YES, BUT ...

Total number of Christians is 2.16 billion, 66% higher than Muslims.

AND you can count the 2.7 other religions, atheists, agnostics and couldn't care less solidly on the Christian side of things, as they don't want to live under shari'a either.

So, these people are 1 in 5 and 10% of them are wagging the world dog because WE are spineless!!@

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at March 30, 2008 6:12 PM

Indeed-
Really, I doubt the numbers on either side are accurate.

Posted by: AnneCrockett at March 30, 2008 7:02 PM

Catholics take their most faithful out of the gene pool.

And the remaining Catholics hear the call to control population growth to save the planet.

Posted by: Borg at March 30, 2008 7:30 PM

Wouldn't it be something if we saved the planet only to enslave everybody in it under Islam?

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at March 30, 2008 7:50 PM

How many are Muslims-in-name-only?

Posted by: tanstaafl at March 30, 2008 8:15 PM

Morgaan: Does that 2.18 b number include the estimates for Chinese Christians? I believe Christianity is on the rise by leaps and bounds in China, but of course most of them are secretive. I've heard estimates between 100 and 400 million. But who knows for sure?

Posted by: Seymour Paine at March 30, 2008 8:22 PM

As if the divinity of a religion were based upon its numbers...

Cheers

Posted by: Doctor Bulldog at March 30, 2008 8:24 PM

Slightly OT but related. When will the population of Muslims outnumber Lutherans in Sweden? Eurabia immigrant sob story alert:

_Sweden closes doors to fleeing Iraqis_
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080330/ap_on_re_eu/sweden_rejecting_iraqis_1

"They told me it's because it's calmer in Iraq now, that I can go back and be happy. But they don't know that it's death there," said Aziz Alwi, 25, wiping away tears in an interview at his cousin's apartment in the Stockholm suburb of Sollentuna."

Let's see: 100,000 Iraqi refugees in Sweden (population 9.1 million). That's more than 1 percent of the total population! I assume that the 100,000 does not include immigrants from other Arab countries.

"Nicknamed "little Baghdad," Sodertalje is home to more than 6,000 Iraqis — mainly Christians — who account for about 7 percent of the city's population. The result, say city officials, is an acute shortage of housing, schools and jobs.

"There are examples of 15 people living in a two-bedroom apartment," said Sodertalje Mayor Anders Lago, who has been invited to talk about the city's Iraqi refugees to the U.S. Congress next month.

"Sweden needs immigration. It's a small country with a low birthrate, but we have to be able to receive people in a humane and dignified way — and we're not doing that right now when they have to sleep on mattresses on the floor," he said.
[...]
"If the decision is upheld on appeal, Swedish authorities can deport him to Iraq — by force if necessary. The two countries signed a deal last month to facilitate the return of Iraqis who are denied shelter in Sweden.

"If the police come to get me," he said, "I will fight them with all that I have."

Is that a threat to the Swedish police?

Posted by: CTYankee at March 30, 2008 8:31 PM

It doesn't sound like the Evangelicals are counted in the numbers of Christians. I have read (but don't have the reference ready at hand) that the numbers of Evangelical Christians are increasing, mostly by conversion, even faster than that of the Muslims.

Posted by: Eastview at March 30, 2008 8:36 PM

Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity is taking off across the developing world. Many Catholics are converting, as well as non-Christians.

Conversion is going on in Korea, China (where there are more Christians than communist party members) also north Africa and Iran.

I read somewhere that 6 million Muslims leave Islam globally per annum. You would need some birth rate to bust that.

Posted by: devorgilla at March 30, 2008 8:36 PM

devorgilla,

Our posts crossed in the ether. Your point was exactly mine, although you expressed it better.

Posted by: Eastview at March 30, 2008 8:39 PM

Current estimates are that Muslims are 20% of global population; Christians, 33% (and rising).

Muslims who convert say they do so because Islam is a religion of death, and they choose life.

Posted by: devorgilla at March 30, 2008 8:40 PM

There's an Evangelical super church in Seoul that holds 230,000. It's packed every Sunday.

Evangelicalism is a liberating theology that helps offset the bad effects of modernisation. It emphasises personal autonomy (salvation in Christ as your personal saviour) but also voluntaryism and community self-help engagement.

