Muslims more numerous than Catholics: Vatican

[Scurrilous]

Source: Reuters

<snip>

"Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday.

Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent.

"For the first time in history we are no longer at the top: the Muslims have overtaken us," Formenti told Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano in an interview, saying the data referred to 2006.

He said that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 percent of the world's population -- or about 2 billion people.

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."

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKL3068682420080330

[Bicoastal]

1. Whatever...

...there are STILL way more Christians than Muslims.

Kinda disingenuous to compare a faction of one religion to the entirety of another. Aren't there are also sects in the Muslim religion? (Sunni and Sh'ia, to name just two.)

Whatever--I'm sure O'Reilly and Hannity will be shitting bricks about it on Monday.

[AlbertCat]

9. You said it!

Christians and Muslims have the most numerous adherents. They are also the only two that actively say, "join up.....or else".

What a coincidence!

Coercion and threats. How divine!

[pnwmom]

13. The Catholic Church is not a "sect." It is, as the article says,

a denomination -- and there are more Catholic Christians than Christians of all other denominations put together.

All the article is saying is that until recently, there were more Catholic Christians than there were of all Muslims. Now there aren't.

[muriel_volestrangler]

19. Debatable - from Merriam-Webster:

Etymology:
Middle English secte, from Anglo-French & Late Latin & Latin; Anglo-French, group, faction, from Late Latin secta organized ecclesiastical body, from Latin, course of action, way of life, probably from sectari to pursue, frequentative of sequi to follow — more at sue
Date:
14th century

1 a: a dissenting or schismatic religious body; especially : one regarded as extreme or heretical b: a religious denomination

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sect

[pnwmom]

23. How could the largest Christian denomination

be considered a dissenting or schismatic religious body?

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. "b: a religious denomination"

That's why I said "debatable". Similarly, from the Oxford English Dictionary, once you strip out the obsolete definitions:

"4. A religious following; adherence to a particular religious teacher or faith.
b. (b) A body of persons who unite in holding certain views differing from those of others who are accounted to be of the same religion; a party or school among the professors of a religion; sometimes applied spec. to parties that are regarded as heretical, or at least as deviating from the general tradition.
c. In modern use, commonly applied to a separately organized religious body, having its distinctive name and its own places of worship; a ‘denomination’. Also, in a narrower sense, one of the bodies separated from the Church. the sects: applied by Anglicans to the various bodies of Dissenters, by Roman Catholics to all forms of Protestantism."

Sometimes it's used to mean 'heretical', sometimes it's just a denomination. So using it to describe Catholicism is valid.

[crim son]

36. As far as the Catholics are concerned, they ARE the only Christians.

It would be understandable for the Vatican to make the comparison between just Catholics and Muslims.

[formercia]

38. Should I be afraid now?

or is the problem that Muslims don't like to pay interest on loans and thus are not likely to become financial slaves to the New World Order?

[Demeter]

2. Proof That Papal Encyclicals Against Birth Control Don't Work

[Hugabear]

3. Yes, I know, and Europe will be primarily Muslim in 50 years...

I've heard all the reports about how Muslims are multiplying like rabbits, and that Muslim is growing rapidly.

Who the fuck cares. I love how some people - primarily right-wing Christians - get so afraid at the notion that another hatemongering religion might take their place.

[HockeyMom]

4. Different sides of the same coin

Former Catholic.

[Hugabear]

5. Exactly

So instead of having a bunch of whack-o fundies and Catholics (note I'm not talking about moderate or progressive types here) preaching hatred towards homosexuals, you'd have a bunch of whack-o extremist Muslims doing it.

And you'd also have most of the population - whether it be Christian or Muslim - who just want to live their lives without being bothered too much.

[selador]

10. no comparison

it is true that (orthodox) catholics and muslims preach against homosexual behavior. however, that's where the comparison ends...

(fwiw, some jews, atheists, buddhists, hindus, etc. ALSO preach against same).

deal with facts:

# of people killed, fatwahs (or the christian equivalent) issued, etc. by extremist catholics against those that criticize their religion

vs.

