Shifts in the world’s major religions will see Islam growing faster than any other faith, with the number of Muslims nearly equaling that of Christians by 2050.
A new Pew Research Center study finds that with the exception of Buddhists, the world’s major religions will all see an increase in numbers by 2050, although some will make up a smaller percentage from today. Muslims are the only major religious group projected to increase faster than the world’s population as a whole.
Over the coming four decades, Christianity will remain the world’s largest religious affiliation, but Islam will see a major increase that will make the two religions nearly equal in numbers by 2050. In 2010, Christianity was by far the world’s largest religion, with 2.2 billion followers of the faith and composing nearly one-third (31 percent) of the Earth’s 6.9 billion people. Islam was second, with 1.6 billion adherents, or 23 percent of the world’s population.
If current fertility rates and youth populations continue to grow at their current rate, Muslims will make up 10 percent of Europe’s overall population by 2050. Islam is expected to nearly match Christianity in the coming four decades as a result of a “comparatively youthful” population with high fertility rates.
The article goes on to predict that Muslims will see a 73 percent increase by 2050 while the Christian population will only increase by about 35 percent.
However as frightening as those numbers may be to fundamentalists and conservative politicians, this one is going to bother them even more:
The religiously unaffiliated are expected to rise from 16 percent to more than one-quarter of the population, 26 percent.
Personally I think this study might be missing the fact that the number of "religiously unaffiliated" is rising exponentially, and unlike most religions not through breeding.
And while it is quite likely there will be far more Atheists in the west for decades to come the movement is spreading like wildfire and, though they for a time stay hidden, I would imagine that the number of anti-deists will also rise quickly among Muslim nations as well.
In short I think that by 2070 the largest group will NOT be either Christians or Muslims, but rather those who have rejected both, or better yet all, religions and embraced enlightenment instead.
The idea of religions (of any kind) is so engrained in societies that survey-makes can't imagine life with out religions -- I can't imagine life WITH them.
ReplyDeleteAtheism, anti-deism & "unaffiliated" (as in "just don't give a damn about all that nonsense") numbers will rise spectacularly much sooner than any of these bean-counters can imagine.
Easter Sunday sermons will be filled with frantic commands to go home and 'be fruitful'.
ReplyDeleteNine months from now there will be a conservative Christian baby boom as they try to outpace the reproductive rates of those scary Muzzlin heathens.
Not so much listened to any more, especially among the RCC membership. "And whose gonna pay for another kid?" is the usual response. Most in the pews look at the single guy in the pulpit who has never had to share a house with a spouse, change a diaper or lived liek a "normal" person; he has church housing, a house keeper and a good salary, and a guaranteed job - and those in the pews think - and he's giving family advice? - and laugh all the way to the drug store for condoms, the sponge and a refill on the bc scrip - before they hop into bed (all that fruitful talk does spark some romancin')
DeleteI'll be happy when those who are religious from any persuasion are in the minority.
ReplyDeleteAmen (so to speak)
DeleteMonster-In-Law sure taught you well, eh Dakoduh?
ReplyDeleteMany prefer the term secularist, humanist or non-theist. Anti-deist is incorrect. Deism is the least offensive of beliefs and the most enlightened pre-Darwin. Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine likely Washington and other FF's were deists, although they may have had soem nominal church affiliation.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that such a large percentage of people have so little self reliance that they need to blame everything on some deity/religion. And feel that when things go right, the deity/religion deserves the credit.
ReplyDeleteSpirituality does not rely on dogma to be the most effective way of living.
Global warming will probably beat us to 2070 to take care of any religious affiliation increase.
ReplyDeleteIt'll be the end of the world as Sarah knows it. She'll be left behind with no clean water to drink nor animals to kill for sport. This is inevitable, shame Sarah et al were too busy to see it coming.
ReplyDelete