Rising and Falling Trends in Faith.

[The Last Legionary]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm

High points? Many.

"three largest religions in the world are currently, in order, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism."

"at current rates, Islam will overtake Christianity as the world's dominant religion later in the 21st century."

It's an interesting read.

Me, I'm converting to "Other" soon as I can figure out what I believe in. Drinkism. I believe I'll have another drink!



IV

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Well, 1 of mine's in the Top 3, and 4 others made the list too. Whoo Hoo!

 

[tellner]

It would be interesting to find out how many people combine practices and beliefs from more than one religion and how that has changed over the last century. We'll never know, sad to say.

I'm just praying that "murderous fanaticism" doesn't get a larger share. I think it's in the top one or two at the moment

 

[Xue Sheng]

Another view of religion today

Something curious is happening in the wide world of faith, something that defies easy explanation or quantification. More substantial than a trend but less organized than a movement, it has to do more with how people practice their religion than with what they believe, though people caught up in this change often find that their beliefs are influenced, if not subtly altered, by the changes in their practice.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/...?s_cid=et-1217

This is from here
http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57875

What I have found interesting in the Western religion world is its complete lack of acceptance of change. Look at what it takes to get into a school that for divinity studies. It, at least to me, shows that they are not looking for any new people with ideas but new people that will blindly follow old ideas. What organization in the western world has been able to survive without change? Pretty much none.

 

[Steel Tiger]

The supposition that Islam will outnumber Christianity sometime in the 21st century seemed a little strange to me. The data suggested that they were both growing at the same rate relative to time, with no significant closing of the gap between them.

I think the fastest growing category that was shown is actually no religion. Organised religion is so consistently pissing people off that many are opting out (and probably finding their lives a whole lot easier).

Hinduism is definitely on the decline as more and more Indians turn away from religion all together.

With regard to a comparison between Christianity and Islam, I like to think of it this way. There is about 600 years difference between the founding dates of these religions, so to work out what Islam is doing or going through I look at Christianity from about 600 years ago. What was going on in Christianity in 1400? There are differences in detail but it gives a pretty good indication of broad trends.

 

[Makalakumu]

I think the fastest growing category that was shown is actually no religion. Organised religion is so consistently pissing people off that many are opting out (and probably finding their lives a whole lot easier).

This wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. As people become more educated, they naturally find themselves being less willing to buy into this or that dogma and more inclined to make their own decisions.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

I believe the basis is on differences in population growth between where the 2 religions are.

 

[Steel Tiger]

I believe the basis is on differences in population growth between where the 2 religions are.

That's a really good point Bob. A lot of the countries in which Christianity is the dominant religion have negative birth rates (South America being the big exception), whereas most Islam dominated countries have significant positive birth rates.

But if you take this into account and look at the growth of Christianity and Islam from 1966 to 2003 in which both religions gained 100 000 000 adherents (Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year), it suggests that Christianity is bucking the birth rate trends. Its very interesting.

Xue mentioned something in another thread about a return to traditionalism in Christianity. This might actually be having an effect on the growth trend for the religion.

One thing about the article I found a little alarming was this:

Within Christianity, not all denominations have the same growth rate. Some annual growth rates are:

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]Pentecostals: 8.1%[/FONT]

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]Evangelicals: 5.4%;[/FONT]

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]All Protestants: 3.3%[/FONT]

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]Roman Catholics and Others: 1.3%[/FONT]

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]Since the growth rate of humanity is above 1.4%, the "market share" of Roman Catholicism and others appears to be slowly dropping.[/FONT]
[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]Missiologist Ralph Winter estimated in early 2001 that there are 680 million "born again" Christians in the world, and that they are growing at about 7% a year. This represents about 11% of the world's population and 33% of the total number of Christians.[/FONT]

That's an awful lot of Pentecostals kissing snakes!

 

[Ray]

I think Islam has a fantastic plan for keeping converts. If you quit the religion and join another then you get the death penalty....I don't know how often it's enforced, if at all.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I will have to check but just as a point of interest I believe at least two of the greatest Muslim conquerors of the past died Hindu.

 

[Doc_Jude]

I think Islam has a fantastic plan for keeping converts. If you quit the religion and join another then you get the death penalty....I don't know how often it's enforced, if at all.

That being said, I'm not concerned with Muslims, I'm more concerned with Islamic Extremism. Kinda like back in the day: "Christians don't scare me, it's that damn Inquisition!"

Also, I agree with the growing Agnostic/Atheist population bit. That's why I'm such a fan of education. The more you know about the world, the less you replace with blind faith.

 

[Doc_Jude]

I will have to check but just as a point of interest I believe at least two of the greatest Muslim conquerors of the past died Hindu.

WHO WHAT THAT!?! I'm interested...

 

[Xue Sheng]

WHO WHAT THAT!?! I'm interested...

I have been looking and I swear I saw it some place that at least 2 Muslim conquerors of the past became Hindu but so far all I can find is Akbar the Great (a Mughal whose reign was from 1556 to 1605) that tried to combine Muslim and Hindu to make his own religion Din-i Ilahi which was actually a combination of Islam, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Hinduism.

I am still looking.

 

[CoryKS]

I have been looking and I swear I saw it some place that at least 2 Muslim conquerors of the past became Hindu but so far all I can find is Akbar the Great (a Mughal whose reign was from 1556 to 1605) that tried to combine Muslim and Hindu to make his own religion Din-i Ilahi which was actually a combination of Islam, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Hinduism.

I am still looking.

Does that make him a McReligion?

 

[tellner]

Hot McReligion, but pan-Asian fusion cooking

 

[Xue Sheng]

I don't know to me it should be either Isljaizorhin or Isljaioastriaduism or Isainoroastrinduism but he came up with Din-i Ilahi