Plus, it does something Islam DOESN'T do - it acculturates, it doesn't 'enculture'. That's part of the appeal. You don't have to lose your culture if you come to Christ. Jesus adapts. He talks Korean if you're Korean. It's a universal, transcultural message.

The Holy Spirit is on the march, folks, across the globe. I'm a cautious soul, but there's at least some reason for optimism.

Posted by: devorgilla at March 30, 2008 8:54 PM

The report does not take into account that for the Christian churches in the global south, it is a BOOMTIME for growth. Plus it also did not take into account the new Catholics that just came into the Church this Easter.

Posted by: bigcatgirl13106 at March 30, 2008 8:59 PM

Sort of on topic with the comments on this thread:

The Man Behind 6 Million Muslims Converting To Christianity–Each Year is Zakaria Botros. He proselytizes on Arabic television.

Here's a link to an excellent write-up about him:

Infidels Blogger Alliance

And, here's one of his videos from Arab television:

YouTube Video of Zakaria Botros

Cheers

Posted by: Doctor Bulldog at March 30, 2008 9:08 PM

Figures are always a bit dodgy - though I suspect Christians, not being driven by an aggressive supremacist ideology that permits falsehood, are probably more likely to underestimate their numbers, whereas Muslims are going to overestimate.

In this age of the Third Jihad, the Islamosphere's third attempt to take over and devour the world, the non-Muslim world has one huge advantage it did not have when it faced previous attacks by Islam: internet, satellite TV (hence Fr Zakaria Botros' popular show beaming into the Arabic-speaking world), radio, and all sorts of clever (and ever-smaller, cheaper, and easier-to-hide easier-to-smuggle, easier-to-power) playback devices for audio recordings, thus getting around the problem that many in the Muslim world are illiterate. Also, the Bible and other liberating texts have been translated into the vernaculars, and that work of translation into mother tongues is continuing at breakneck speed. The Berber church in North Africa has come into existence largely as a result of Berber-language gospel broadcasts.

Lamin Sanneh, who left Islam for Christianity, in West Africa, has stressed that the impulse to translate and acculturate, within Christianity, distinguishes it favourably from Islam which is so heavily Arab-supremacist and hostile toward every aspect of non-Muslim cultures.

Hand in hand with our attempts to physically hold the line and defend our societies against naked jihad aggression and sharia creep, there should be a massive interconfessional effort to flood the Muslim world with the Bible, 24/7. Sure, they're heavily 'inoculated' against it, as we see from the trolls who visit here - but the example of Magdi Cristiano Allam, Bishop Patrick Sookhdeo, Lamin Sanneh and many thousands of others shows that the case is far from hopeless.

The evidence is there that, given a chance, the Bible can and does function to 'deprogram' Muslims. The ones who do thus shed the Islam meme and replace it with the Christian, seem to become such happy, positive, creative, courageous people! It's like watching a plant that you thought was dead and withered, getting a good drink and suddenly popping out in leaves and flowers.

Those who hold other belief systems can go ahead and pour their ideas over the borders of the Islamosphere as well - anything is better than the Islam meme (as we see from apostate atheists like Ayaan or Ibn Warraq, whose sheer delight in being able to THINK at last, shines out all over them) - but those of us who are Christian have got to do our part.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at March 30, 2008 9:26 PM

At least a million women and gays in Iran have converted to Christianity in the last 10 years. That's why the mullahs just passed Article 331.

The same is going on in Tunisia.

More than 80% of Iranian women don't want to wear hijab but must.

When the penalty for apostasy is death, people don't speak out.

I have long believed Muslims inflate their numbers — like claiming they are 6.5 million in the USA when they are more likely 3.

That doesn't mean that there's no reason to worry, of course. But this article which is about Islam vs. Catholicism only doesn't tell the whole story. And the bg thing also is that the Hindus and Buddhists have NO love for the Musims due to the history on the Indian subcontinent where they got dhimmitude in spades.

Posted by: Morgaan Sinclair at March 30, 2008 9:42 PM

Right on, Morgaan. The Iranian revolution happenned in 1978? A whole generation has been born who didn't vote for it. More and more of the youth oppose the mullahs. They hate the burkas. People are fighting back, the young are fighting back. It's only a matter of time before they change the government. I read on this blog calls for intervention in Iran, but give those kids time, and there will be regime change. It's like the melting of the Antartic ice sheets; slow at first, but suddenly something dramatic could happen.

