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Originally Posted by willravel
Christianity and Judaism are on the decline and the population of the planet is growing, which makes it easy for both atheism and Islam to be on the rise.
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Quite an oversimplification, wouldn't you say?
In terms of the number of adherents versus world population growth Islam ranks first, followed by Sikhism, Hinduism and then Christianity. This, in iteself, is no surprise as the fastest growing areas are the Middle East/Asia. In total number of adherents for each religion, they're all expected to increase with Christianity still garnering the most adherents. Judaism is expected to increase at a rate much less than that of the aforementioned religions.
As far as atheism goes, well, did you know that there were more people who defined themselves as atheists during the 1970's than do presently? As a percentage, the number of atheists world wide is expected to decline, but the number denoting themselves as non-religious is expected to rise. Ironically enough, the biggest religious gainers in the United States are, in order, Evangelicals/Born-again Christians, Non-denominationalists and those identifying themselves as non-religious. Maybe we should rename the thread "Evangelical's sudden rise"
