RE: Decline of religion
June 10, 2025 at 1:07 pm
(This post was last modified: June 10, 2025 at 1:08 pm by Fake Messiah.)
Religion in Flux: Islam surges, Christianity shrinks; Hinduism holds steady
Between 2010 and 2020, the world’s population expanded-and so did nearly every major religious group-according to an analysis of over 2,700 censuses and surveys, a Pew Research Center report said. Christians remained the largest religious group, rising from 2.18 billion to 2.30 billion (+122 million), but their share of the global population shrank from roughly 30.6% to 28.8% (‑1.8 points). Muslims, meanwhile, surged ahead: adding 347 million adherents-the fastest increase among all groups-pushing their total to approximately 2 billion and boosting their global share by 1.8 points to 25.6%, the Pew report said.
Other faith categories saw varied trends: the religiously unaffiliated grew to comprise 24.2% of the world’s population (up from 23.3%), while Hinduism and Judaism held steady relative to global population growth.
Christianity’s slowing share reflects not demographic stagnation, but religious switching. As Conrad Hackett, the lead author of the report, explains: “Among young adults, for every person around the world who becomes Christian, there are three people who are raised Christian who leave.”
Despite Christians having a demographic edge via fertility, disaffiliation reversed that advantage.
Conversely, the surge in the religiously unaffiliated reflects the same switching pattern: many individuals raised Christian have transitioned into non-affiliation, compensating for the group’s demographic disadvantage-its older population and lower fertility.
Islam's growth is fueled primarily by demographics: a youthful age-structure (average Muslim age 24 vs non-Muslim 33), higher fertility rates, and comparatively low levels of religious switching.
A dramatic geographic shift: sub‑Saharan Africa now hosts around 31% of the world’s Christians-up from 24.8% in 2010-while Europe’s share has declined sharply. The region’s high fertility and youth boost Christian numbers, even as disaffiliation wanes in Europe.
In one notable exception, Mozambique saw its Christian proportion rise by 5 percentage points.
The unaffiliated are most numerous in China (1.3 billion of 1.4 billion), followed by the US (101 million of 331 million) and Japan (73 million of 126 million). Despite many holding personal religious beliefs, only about 10% of Chinese residents formally identify with a specific denomination.
Buddhists were the only major religious group to shrink in absolute numbers-down from 343 million to 324 million-due to low fertility and defections.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl...749960.cms
So, sub-Sahara was the only place where Christianity was growing, but then Trump came along, and we all know what he did, so it will most likely decline.
Between 2010 and 2020, the world’s population expanded-and so did nearly every major religious group-according to an analysis of over 2,700 censuses and surveys, a Pew Research Center report said. Christians remained the largest religious group, rising from 2.18 billion to 2.30 billion (+122 million), but their share of the global population shrank from roughly 30.6% to 28.8% (‑1.8 points). Muslims, meanwhile, surged ahead: adding 347 million adherents-the fastest increase among all groups-pushing their total to approximately 2 billion and boosting their global share by 1.8 points to 25.6%, the Pew report said.
Other faith categories saw varied trends: the religiously unaffiliated grew to comprise 24.2% of the world’s population (up from 23.3%), while Hinduism and Judaism held steady relative to global population growth.
Christianity’s slowing share reflects not demographic stagnation, but religious switching. As Conrad Hackett, the lead author of the report, explains: “Among young adults, for every person around the world who becomes Christian, there are three people who are raised Christian who leave.”
Despite Christians having a demographic edge via fertility, disaffiliation reversed that advantage.
Conversely, the surge in the religiously unaffiliated reflects the same switching pattern: many individuals raised Christian have transitioned into non-affiliation, compensating for the group’s demographic disadvantage-its older population and lower fertility.
Islam's growth is fueled primarily by demographics: a youthful age-structure (average Muslim age 24 vs non-Muslim 33), higher fertility rates, and comparatively low levels of religious switching.
A dramatic geographic shift: sub‑Saharan Africa now hosts around 31% of the world’s Christians-up from 24.8% in 2010-while Europe’s share has declined sharply. The region’s high fertility and youth boost Christian numbers, even as disaffiliation wanes in Europe.
In one notable exception, Mozambique saw its Christian proportion rise by 5 percentage points.
The unaffiliated are most numerous in China (1.3 billion of 1.4 billion), followed by the US (101 million of 331 million) and Japan (73 million of 126 million). Despite many holding personal religious beliefs, only about 10% of Chinese residents formally identify with a specific denomination.
Buddhists were the only major religious group to shrink in absolute numbers-down from 343 million to 324 million-due to low fertility and defections.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/worl...749960.cms
So, sub-Sahara was the only place where Christianity was growing, but then Trump came along, and we all know what he did, so it will most likely decline.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