Posted by: devorgilla at March 30, 2008 9:58 PM

Given the Muslim penchant for inflated figures it is nice to see a religious organization that announces that they are not on top. Honesty is refreshing.

Posted by: Jerry M at March 30, 2008 10:14 PM

The idea that the most faithful Catholics are out of the gene pool is ludicrous - tell that to the mother of 7+ kids in the few but growing number of families that take having families as a vocation VERY seriously.

This isn’t actually accurate totally. For Islam to be understood as the largest religion you would have to overlook the divisions and sectarian factions that we would consider somewhat akin to “denominations”…. You have to add Sunnis, Shi’ites, and whatever else to come up with a larger population.

If you are looking for the largest SINGLE religous org, is is still the Catholic Church. If you are looking for the largest body of related faith believers (All Christian denoms versus all Islamic groups) Christianity is still bigger.

Catholicism did grow some 300M souls during the last 40 years… And I do believe more converts FROM Islam than TO Islam is in the very near future.

I hope Magdhi Allam is just the start.

Also a good deal of this is a function of higher fertility rates. Whitey needs to get his act together and quit treating children and families like a burden to be avoided. The demographic winter is coming, Europe.

As to the comment about Iraqis in Sweden - does the commentator realize those Iraqis are Catholics and not Moslems?

Posted by: A Simple Sinner at March 30, 2008 10:42 PM

I don't see what's so noteworthy, as the total number of the world's Muslims surpassed the world's Catholics YEARS ago. I recall reading this as early as 2000.

That having been said, it tells us little to compare Muslims as a whole with Catholicism, Christianity's oldest and largest denomination. Islam is itself divided into competing religious creeds, and we get a far more accurate perspective if we compare Catholic figures with those of SUNNI Islam.

And when Islam is broken up into its denominations, Catholic Christianity is still the world's largest religious denomination, numbering some 1.1 billion people, with Sunnis comprising the world's second-largest denomination with a membership of some 1 billion. The next largest religious denomination is Eastern Orthodox Christianity, with some 225,000,000 members.

I'd say Catholicism is still doing pretty well for itself.

Posted by: DominvsVobiscvm at March 31, 2008 12:47 AM

The Vatican recently put the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people. It did not provide a figure for Muslims, generally estimated at around 1.3 billion.

According to adherents.com, Christianity is #1 with 2.1b people, while Islam is #2 with 1.5b (an estimate which is more prone to Islamic exaggerations). Note that in the case of Christianity, any corrections for Athiests and Agnostics from a Christian background has already been made, so it's not like a certain percentage of this 2.1b is non-Christian. However, no such correction has/can be made with Muslims, since the bulk of them fall in countries that don't separate Atheists/Agnostics from true believers. As a result, if one wants to separate out the closet Atheists/Agnostics, the number is anyone's guess.

However, if one does do an apples to apples comparison of Catholicism (the #1 denomination in Christianity) with Sunni Islam (the #1 denomination in Islam), there is a possibility that Sunni Islam is #1. However, given that a lot of other Islamic sects, like Sufis, get bunched in with Sunni Islam, even that may be exaggerated.

At least a million women and gays in Iran have converted to Christianity in the last 10 years. That's why the mullahs just passed Article 331.

More than 80% of Iranian women don't want to wear hijab but must.

Morgaan is correct that Muslims inflate their numbers, but even if every Iranian were to apostatize, it wouldn't mean much, since Iran's population is a mere 60m out of that 1b total. It's their numbers in 4 countries - Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India - that matters in terms of whether they are able to blow up their numbers by every 100m.

Posted by: Infidel Pride at March 31, 2008 1:16 AM

I have no references for this, but a radio talk show host here in South Africa was saying that Zoroastrianism was the fastest growing religion.

If the death threat for apostasy could be removed, or diminished, the ship of Islam would probably sink like a brick.

Posted by: Dsinc at March 31, 2008 1:44 AM

If Muslims were living away from the corruptive influence of the kufirs, back happy and safe in Dar al-Islam, and if we corrupt kufirs were not sending cash or supplying electricity and water, then I would be quite content with the birth rate in Dar al-Islam being as high as they want. They could breed as many new Muslims as humanly possible. I'm sure Allah would provide.

