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The world's fastest-growing religion is...

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  • The world's fastest-growing religion is...

    Source: CNN


    If tech futurists are to be believed, by the year 2050, robots will do many of our errands and drive our cars. If a new study on religious trends is to be believed, many of those robot-controlled cars will stop and park at mosques and churches.

    Yes, despite predictions that religion will go the way of dinosaurs, the size of almost every major faith -- sorry, Buddhists -- will increase in the next 40 years, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Research Center. The biggest winners, Pew predicts, will be Islam and Christianity.

    Islam, the world's fastest-growing faith, will leap from 1.6 billion (in 2010) to 2.76 billion by 2050, according to the Pew study. At that time, Muslims will make up nearly one-third of the world's total projected population of about 9 billion people.

    Christianity is expected to grow, too, but not at Islam's explosive rate. The Pew study predicts Christians will increase from 2.17 billion to 2.92 billion, composing more than 31% of the world's population.

    This means that by 2050, more than 6 out of 10 people on Earth will be Christian or Muslim. And, for perhaps the first time in history, Islam and Christianity would boast roughly equal numbers.

    Looking even farther into the future, Islam's population could surpass Christianity by 2100, Pew says, despite Christians' six-century head start. (It's possible that Muslims outnumbered Christians some time in the past, perhaps during the Black Plague that decimated Europe. But scholars aren't certain.)

    Based in Washington, Pew is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that regularly produces sweeping surveys of this kind without taking public policy positions. Six years in the making, its study collected data from 234 countries and territories to predict the fate of five major faiths -- Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism and Islam -- as well as folk religions and the religiously unaffiliated, including atheists.

    The study, which Pew says is the first of its kind, bases its projections on the age of populations, fertility and mortality rates, as well as migration and conversion patterns. Simply put, Muslims are having larger families, retaining more members (conversions are illegal in some Muslim nations) and are younger than adherents of other faiths. More than 1 in 3 Muslims is younger than 15.

    But religious trends have never been measured on the study's vast scale, Pew says, so a few cautions are in order.

    First, the population projections are based on current data and assumptions about demographic trends. For example, Muslim women have an average of three children, the highest of any religious group. In the future, if education and employment rates rise, those numbers could change.

    Second, nobody at Pew has a crystal ball, so events like cataclysmic wars, rampaging diseases, natural disasters and economic meltdowns could throw the numbers off.

    But it's clear from the 245-page report that Pew and the demographic experts they consulted did their homework, so the study is worth taking seriously. With that in mind, here are some of the study's top findings about what the world will look like -- at least, faith-wise -- in 2050.

    -- Atheists, agnostics and religiously unaffiliated people will increase in the United States (from 16% to 26%) but decline as a share of the total worldwide population.

    -- Also in the United States, Christians will drop from 78% to 66% of population. Muslims will surpass Jews as the largest non-Christian religion in the U.S.

    -- Sub-Saharan African will be home to 40% of the Christian population and Nigeria have more Christians than any other country except for the United States and Brazil.

    -- India will have the largest Muslim population in the world, passing Indonesia, but Hindus will retain a majority.

    -- More than 10% of Europeans will be Muslim, while the number of Christians in Europe will drop by 100 million.

    -- Hinduism (1.4 billion adherents) and Judaism (16 million) will increase, while Buddhists will be about the same size as in 2010 (5.2 million).

    -- In the coming decades, 106 million people are projected to leave Christianity. (46 million will convert to Christianity, offsetting the losses a little.)

    -- The number of countries with Christian majorities will drop to 151, as Christians are projected to decrease in Australia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom.

    -- Muslims are expected to make up more than 50% of the population in 51 countries, including the Republic of Macedonia and Nigeria.


    Source

    © Copyright Original Source


    This doesn't seem all that surprising. Though, if you take into account the Christian explosion that researches believe will happen in China, that might change these numbers a bit. I am wondering about the dynamics of a world that will be a majority of Christian and Muslim. If Muslims become more radical by population, will there be another war between us and them at some point? It that happens, it will be interesting to see whom the non-religious and those of "less popular" religions side with.
    "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

  • #2
    I'm just hoping violent extremism goes down among Muslims and doesn't go up among Christians.

    Comment


    • #3
      Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
      I'm just hoping violent extremism goes down among Muslims and doesn't go up among Christians.
      True. I think the growth of Islam is mostly due to the way it spreads. While Christianity centers around free will choice in accepting Christ, muslims tend to conquer by the sword. They will take over an entire country and force people to convert while making other religions against the law.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by Sparko View Post
        True. I think the growth of Islam is mostly due to the way it spreads. While Christianity centers around free will choice in accepting Christ, muslims tend to conquer by the sword. They will take over an entire country and force people to convert while making other religions against the law.
        Or they both spread mainly by the momentum from indoctrinating children, and Muslims are making more babies.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
          Or they both spread mainly by the momentum from indoctrinating children, and Muslims are making more babies.
          It confuses me that Christian parents teaching their children Christianity is so often labeled indoctrination. Do you have kids?

          Edit: Nevermind, "indoctrination" doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation. Just ignore this.
          Last edited by Zymologist; 04-07-2015, 02:41 PM.
          I DENOUNCE DONALD J. TRUMP AND ALL HIS IMMORAL ACTS.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
            Or they both spread mainly by the momentum from indoctrinating children, and Muslims are making more babies.
            I don't know. Lots of kids who grow up in Christian families tend to rebel once they get out into the world. My grandpa was a preacher and had 12 kids. Most became non religious when they moved out on their own, including my Dad. Later in life a lot of them came back to Christianity but it wasn't because of growing up in a Christian home.

