Is muslims the number one religion

[Believer1997]

Tigger, I'm glad you read the sites and feel better about what you were worried about. Always check rumors like that out...but ULTIMATELY, pray for God's guidance and direction - He is ever faithful and will protect you.

[martin frobisher]

The only people who say that Islam is the fast growing religion in the world are Muslims. Islam certainly isn't, by either numbers of converts or by percentages. Pentecostalism is doing better than Islam.

[Guest man]

What does it matter?

[martin frobisher]

Don't the facts always matter???

[Guest man]

Don't the facts always matter???

Always.

But when it comes to "my dog is bigger than your dog",......who cares?

If we were out-numbered 2 to 1, 10 to 1, or 100 to 1, what does it really matter?

If the truth be told, muslims are non-believers. I would be willing to bet that the non-believers outnumber the believers by quite a bit.

How does that effect your walk?

[Leonard]

No. That is completely wrong. Christianity is twice as large as Islam and is growing at a faster rate. (Europe and the Middle East excluded). In Asia, Africa, and the entire Western Hemisphere, the growth of Christianity is faster far than the growth of Islam.

In fact, in the US, the only place where Islam is growing fast IS IN THE PRISONS!

[Fez]

81% of American adults identify themselves with a specific religion: 76.5% (159 million) of Americans identify themselves as Christian. This is a major slide from 86.2% in 1990. Identification with Christianity has suffered a loss of 9.7 percentage points in 11 years -- about 0.9 percentage points per year. This decline is identical to that observed in Canada between 1981 and 2001. If this trend has continued, then: at the present time (2007-MAY), only 71% of American adults consider themselves Christians

The percentage will dip below 70% in 2008

By about the year 2042, non-Christians will outnumber the Christians in the U.S.

52% of Americans identified themselves as Protestant.

24.5% are Roman Catholic.

1.3% are Jewish.

0.5% are Muslim, followers of Islam.

The fastest growing religion (in terms of percentage) is Wicca -- a Neopagan religion that is sometimes referred to as Witchcraft. Numbers of adherents went from 8,000 in 1990 to 134,000 in 2001. Their numbers of adherents are doubling about every 30 months. 4,5 Wiccans in Australia have a very similar growth pattern, from fewer than 2,000 in 1996 to 9,000 in 2001. 10 In Canada, Wiccans and other Neopagans showed the greatest percentage growth of any faith group. They totaled 21,080 members in 1991, an increase of 281% from 1990.

I copied this because some people don't go to the links that people provide for us to look at.

The scary thing is the Wiccan's. Imagine if we worked just as hard and we could double the number saved every 30 months! But God has a plan, and we wait on Him!

[ParanoidAndroid]

Christianity is still the largest religion in the world, but it is decreasing in numbers slowly (denominations aside - some, such as the Pentecostals are increasing, but overall numbers are decreasing by approximately 1% per year - last time I checked, at least).

Islam is the second-largest religion in the world and is growing rapidly. Whether it is the "fastest growing" in the world I think depends largely on where in the world you actually live. In America this is not the case - I don't live there but I have read statistics to show that it is not growing faster than any other belief. Europe, however, is a different story - in Europe, Islam really is the largest growing religion in the world. I don't know how this translates to worldwide statistics, I haven't really looked at specific numbers recently.

However, this must be tempered by an understanding of statistics. Remember that "fastest growing" is based on a percentage of adherents. If someone starts a religion and has only one member to begin, if they recruit 4 members, they are increasing at 400%, which makes them probably the fastest growing religion in the world. They still only have 5 members, but would be considered the "fastest growing". Statistics are funny like that - they can change depending on how one uses numbers to their advances. For the question raised in the opening post, it is enough to know they are the second largest religion worldwide, with approximately 1 billion adherents (again, last time I checked).

[ParanoidAndroid]

I copied this because some people don't go to the links that people provide for us to look at.

That's a fair enough statement, but it would help if you perhaps did both? Quote the material as you did here, and then sign off the material with the source link???? I would certainly like to see where you got the information from

Regards, PA

[ParanoidAndroid]

Islam is not a real religion but, for some reason, they are included anyway

On what basis are you making such a statement, MG? I've just gone and checked the dictionary definitions of "religion" and every single one of them can be applied to religion in some form or other. However you bend it, Islam is a religion - you may not like it or agree with it, but it is still a religion by definition.