Posted by: special_guest at March 31, 2008 1:50 AM

Infidel Pride said

It's their numbers in 4 countries - Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India - that matters in terms of whether they are able to blow up their numbers by every 100m.

They currently blow up their numbers to a much smaller degree, 20 Shi'a here, 30 Sunni there. But when they get the Islamic A-bomb, you may be right.

Posted by: special_guest at March 31, 2008 1:54 AM

Also a good deal of this is a function of higher fertility rates. Whitey needs to get his act together and quit treating children and families like a burden to be avoided. The demographic winter is coming, Europe.

Very well said! I don't know why Europe hasn't figured this out yet????

Having children is a Holy vocation, one that should be taken seriously.

If for nothing else and the shallowest of reasons (and probably the only one secular liberals think of), European children who grow up to be good citizens will work in jobs contributing to the bloated penchant funds of those countries.

Which I assume are running out with low birthrates and massive immigration.

Posted by: adobe at March 31, 2008 9:03 AM

I am surprised that so many knowledgeable jihadwatch faithfuls were paying any attention to this report.

Didn't you read this very important line?

"He said the data on Muslim populations had been compiled by individual countries and then released by the United Nations, adding the Vatican could only vouch for its own statistics."

Yes, the Vatican can only vouch for their own statistics. Haven't we seen in the past, especially right here in the U.S., that muslims "pad" the numbers in order to promote dawa?

Posted by: jawa at March 31, 2008 10:46 AM

Dear Robert: GLORY AND PRAISE hymnal. I got it, though the joke went over most posters' heads. It was innanities such as the Glory and Praise hymnal and shake hands with your neighbor that kept me wandering in the Catholic liturgical desert for 20 years until finding what is now my parish with its Latin Tridentine Mass and sacred music (4 choirs).

Yep, 40 years of Father Flakes and Sister Mary Rainbow Sunshines almost drove me out of the Church and I could see how a Muslim version of Glory and Praise would make a devout Muslim raise his bruised forhead and run for the hills.

Thanks for the Monday morning chuckle. I can laugh about it NOW thanks to Pope Benny 16.

Posted by: bevc at March 31, 2008 11:09 AM

Even the Anglicans south of the Equator are alive and growing! People who have witnessed persecution, and have been persecuted, take their faith seriously.

While in Britain and the U.S., the Anglican Communion is enervated, the Africans and Asians are growing (and Africans are preparing to send missionaries to us in the U.S.). A few churches in the U.S. have even enlisted African bishops to lead them (in place of the Episopal U.S. bishop in their area).

I have been praying for a few years for the conversion of the Muslims. Their miserable religion has made them truly lost sheep without a shepherd.

Thanks everyone with the encouragement. It's a blessing to hear about these souls leaving the religion of death and choosing life!

Posted by: NavyMom at March 31, 2008 1:18 PM

I leave judging these stats to a higher intelligence than mine. Both Muslims and Roman Catholics count everyone born into their religion as a member--or, precisely, the Catholics count anyone ever baptized as a Catholic as a member. Theoretically, someone could be born a Muslim, convert to Roman Catholicism, and end up a member of some independent Evangelical Church and remain "on the books" of both of his former affiliations. Further, a lot of Muslim immigrants in the Western world leave Islam--despite Islamic crowing about how fast they're growing in Europe and North America.

However, it is a fact that Muslim openness to the Gospel has caught many missionary organizations by surprise. So much for conspiratorial theories.

Posted by: Kepha at March 31, 2008 5:35 PM

Comparing one branch of Christians to total Muslims is not an accurate comparison. That's as accurate as comparing total Christians to Sufis.

Try Catholics versus Shi'a. Try Christians versus Muslims. Try apples to apples.

Posted by: special_guest at March 31, 2008 7:56 PM

I am agnostic, but I would sign up with any organistation dedicated to anti islamism. And there is nothing special about me.

We need a forum, a church, of our own. To make our stand against the filth of islam.

Posted by: Monty at March 31, 2008 9:04 PM

"Muslims more numerous than Catholics, says Vatican"

Trust me on this; it just seems that way. It's like the guy who had only six months to live, and his doctor recommended he marry a divorcee with a drug habit and five children living in a one bedroom moblie home. The doctor told him it would not prolong his life, it would just seem longer.

