical value to you or to anyone esle whatsoever, but of course, as you said, your primary goal is entertainment, just like Ted M and Chili. I do not consider anything about debating fundamentalist Christians to be entertaining. The majority of fundamentalist Christians pose a serious tangible threat to the U.S. and other countries in the world.

My arguments are stern, but not nearly as stern as the arguments of fundamentalist Christians and the Bible.

RED DAVE

From hatsoff:
Actually, it's quite easy to imagine if you understand the weirdness of Christian belief. Basically, the idea is that as an actual historical event, God came down to Earth and allowed himself to be killed for the redemption of mankind and as a fulfillment of Jewish prophecy.

As to the latter, the vast majority of Jews, then and now, find these beliefs to be a combination of ridiculous, pretentious and repugnant. As to the rest of the world, while the notion of a dying and resurrected god was not alien, the notion that the Christian god was the one and only god was an alien notion. It took hundreds of years and, finally, an alliance with a secular power, for Christianity to become a large-scale cult. Widespread, yes, but large, no.

Just consider how little other religions thought about or wrote about Christianity for hundreds of years.

RED DAVE

hatsoff

Stark's model might be as accurate as you claim, but I have yet to be convinced of this. Like I said, the evidence against it seems strong.

Of course you intend disrespect. You poke your head into most of the threads I frequent, always with the same line: I am a liar, I am ignorant, I am wrong, etc... You're quite possibly the rudest person on this forum.

I see those claims and those like it on a regular basis. Never are they couched in any sort of compelling data. Never is a causative relationship between the religion and the suffering established. I just don't buy it.

This is nothing new. I've explained it all before (see here). In any case, finding the truth and enjoying myself are not mutually exclusive.

I'd be careful to liken me to other users on this forum. Chili, if I remember correctly, has a nasty habit of arguing for that which he does not believe. That is something I have never done--at least, not that I can recall.

Ridiculous and unfounded.

hatsoff

Mainstream scholarship, which I tend to trust, accepts that Paul was indeed an historical figure.

hatsoff

Perhaps. I would need more than just speculation, though, to convince me.

Johnny Skeptic

Ok, here is proof. Fundamentalist Christians are the chief opponents of physician assisted suicide. Their opposition if frequently Bible based, such as "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," or "the Lord will not put upon us any more than we can bear." As a result, terminally ill people in every state except for Oregon who want to die are forced to endure pain and suffering. Largely as a result of Bible based homophobia and heterosexism from fundamentalist Christians, the suicide rate among teenage homosexuals is higher than among heterosexual teenagers. There is a lot of evidence that homosexual teenagers are afraid to come out of the closet because when they go to school they suffer from persecution and sometimes physical attacks. Some of their opponents are not Christians, but Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, and James Dobson influence tens of millions of people against homosexuals.

The Old Testament says that God told Moses to kill certain groups of people, including women and children. Now do you want to claim that there was no cause and correlation between God's order to kill people and the result? How about the death penalty for anyone who worked on the Sabbath day? The Old Testament says that God Moses that if a Jew killed a Jew, he would be put to death, but if a Jew killed a slave, for any reason at all, he would be punished, but not put to death. Now don't tell us that you still don't see a cause and correlation.

If the Bible is false, do you have any idea the harm that it has done to mankind?

Are you so naive that you actually believe that religion is not the most destructive social institution in human history? Are you here just for a friendly tea party to exchange views with Christians who believe that you deserve to go to hell? You sure like a strange kind of entertainment.

You don't really care how many Christians there were in the 1st century Christian church. If there were 7,530 in 100 A.D. as Stark estimates, 10 million, or 100 million, what is it to you? There is no logical correlation that fan be made between numbers and the truth. For purposes of this forum, all that matters is whether the Bible is true or not, but you don't seem to care one way or the other, and you seem oblivious to the social significances and consequences of religion. Rodney Stark has a Ph.D. in sociology, is a college professor, is a highly acclaimed author, and has written over 50 books, most of them dealing with the significances and consequences of religion that you seem to be completely unaware of, or don't care. You don't like my evidence and I don't like yours, and in either case, it doesn't matter at all how large the Christian church was at any time in history.

What of practical value do you intend to do with what you learn at this forum? How are you trying to improve the world in which you live? Why do you argue much more with skeptics than you do with Christians. You said that you do not have a problem with Christians or atheists. Who exactly do you have a problem with? How about Muslims?

Solo

That is not proof...that is an assertion that needs "proof". If homosexuals kill themselves at rates several times higher than the general population, it most likely has other explanation, especially since the rates do not seem to drop with even significant changes in social policy (btw, I live in Canada).

JS

ChandraRama

Exactly what Dr. Marvin Harris has explained in his book that the cargo prophets are indistinguishable from the messiahs of the first century Judea, in both expressing the latent anger of the impoverished masses as well as promising the coming kingdom of god where the dead and live will reunite, milk and honey will be available forever, the oppressed will become oppressor and oppressor will become oppressed and so on..