Why Muslims are the world’s fastest-growing religious group

[rug]

April 23, 2015
By Michael Lipka and Conrad Hackett

The expected growth of Islam around the world is perhaps the most striking finding in the recent Pew Research Center report projecting the future of religious groups. Indeed, Muslims will grow more than twice as fast as the overall world population between 2010 and 2050 and, in the second half of this century, will likely surpass Christians as the world’s largest religious group.

While the world’s population is projected to grow 35% in the coming decades, the number of Muslims is expected to increase by 73% – from 1.6 billion in 2010 to 2.8 billion in 2050. In 2010, Muslims made up 23.2% of the global population. Four decades later, they are expected to make up about three-in-ten of the world’s people (29.7%).

By 2050, Muslims will be nearly as numerous as Christians, who are projected to remain the world’s largest religious group at 31.4% of the global population.

The main reasons for Islam’s growth ultimately involve simple demographics. To begin with, Muslims have more children than members of the seven other major religious groups analyzed in the study. Each Muslim woman has an average of 3.1 children, significantly above the next-highest group (Christians at 2.7) and the average of all non-Muslims (2.3). In all major regions where there is a sizable Muslim population, Muslim fertility exceeds non-Muslim fertility.



http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/23/why-muslims-are-the-worlds-fastest-growing-religious-group/

[carolinayellowdog]

1. It is important to base one's values on facts rather than wishful thinking

As an "other religions" adherent (6% growth projected) whose second choice would be "unaffiliated" (9% growth projected), I could choose to spend what is left of my life raging or despairing about Islam and Christianity. But it seems more productive to encourage what I see as the (beleagured and desperate) progressive elements in Islam and the (intermittently victorious) progressive elements in Christianity, rather than be angry about the way these two faith traditions demolished much of the pre-Christian spirituality that I esteem more highly. The Alexandrian Library has been gone for a VERY long time now.

What little we retain of pagan antiquity is mainly due to the handful of Christians and Muslims who appreciated and preserved it, after all.

[rug]

2. A thoughtful post.

Do you belong to one of the pagan religions?

[carolinayellowdog]

3. "neo-Hermeticist" is the label that suits me best

It would seem presumptuous to say "Hermeticist" and pretend that an extinct faith tradition can be brought back to life. But while it is extinct as a religion, Hermeticism has an eternal dimension in that Jews, Christians, and Muslims kept reviving aspects of it. So when the Abrahamic religions back off from their claims that an extra-cosmic deity gave some specific revelation to some specific person, and endorse the idea that all life is sacred and all living beings are divine in essence, I endorse them precisely to that extent.

And who knows, maybe by the year 3000 a now-extinct religion might revive and unite all those holier-than-thou Abrahamist and atheists into something wiser and deeper and more universal and eternal?

[rug]

4. The Hermetica.

Damn, I had to look that up. A fascinating view. Thanks.

[carolinayellowdog]

5. Wikipedia is surprisingly good on this topic

Here is the entry. The thing that most distinguishes neo-Hermeticism from either Abrahamic or Indic traditions is the frank acceptance of the non-historical nature of narratives about Hermes. Sure, dozens of authors signed their own works as "Hermes" when he was "only" an imaginary mythical figure. So what? The value of the Hermetic literature rests entirely on the insights it conveys regardless of who wrote what, when.

If only Jews could get to that point about stories concerning Moses; Christians could get to that point about stories concerning Jesus; Buddhists could get to that point about stories concerning Gautama; Muslims could get to that point about stories concerning Muhammad, or atheists could get to that point about all of the above. As a historian, I subject those stories to the same level of scrutiny as I do the various family traditions I've debunked as a genealogist. And have received some harassment and violent-tinged threats from multiple directions for valuing such narratives without believing them.

Hermes is the only one of these figures whom everyone now acknowledges to be mythical, and no one fights about his historicity... yet whose alleged writings keep inspiring generation after generation of spiritual seekers. Unfortunately, Christian and Muslim enthusiasm for the Corpus Hermeticum rose and fell according to the illusion and then disillusionment that Hermes was "real" and a contemporary of Moses. Jews have seemed less naive about such matters, in my reading, and more willing to embrace the absorption into Judaism of Hellenistic elements.

[rug]

6. How did you come across this?

[carolinayellowdog]

7. long answer, way too personal to share here, see PM

but the bottom line is that all the things I have ever liked in any faith tradition cohered with the Hermetic literature, and all the things I have ever disliked about religion have not.

[rug]

8. Ok, didn't mean to pry.

I asked because I had taken classics and philosophy in college and never came across it. (Or if it was mentioned in passing I missed it.)

[Cartoonist]

9. The subjugation of women.

That's why. When women gain control of their own bodies, the birthrate declines. That's why the RCC and Christian fundies are opposed to abortion and birth control.

[MellowDem]

10. Funny how growth of a belief system...

Is predicated on childhood indoctrination. Imagine a poll telling us the number of socialists in the coming years based on births. Ah... Religion.

Still, I think the poll overestimates it, I think the population growth will slow down and I think parts of the Islamic world will become more secular.

[Yorktown]

11. Low development + machismo + Coercion (brainwashing+apostasy)

Two reasons are usually mentioned about the development of Islam, both demographic
A- many muslim countries are poor with high fertility rates (k401 = babies)
B- higher fertility rates within same regions muslims vs non muslims

Some other reasons are usually not stated due to PCness
• A': Islam itself contributed to maintaining muslim countries poor
most notably by depriving women of education and/or jobs in many countries
but also because learning the Quran by heart is considered an education.
• B': higher muslim fertility vs non muslims derives from women's inferior status in the quranic principles. Machismo is often coupled to high fertility rates.

But most of all, few people mention that Islam is like a black hole, letting people in, but not out.
When you are made to bow in public 5 times a day by a chant that resonates in the whole city, you have very little incentive to even think to review the validity of your beliefs. And should you manage to review your beliefs and conclude you would like to switch or have no beliefs, good luck to that in a muslim country.