This Is NOT Good News!

Nan Christianity, Religion, , , ,

The Pew Research Center projects that the demographic of religiously affiliated people will grow four percentage points to 87 percent of the world’s population by 2050, with roughly 8 billion of the 9.3 billion people subscribing to one or another religion.

Read more here.

And additional information can be found here.

 

28 thoughts on “This Is NOT Good News!”

  1. From the Pew study (http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/):

    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    “The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.

    Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.

    The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.

    In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.

    India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.

    In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion. Muslims will be more numerous in the U.S. than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.

    Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.”

    […]

    “Muslims are the only major religious group projected to increase faster than the world’s population as a whole.”

    – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

    The underlying issue here is secular education. Where it is weakest, as in the Middle East, religious affiliation is growing. Where it is strongest, religious affiliation is declining.

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    • Completely agree with you Robert, your last paragraph. As all embedded investigative journalism has confirmed over the last several decades, the most recent in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Asia, and any regions in the Western hemisphere that are borderline or clearly impoverished, without quality inclusive-of-multidisciplinary subjects (fair degrees of impartiality), religiosity and fanatical (militant) Fundamentalism flourish. The simple reason it does thrive and grow is NOT because of any ‘miracles’ of any deity, but because of a lack of diverse socioeconomic opportunities. Period.

      I wager the world is increasing inequality and ignorance as a whole, not divine inspiration.

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      • Thanks, Professor. This world of ours is so complex, so crazy, that I worry well-intentioned people might miss the mark on the terrible problems which plague us.

        Religiosity is one of those problems. But like the Black Death of the 14th century, many today are focusing on the carrier instead of the cause. Religion would die from its own devices if the socioeconomic conditions which you accurately described, and which nourish it, are remedied.

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  3. Nan this reminds me of how a few of annoyances can be dealt with, but a gang of them will drag you down. One cat can be a minor threat, but when a group of them attack you, your in trouble. I worry about where our country is going if the hoard of religious dominionist peck away constantly at our secular laws and our progressive ways. Why grow for the future when you can rush back 2000 years to when the things they fantasies are in their holy books were in vogue. We need all the help we can get, because it seems religion makes some people stupid. The baptismal waters seem to such the reasoning ability right out of some of them. Not all, Ones like the Deconverted are a cut above all when it comes to reasoning. That is why I want the deconverted in leadership positions and protecting all the rest of us. Hugs

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  4. Well Nan you would have to come up with a woman better than the quality on offer today.

    I do believe things will hot up even more and religious unrest will again become the world’s number one problem, currently a close second behind a nuclear war. The day will come of building large communities that religious affiliation will be the only perquisite. I understand some areas in the US are similar to this now, however the only thing missing is a moat and drawbridge and an army of armed guards.

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  5. Don’t worry Nan. Pew research found that Jesus is coming back by 2050, according to the majority of white evangelicals. If Christians and Muslims take over the world, the Lake of Fire will be a welcomed reprieve for us heathens. 😛

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  7. Seems mainly to do with the high birth rate of religious fundamentalists. But will that continue?

    In statistical forecasting there is a tendency to extrapolate out current trends. But this rarely works in reality.

    I must admit the thought of an Islamic dominated world in the future horrifies me. This song comes to mind in a strange way:

    Islams rise really depresses me.

    Liked by 2 people

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    • Peter,

      Birth-rates are typically (much?) higher in poorly educated regions, which includes what I stated to Robert Vella above, and is also a result of little to no socioeconomic opportunities there. In most Islamic-run states, class-caste systems stay in power offering very little to its masses EXCEPT repeated worship and obedience of their god and those he/she/it put in power over them. How many times in how many places over the last several centuries have we seen this play out?

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      • What depresses me Professor is the number of educated Muslim youth who become radicalised (Bangladesh is a good case study where those who slaughtered westerners last year in a cafe were university educated). It does seem that youth trying to find their identity in a complex world are especially prone to simplicity that the radical world view offers.

        I used to think that education would turn people away from religion but I realise in looking at identity politics movements in US universities that a tribal desire to belong and the emotion it entails ‘trumps’ (sorry I could not find a better word) logic more often than not.

        Still in the longer term there is hope that the nihilist world view of extremists will lose appeal at some stage much like the leftists terrorists of the 60’s and 70’s in Europe (Red Brigade and the like) were ultimately shown to offer a solution worse than the problem.

        I gather that in countries like Iran which has suffered under an Islamic yoke for almost 40 years the desire of most of the young is for freedom not religious extremism. Ultimately I hope that the rapid transition of the world into a post oil economy will help to ease terrorism as in my view the number one sponsor of terrorism ideology has been Saudi Arabia for many decades, indeed the hypocrisy of the Saudis in calling Qatar a terrorism sponsor is breathtaking, The Saudis really don’t like Qatar because they are friendly with Iran and because they don’t censor Al Jazeera.

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