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I have a few (actually, quite a few) Christian friends in my "emails jokes club". Many if not most of them are concerned about the growth of Islam. One in particular sends me regular updates from various Muslim Watch sites, along with selected media reports. I confess I've largely ignored these. Another Christian friend in Canada sent me this You Tube clip today, and I have to admit that it did slightly jolt me:

Muslim Demographics

It also raised the question for me as to how fast Mormonism will grow. We've seen all the slowing conversion rates for many years now, but have we considered how Mormonism could also, through natural birth rate growth, become a dominant American and even dominant world religion in the future?

Utah ranked highest in the number of married-couple families, with an average of 63.2 percent. (2)
Utah ranked highest in the number of family households, with 76.3 percent. (2)
Utah ranked highest in the number of persons per family, with an average of 3.57. (2)
Utah ranked first for the youngest total population, with nearly one-third of its population 17 years old or younger. (2)
Utah ranked highest in the number of persons per household, with an average of 3.13. (2)
Utah ranked third for the fewest number of single-headed households with children, with 7.7 percent.

The new federal study reported that Utah's "fertility rate" -- the number of live births per 1,000 women ages 15 to 44 -- was 93.1. That is 41 percent higher than the national average of 65.9. The next highest fertility rate among the states was 81.1 in Arizona...

The report also figured the state's "birthrate" -- the number of live births per 1,000 residents. Utah's birthrate was 21.7 per 1,000 residents -- again, the highest in the nation, and a third higher than the national average of 14.5.

Social Statistics from National Sources.

Will the future belong to Muhammad and Joseph Smith?

And is there some hope that this overall growth will be accompanied by some kind of "coming religious peace"?

Religious peace will be the single most important consequence of the secular underpinning of today's religious growth. All religions tend to be protective of their traditions and rituals, but all religions also change depending upon the cultural practices of the societies in which they are based. Protestantism and secularism have always had close ties: as noted, Locke was drawing on a specifically Protestant sensibility when he wrote in defense of secular ideals. Other religions in secular environments have shown themselves quite willing to adopt Protestant notions about how faith should be practiced in order to gain or retain adherents. During the Second Vatican Council, in the early 1960s, the Catholic Church accepted the idea of religious liberty. Jews in the United States find themselves organized into denominations—Reform, Conservative, Orthodox—in ways that borrow from Protestant traditions. Despite the attention paid to what once were hotbeds of extremism like the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, significant numbers of Muslims in both North America and western Europe are turning their mosques into all-purpose religious institutions and accepting innovations in gender equality foreign to the practice of Islam in the non-secular past.

The coming religious peace.

This religious growth seems unstoppable, and now perhaps the "war" will have to wage on another front - conquering "the enemies of reason", and "Hoffer's fanatics". If this isn't done, I fear we may end up going back to future Crusades and Inquisitions, but I hope my fear is misplaced. We have seen some extreme TBM attitudes even on this board (not to mention MAD), and I shudder to think that this could be our future.
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Those projections are based on an ill-advised assumption, namely that the growth rate will remain constant over the upcoming decades. There are natural tendencies for growth rates to slow as nations become more industrialized, and as resources dwindle, which will inevitably happen per Malthusian logic.

Here is a good study on the subject.

Something dramatic has happened to the world’s birthrates. Defying predictions of demographic decline, northern Europeans have started having more babies. Britain and France are now projecting steady population growth through the middle of the century. In North America, the trends are similar. In 2050, according to United Nations projections, it is possible that nearly as many babies will be born in the United States as in China. Indeed, the population of the world’s current demographic colossus will be shrinking.

The reality, however, looks rather different from such dire scenarios. Upon closer inspection, it turns out that while Muhammad topped Thomas in 2006, it was something of a Pyrrhic victory: Fewer than two percent of Britain’s male babies bore the prophet’s name. One fact that gets lost among distractions such as the Times story is that the birthrates of Muslim women in Europe—and around the world—have been falling significantly for some time. Data on birthrates among different religious groups in Europe are scarce, but they point in a clear direction. Between 1990 and 2005, for example, the fertility rate in the Netherlands for Moroccan-born women fell from 4.9 to 2.9, and for Turkish- born women from 3.2 to 1.9. In 1970, Turkish- born women in Germany had on average two children more than German- born women. By 1996, the difference had fallen to one child, and it has now dropped to half that number.

These sharp reductions in fertility among Muslim immigrants reflect important cultural shifts, which include universal female education, rising living standards, the inculcation of local mores, and widespread availability of contraception. Broadly speaking, birthrates among immigrants tend to rise or fall to the local statistical norm within two generations.

That's a great point, JSM.

It should also be noted that the Muslim invasion of the global North is coming simultaneously with a Christian invasion of the global South. In Africa, the number of Christians has tripled in the last thirty-five years. Christianity is expected to add 200 million more adherents in Africa by 2025. It is very possible that Christianity will have a majority in South Korea in a few decades, and it is growing explosively in China as well. These numbers are largely due to conversion, not just birthrate. We're not looking at a Muslim-dominated world anytime soon, in my opinion.

I think this is an important subject to debate, and Chris and JSM, thanks for your opinions.

The following article (which appears to be from a pro-Catholic site) seems to support JSM's view, however:

Can Islam Survive in Industrialized Society

Some Christians are saying that Christianity has successfully readjusted to technically advanced society, while Islam has not. Sure Christianity took a hit, it is argued, but Christianity survived, Islam might not. Actually Islam seems to be thriving in the immigrant communities of Western Europe and North America. There are claims that more Muslims than Christians attend weekly services in England. Mere income does not seem to have destroyed Islam, last I heard it was doing well in oil rich countires like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Libya, and others. So while Islam might suffer in a high income country with a broad based industrial economy and a free and democratic government the point is speculative and what we know seems to suggest that Islam can survive and even thrive in the modern world.