Posted by: Pelayo at March 31, 2008 9:20 PM

How typical of the Vatican to overlook the existence of millions of Christians who do not follow Rome. As others have pointed out, the comparison is not parallel. The Vatican would do better to keep good relations with other Christians rather than waste more outreach efforts on hopeless hostile Muslims.

Posted by: Dana at March 31, 2008 9:21 PM

probably cos muslim women clearly without female genitalia and clitorises enjoy sex more lol
they are nothing more than brood mares who have child after child after child and remian in the west the highest demograph all on welfare reaping large financial rewards for spurning more of the devils spawn and collecting welfare checks on our tax payers money and the govt wants to give them more
we cant get state government housing here for up to 6 yrs because as soon as the african or arabic mongrel muslims arrive the govt gives them priority of western australians
these muslims hould be sterilised before being allowed to come to australia and stopped being allowed to have babies here, sterilize both men and women if they wish to come to the west and make their sterilisations irrepairable. thats one way to stop them outbreeding us and bankrupting us on welfare greedy sods rarely work, after all...look at the numbers of them all on our welfare dollars, they are like rabbits breeding you need to order them tserilised before they even get too leave their countries and each one double checked by an aussie surgeon to ensure they cannot breed, that goes for their kids also.

Posted by: Reverend_Kelly_Kuffir at April 1, 2008 4:28 AM

probably cos muslim women clearly without female genitalia and clitorises enjoy sex more lol
they are nothing more than brood mares who have child after child after child and remain in the west the highest demograph all on welfare reaping large financial rewards for spurning more of the devils spawn and collecting welfare checks on our tax payers money and the govt wants to give them more and state owned housing, givenlow cost loans...send them all back now bf it is too late.
we cant get state government housing here for up to 6 yrs because as soon as the african or arabic mongrel muslims arrive the govt gives them priority of western australians
these muslims hould be sterilised before being allowed to come to australia and stopped being allowed to have babies here, sterilize both men and women if they wish to come to the west and make their sterilisations irrepairable. thats one way to stop them outbreeding us and bankrupting us on welfare greedy sods rarely work, after all...look at the numbers of them all on our welfare dollars, they are like rabbits breeding you need to order them tserilised before they even get too leave their countries and each one double checked by an aussie surgeon to ensure they cannot breed, that goes for their kids also.

Posted by: Reverend_Kelly_Kuffir at April 1, 2008 4:29 AM

This is not really a very fair comparison as it only compares one denomination of Christianity with all Muslims regardness of their sect. A true comparison would be between Sunni (Muslims) and Catholic (Christians). It is not very fair to make no distinction between Shia and Sunni Muslims but to divide Christianity. If we simply deduct 10-15% from the total Muslims (the number of Shia) then Catholics still outnumber Sunnis. However, even this isn't a fair comparison. For instance, 20% of Turks (listed as "sunni" are infact Alevis. What about the Alawi of Syria? How about Sufi's etc etc This is simply more media rubbish. The birthrate of "Catholic" Peru is higher than "Muslim" Algeria for instance. The country with the highest birtrate in the world, Congo, is 50% Catholic and 10% Muslim. According to Al-Jazeera television every year 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity anyway.

Posted by: big_kike at April 1, 2008 7:42 AM

"Muslims more numerous than Catholics"

And less intelligent... Even the opening verses of Sura 2 will _demand_ you to jettison reason and critical thinking. Right from the beginning:

1) ALIF LAM MIM
[Meaning of this is unknown]

2) That is the book! There is no doubt therein;

Waitaminute! The first sura of this book starts out with an incomprehensible sentence, yet states clearly that there is no doubt? I'm *still* in doubt what that first sentence means! Is it a curse, invocation of evil or what?? As for the intelligence of those who accept this as 'holy', I think the name of the Sura is a giveaway:

The Cow

What else to say about a book allegedly given by a more or less stupid stone?

Islamic scripture is self-incriminating...

Posted by: Henrik at April 1, 2008 8:04 AM

I get the joke. Yes, a steady diet of Marty Haugen ditties would surely cut down on mosque attendance leading to a loss of faith. Brilliant plan!

Posted by: Lepanto at April 2, 2008 11:54 PM