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Sir James
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The Islamic religion has a long history of myth making. The claim they are the fastest growing religion in the world is pure myth. We have collected the latest statistics from David A. Barrett's huge two volume, "World Christian Encyclopedia", the 2001 AD edition. In case you haven't heard of this work, it is the world standard for religious statistics.
Muslim's claim that their growth rate is 235 percent and 47 percent for Christianity. This statistic came from the Readers Digest Almanac and Yearbook 1983, and represents 235 percent increase over 50 years. Muslims always leave off the 50 year fact to make it appear they are going 235% every year. A simple review of the readers Digest study shows that the growth rate of Islam vs. Christianity is directly linked to the birth rate in Third World countries where Islam dominates and not actual conversions to each religion. Christianity has always been larger than Islam. These statistics from Readers Digest are over 20 years old. Further, we do not consider readers digest to be an authority on such matters. Why will Muslims not quote real authoritative statistics from certified research groups who show Islam is not the fastest growing religion in 3/4's of the worlds countries.
1. There are over a billion Muslims in the world today, including 3 to 5 million in the U.S., making it the second most populous religion on earth after Christianity. According to some estimates, Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. (The Joy of Sects, Peter Occhigrosso, 1996, p394-397)
2. Islam is the religion which has developed from the preaching and life of Muhammad, a citizen of the city of Mecca in Arabia, who early in the seventh century of the Christian Era appeared as a preacher of monotheism to his own people and founded a religious movement which today counts perhaps as many as 300,000,000 followers, mostly in the heat belt from Indonesia to Morocco. (Islam: Muhammad and His Religion, Arthur Jeffery, 1958, p xi-xiv)
Before we examine the true facts from informed statisticians, we want to make it clear that we are not claiming Christianity is the fastest growing religion on earth. Such a claim is a needless as it is irresponsible. Having said this, in terms of sheer numbers, there are more Christians being added to planet earth, than any other religion on earth, including Islam. (see Table 1-2 for proof.)
Relative size and growth of Islam to Christianity:
From Table 1-1, there are 1.9 Billion Christians making up 31% of the world population, whereas there are only 1.2 Billion Muslims making up only 20% of the population. It seems that Allah's little trick by making Judas appear like Jesus, so Jesus could escape crucifixion and Judas was crucified in his place, kind of backfired, since 31% of the world's population never learned Allah played a trick and really believes that Jesus not only died, but was raised from the dead! This should be most troubling for Muslims to think that "Allah's deception" (Qur'an 4:156) actually became the world's largest religion!
From Table 1-1, the relative growth rates of Islam to Christianity are compiled from data that ended the very year before the great terrorist attacks of 911 against the world trade towers in 2001 and the train bomb in Spain in 2004. Statisticians are predicting that Islamic motivated terrorism will last the decade and bring Islam into great disrepute with the world population. This will have a very strong dampening effect on the long term predicted Islamic growth rates for the years 2025 and 2050.
From Table 1-1 you can see that the world growth rate of Muslims is 2.13, and for Christians it is 1.36. A closer look reveals, however that the birth rate of Muslims world wide, is literally double that of Christians. This is due to the fact that Muslims are largest in the developing world where dirt floors, thatched roofs and large families are common. When you the actual conversion rate, where men chose their religion, rather then are born into it, you can see that Christians are converting, on a percentage basis, almost twice as many as Muslims (1.7:1). This means that individual Christians are out converting Muslims almost two to one! What this means, is that as third world Muslim controlled countries gain the advantages of education and technology found in the Western world, their birth rate will drop off to match that of the West, but Christians will still continue to out convert them at a rate of 1.7:1.
Total adherents New from conversion Number of adherents to make
one new convert:
Muslims 1,188,242,789 865,558 1,372
Christians 1,999,563,838 2,501,396 799
From Table 1-1 you can see that while Muslims claim they are the fastest growing religion in the world (2.13), the statistics say that Baha'is are growing at a faster rate (2.28) and faster still are Zoroastrians (2.65).
From Table 1-1 regarding world distribution, you can see that Islam is only in 204 of the worlds 238 countries. Christianity, on the other hand is in all 238 countries of the world. Christianity has a 100% penetration rate world wide!
From Table 1-2, you can see that presently every 24 hours, the world population of Christians increases by 69,000, whereas there are only 68,000 Muslims. The only reason Muslims are anywhere near Christians is because of higher birth rates in the parts of the world where Muslims are largest. The vast majority of the 69,000 Christians will be educated, whereas the majority of the 68,000 Muslims will be illiterate peasants without clean drinking water.
From Table 1-4, you can see the relative growth rates of Christianity vs. Islam broken down into 6 continents. In each of the 6 continents, Christianity enjoys a wider distribution of countries.
From Table 1-4 the continent "Africa" we observe that Christianity slightly larger but is growing at a much faster rate than Islam. Although the birth rates are about identical, individual Christians are making twice as many converts as Muslims. In the African continent, Christians are both the largest and fastest growing in relation to Islam.
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