And on the role of the Internet:

The Internet and Other New Media

The Internet and the other new media have encouraged conservative religion. Some people have expressed hope that their point of view, Christian, secularist, Muslim or whatever, will triumph in the clash of ideas that the Internet permits. So far however, people are using the new media to enter more deeply into their own faith tradition rather than exploring others. (emphasis added)

Will the Rapid Growth of Islam Continue?

Is this true of Mormon-related Internet though? The Islamic-related Internet? (Not just MBs, but blogs, official sites, etc. Seems like Ballard was on to something.)

It'll be very interesting to see how Islam fares in the next few decades. It will be subject to essentially the same pressures that forged modern Christianity over the last 500 years -- capitalistic incentive structures, the universal acid of scientific findings, and nagging secular historical scholarship -- but it will all be crammed into a twentieth of the time, thanks to globalization.

Does this mean that Islam will liberalize twenty times as quickly? Or will the pressures be too great to end in anything but an explosive reaction? Time will tell.

Hi Ray,

I love topics exploring the future! :-)

Here is my very unscientific opinion:

In spite of current trends, I do not think Islam and Mormonism will become the dominant religions of the world because my worldview is such that humanity doesn't go backwards or remain static but to survive must conform to reality as it is understood. In other words, just as life adapts to the environment, so too must culture, religion, and humanity, if it is to survive.

As we move into this century we are at the brink of enormous changes unlike any we have experienced. (For example just yesterday I was reading the latest research on life extension and seems we are on the cusp of being able to eliminate aging).

My point being, religion will have to adapt to humankind and as we learn more about our universe, existence, and life, many of the ancient myths and stories will need to be revised, updated, or eliminated to fit our new world. If they do not they will become extinct. (smile).

Personally, I think part of the difficulty and challenge we face today is a result of holding onto obsolete myths that no longer "work"; stories that are nearly irrelevant to our time. Rather than helping devotees find meaning and purpose within the life experience it is as if the ancient stories actually thwart human growth and in some cases even eliminate the inner spiritual journey. Not surprisingly since they were created for a different time and place; a different world.

So, while we can make population projections, I think if we look at the history of humankind, and notice the evolving beliefs, practices, and stories we see a picture that may be bigger.

Just my way of seeing things...

~td~

TD,

I like your positive view. I'm inclined to feel the same way. I don't see much gain by going back to crusades and inquisitions and a Medieval mentality. All of the Muslims I know are terrific people, and very level-headed. It's only a relatively small group of extremists who really worry me. But I don't think the battle is over yet. And perhaps much of it is occurring on the Internet.

If we eliminate aging, we're going to be in a world of hurt.

Why does no one think this sort of thing through before they fund the research? We need people to grow old and die. Lord knows I don't want to live forever, even if there is nothing after we die.

On the other hand I think Jimmy Buffett had the right idea 20 years ago.. (Slightly modified..)

"First of all, we send all the presidents of the banks over to run the country of Iraq. That would solve two problems right there. And world peace, I've got an answer for world peace. We take the money that it'd cost us to build just one B-1 bomber, that one that doesn't work. We change it into five dollar bills. We put all of this money into bags and we fly over the Atlantic Ocean, past Europe because they're getting their crap together anyway. We drop this money on the Muslim people. All those little tiny pictures of Abraham Lincoln come tumblin' down out of the sky. I want them to feel those sawbucks in their hands. You know how your money feels when you accidently leave it in your blue jeans and you take it out and it's all warm and soft, oooh! Well we let those Muslim people hang on to that money for about a week and then we fly back over there. We fill our airplanes full of mail order catalogs from L.L. Bean. .. and Victoria's Secret! The Muslim people have this money in their hand, the catalogs come down. They look at those pictures on the opening pages of the Victoria's Secret catalog, not back in the outdoors section, you know what I'm talking about right? They got the money, they got the catalogs, they're going to get the idea. They send all the money back to us to buy the stuff. We have full employment. There's world peace, and the Muslims have crotch-less underwear through the twenty-first century!"

TAK wrote:On the other hand I think Jimmy Buffett had the right idea 20 years ago.. (Slightly modified..)

"First of all, we send all the presidents of the banks over to run the country of Iraq. That would solve two problems right there. And world peace, I've got an answer for world peace. We take the money that it'd cost us to build just one B-1 bomber, that one that doesn't work. We change it into five dollar bills. We put all of this money into bags and we fly over the Atlantic Ocean, past Europe because they're getting their s*** together anyway. We drop this money on the Muslim people. All those little tiny pictures of Abraham Lincoln come tumblin' down out of the sky. I want them to feel those sawbucks in their hands. You know how your money feels when you accidently leave it in your blue jeans and you take it out and it's all warm and soft, oooh! Well we let those Muslim people hang on to that money for about a week and then we fly back over there. We fill our airplanes full of mail order catalogs from L.L. Bean. .. and Victoria's Secret! The Muslim people have this money in their hand, the catalogs come down. They look at those pictures on the opening pages of the Victoria's Secret catalog, not back in the outdoors section, you know what I'm talking about right? They got the money, they got the catalogs, they're going to get the idea. They send all the money back to us to buy the stuff. We have full employment. There's world peace, and the Muslims have crotch-less underwear through the twenty-first century!"

He was joking, and you are joking.

But there is certainly a serious policy option along those lines. Unfortunately the US seems to be very, very good at getting itself disliked, and tends to blow its chances of being loved, despite the fact that the latter policy would be much, much cheaper than the former.