            And a lot of kids who grow up in atheist families turn to Christianity.

            Comment


            • #7
              It's more about whether people raised by Christians or Muslims are more likely to become Christians vs. Muslims.

              Nonreligion is more off to the side, both because of numbers and because it's not a replacement religion.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by seasanctuary View Post
                It's more about whether people raised by Christians or Muslims are more likely to become Christians vs. Muslims.

                Nonreligion is more off to the side, both because of numbers and because it's not a replacement religion.
                I am sure that is a part of it. but when it comes to Islam, when they get enough numbers or influence, they take over a country, install Sharia law, outlaw other religions, and basically force people to convert to Islam or end up in prison or even death. A bit different than Christianity, eh?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                  I am sure that is a part of it. but when it comes to Islam, when they get enough numbers or influence, they take over a country, install Sharia law, outlaw other religions, and basically force people to convert to Islam or end up in prison or even death. A bit different than Christianity, eh?
                  Actually, it sounds rather reminiscent of the spread of Christianity from the 4th Century, onward. It's only been within the last few hundred years that the concept of Freedom of Religion came even to the Christian world.
                  "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                  --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                    I am sure that is a part of it. but when it comes to Islam, when they get enough numbers or influence, they take over a country, install Sharia law, outlaw other religions, and basically force people to convert to Islam or end up in prison or even death. A bit different than Christianity, eh?
                    I count ~50 countries on Wikipedia's "Islam by country" page with over 50% of the population being Muslim. How many of these countries have "install[ed] Sharia law, outlaw[ed] other religions, and basically force[d] people to convert to Islam or end up in prison or even death"?
                    "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Sam View Post
                      I count ~50 countries on Wikipedia's "Islam by country" page with over 50% of the population being Muslim. How many of these countries have "install[ed] Sharia law, outlaw[ed] other religions, and basically force[d] people to convert to Islam or end up in prison or even death"?
                      I hate using Wikipedia, but here it shows that 11 countries have full Sharia law. 28 apply Sharia to "marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody", and the rest have regional variants. Make of that what you will.
                      "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Jesse View Post
                        I hate using Wikipedia, but here it shows that 11 countries have full Sharia law. 28 apply Sharia to "marriage, divorce, inheritance, and child custody", and the rest have regional variants. Make of that what you will.
                        Implementing some form of Islamic law in Muslim-majority countries wasn't the particularly contested part of Sparko's assertion. Outlawing other religions and forcing non-converts to head to prison or death was the part that seemed completely out of place in the majority of Muslim-majority countries.
                        "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Sam View Post
                          Implementing some form of Islamic law in Muslim-majority countries wasn't the particularly contested part of Sparko's assertion. Outlawing other religions and forcing non-converts to head to prison or death was the part that seemed completely out of place in the majority of Muslim-majority countries.
                          So I went looking a bit further into this. There are 49 Islamic countries. Of those, 32 have the highest Muslim population by percentage. And of those 32, 16 countries (that I felt like researching) have strong reports of forced conversions/deaths. Those countries are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Western Sahara, Yemen.

                          So atleast half of the countries with the most Muslims, perform forced conversions. Sparko's assertion is not without merit.
                          "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Jesse View Post
                            Source: CNN


                            Islam, the world's fastest-growing faith, will leap from 1.6 billion (in 2010) to 2.76 billion by 2050, according to the Pew study. At that time, Muslims will make up nearly one-third of the world's total projected population of about 9 billion people.

                            Christianity is expected to grow, too, but not at Islam's explosive rate. The Pew study predicts Christians will increase from 2.17 billion to 2.92 billion, composing more than 31% of the world's population.

                            This means that by 2050, more than 6 out of 10 people on Earth will be Christian or Muslim. And, for perhaps the first time in history, Islam and Christianity would boast roughly equal numbers.

                            Looking even farther into the future, Islam's population could surpass Christianity by 2100, Pew says, despite Christians' six-century head start.

                            The study, which Pew says is the first of its kind, bases its projections on the age of populations, fertility and mortality rates, as well as migration and conversion patterns. Simply put, Muslims are having larger families, retaining more members (conversions are illegal in some Muslim nations) and are younger than adherents of other faiths. More than 1 in 3 Muslims is younger than 15.

                            -- More than 10% of Europeans will be Muslim, while the number of Christians in Europe will drop by 100 million.

                            -- The number of countries with Christian majorities will drop to 151, as Christians are projected to decrease in Australia, Benin, Bosnia-Herzegovina, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom.

                            © Copyright Original Source

                            I'll just leave this here (it's 21:14 minutes long, but I think it's worth watching):

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Jesse View Post
                              So I went looking a bit further into this. There are 49 Islamic countries. Of those, 32 have the highest Muslim population by percentage. And of those 32, 16 countries (that I felt like researching) have strong reports of forced conversions/deaths. Those countries are: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Western Sahara, Yemen.

                              So atleast half of the countries with the most Muslims, perform forced conversions. Sparko's assertion is not without merit.
                              If Sparko's assertion had been something more along the lines of "roughly 30% of majority-Muslim countries have reports of forced conversion," I'd say it has merit. His allegation, however, was much more absolute and much more stringent:
                              Originally posted by Sparko
                              [Muslims] will take over an entire country and force people to convert while making other religions against the law.
                              Originally posted by Sparko
                              [W]hen it comes to Islam, when they get enough numbers or influence, they take over a country, install Sharia law, outlaw other religions, and basically force people to convert to Islam or end up in prison or even death.

                              That sounds a lot worse than "About 30% of majority-Muslim countries have reports of forced conversions at some time."
                              "I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"

                              Comment

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