Report: Muslims will nearly equal Christians soon

[GSOgymrat]

I'm sure there are some fundamentalist Christians not very happy about this. Atheism isn't predicted to fare well with religions growing over the next 40 years.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/02/living/pew-study-religion/index.html

(CNN)â€"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. ...


-- 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 75% 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.

[hrdlr110]

I wonder what variables they have/have not accounted for To make these predictions.
1) Continuing education in poorer countries.
2) Increased awareness via the internet in more developed countries.
3) A decreased stigma attached to non-belief as non-belief grows.
4) The people turning away from Muslim/islam due to the violent nature of its most adherent followers.
5) Science learning more about our universe thus making god's corner of the room even smaller.

Just curious if they account for these types of things - can one find that out I wonder??

[Valigarmander]

Whoever wins, we lose.

[Hydra009]

Whoever wins, we lose.

[Poison Tree]

I wonder what variables they have/have not accounted for To make these predictions.
1) Continuing education in poorer countries.
2) Increased awareness via the internet in more developed countries.
3) A decreased stigma attached to non-belief as non-belief grows.
4) The people turning away from Muslim/islam due to the violent nature of its most adherent followers.
5) Science learning more about our universe thus making god's corner of the room even smaller.

Just curious if they account for these types of things - can one find that out I wonder??

Quoting very selectively from the PEW site

If current trends continue [. . .]
If current demographic trends continue [. . .]

While they did attempt to factor in conversion and migration, this projection is heavily based on current demographic trends continuing.

[Hydra009]

The rapid increase of Muslims is a bit troubling, but it's something I already read a little about.  The main reason is fertility rates, which are expected to drop off, though they are and likely will remain higher than those of non-Muslims.

A silver lining in this news is that unaffiliated are going to grow as a percentage of the population in North America and Europe.  For the US, 16% of the total population in 2010 to 26% of the population in 2050.  I'm seeing atheist prez possibilities, people!  It's not surprising to note that the projected growth of atheists in the US matches closely with the projected decline of Christians there.  And speaking of deconverts, more people deconvert to atheism than convert to a religion, so that's a net gain of 61 million by 2050.  Not exactly a gamechanger, but it's something.

[leo]

Atheism isn't attractive to the masses. Because most people in the world don't like to deal with reality . So not surprises there. But the gigantic grow of Islam is a very bad  news for humanity.
We could return to the dark ages , when Islam become the world largest religion in later future. By 2050's Islam will match christianity and maybe by 2100 will surpass christianity as the world biggest religion. Scary shit.

[Munch]

The way muslims kill each other in their own country with bombs and friendly fire, along with their disgusting acts of Sharia law even in the western countries that moved to, I find it a little harder to believe this could be the case. This report doesn't take into account the amount of people under Islamic belief hodl such little regard for life they would gladly kill themselves along with others to prove their love of Allah.

[leo]

Yeah but Muslims reproduce like rats. The gigantic grow of Islam isn't about the masses converting  to Islam. The main reason of this explosive grow  is Muslims popping children like rats.

[SGOS]

I've been aware of Islam being the fastest growing religion for many years, so assuming rates don't change, Islam has to catch up with Christianity.  Predicting when that happens is a bit harder.  I assume attitudes about Islam will change as it becomes seen as more and more violent.  Whether this becomes a plus or minus for the future of Islam is hard to say.

[Brian37]

Yeah but Muslims reproduce like rats. The gigantic grow of Islam isn't about the masses converting  to Islam. The main reason of this explosive grow  is Muslims popping children like rats.

No, humans reproduce like rats. If you want to attack the ideas and claims in Islam fine, it certainly is the root cause of oppression in the middle east, but the cure isn't treating fellow humans as a sub species, the cure is good economics and empowerment of women.

The uneducated and poor Christians in Africa can be just as barbaric and oppressive as Islam. Look up "The Lord's Resistance Army". And our asshole right wing Christians missionaries convinced African nations do pass laws having gays arrested and even threatened with the death penalty.

Attack ideas and claims and certainly Islam is and Idea and claim, but humans are not rats.

[Hydra009]

Yeah but Muslims reproduce like rats. The gigantic grow of Islam isn't about the masses converting  to Islam. The main reason of this explosive grow  is Muslims popping children like rats.

[Solitary]

When the waters rise, and the Church keeps condemning birth control, the food can keep up with the population, a New Crusade will develop with chaos everywhere, and then we will be fighting with sticks and stones to survive after all the ammo is gone, and the last man alive will be praying to God.      Resistance is futile! Solitary

[Munch]

No, humans reproduce like rats. If you want to attack the ideas and claims in Islam fine, it certainly is the root cause of oppression in the middle east, but the cure isn't treating fellow humans as a sub species, the cure is good economics and empowerment of women.

The uneducated and poor Christians in Africa can be just as barbaric and oppressive as Islam. Look up "The Lord's Resistance Army". And our asshole right wing Christians missionaries convinced African nations do pass laws having gays arrested and even threatened with the death penalty.

Attack ideas and claims and certainly Islam is and Idea and claim, but humans are not rats.

Agreed, there is always a risk between what is a belief system and what is a person in these debates, and I won't ever tread on human nature to those who are sadly born into a society that would indoctrinate them into a bad religion.

I still hold out hope that education and the development of science and discovery will teach people the real meaning of this world and help them grow away from such beliefs, but thats for another debate.

[PopeyesPappy]

If the 10 to 26% increase in the percentage of unaffiliated in the US is accurate then here's the good news for us. Based on these growth projects the number of godless heathens in the US will increase somewhere between 149% and 508% by 2070.