# ... by extremist muslims...

there is no comparison.

drawing a comparison denies statistics. it denies reality.

i'm still waiting for the hordes of catholics to PHYSICALLY attack anti-catholic artists, directors, speakers, etc.

one can insult catholics all one wants with no legitimate fear of bodily injury, let alone death

try the same with islam and see how far you get.

trying to draw comparisons is absurd. there is a difference between PREACHING against something and physical actions.

try an experiment. the vatican is actually a country run by the catholic govt. feel free to walk around the vatican espousing rights for homosexuals. walk around holding hands with a member of the same sex and kiss them openly and longingly (tongue and all). would you be in fear of death or injury?

do the same in yer average majority muslim country.

lather, rinse, repeat.

[Trajan]

16. Catholic history goes back quite farther than your post would seem to allow ...

The Catholic Church has presided over the intentional destruction of innocent human beings, many times, since the church was established ....

As much as some would want to use recent church history as the only guide to their behavior, a reasonable person would include all history, with all it's warts and blemishes ....

The catholics have been defenders of human life for only about 200 years .... a mere 10% of the time they existed .... the other 1800 years have been spent in orgies of bloodletting that should brings tears to humanity ....

Signed,
EX-Catholic

[selador]

17. groovy

but im not talking about history.

im talking about the world we live in today

i can walk around catholics and even in a majority catholic country wearin a yarmulke, or preachin anti-catholic stuff, or even trying to convert catholics with no fear of death, etc.

TRY that in a majority muslim country.

catholics don't espouse DEATH for apostates.

a VERY signficant %age of muslims do

anti-catholic/anti-christian artists (see: piss christ, etc.) get condemnation and criticism. they don't get KILLED like artists who DARE criticize islam (see van goghe)

we don't see riots and murder when people write anti-catholic cartoons. we DO when they do the same with islam

mormon missionaries routinely go to majority catholic countries ON MISSIONS in safety

TRY... i double dog dare you... to go to muslim countries and walk door to door trying to convert people to any non-islamic religion

i dare you



there is no comparison. it's really taht simple. and i say that as somebody who disagrees with catholic doctrine on all sorts of issues, and who is certainly not a catholic

[pnwmom]

24. But we're talking about today, 2008, not two hundred years ago. n/t

[drobert_bfm]

25. BS

In the 20th century, the Vatican has:

1. Given sanctuary and explicit support for the Third Reich.
2. Given direct support for Franco

etc... etc...

So we're not talking 200 years ago, but rather within the memory of people still living.

[pnwmom]

32. Garbage. n/t

[mitchum]

39. Apparently the papist magic cookie is a lot easier to swallow than the truth

IT IS TRUE that the catholic church (the world's longest-running corrupt multinational organization) supported right wing death machines in the 20th century

[Kolesar]

31. No, the Catholics sub it out to the Third Infantry Division, Alito/Roberts style

Starts with dropping anti-Kerry literature in the break room at work. One million Iraqis dead.

[The Stranger]

46. That is the most amazing perversion of history I have ever seen on these boards.

The Spanish Inquisition, a century of the Crusades, centuries of European pogroms, the century-long mass "conversion" and genocide of Native American peoples -- we could be here for days illustrating the scores of innocents killed by Catholics and the Catholic Church.

there is no comparison.

drawing a comparison denies statistics. it denies reality.

Except that you have it exactly backwards. Unbelievable.

[pnwmom]

15. Have you been paying any attention to the civil wars in Africa?

Have you given much thought to what happens when a large Muslim part of a country's population decides to enact Sharia law?

[drobert_bfm]

26. A number of Africa's civil wars have occured between Christian population

It has nothing to do with Shari'a law. Charles Taylor, for example, was trying to build a Christian Theocracy in Liberia, leading to one of the worst civil wars in African history, allegedly including episodes of cannibalism and human sacrifice (with the help of Pat Robertson, no less). Muslims do not have the market on inhumanity cornered, by any stretch of the imagination.

[CJCRANE]

34. Rwanda & the Congo are not muslim.

Christian churches were complicit in the Rwandan genocide and the civil war in the Congo (which only finished a couple of years ago) was the worst in the world (in terms of civilian losses) since WWII.

No religion has a monopoly on violence.

On edit: Not forgetting the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.

[selador]

12. facts vs. moral equivalence

http://pewresearch.org/assets/pdf/muslim-americans.pdf

among other things,

"30 percent of British young muslims thinks that killing apostates is acceptable"

so, again there is no comparison.

there are two primary differences

1) doctrine. i can give you umpteen examples of sura's and of speeches by PROMINENT muslim leaders that advocate execution of apostates. there is no comparison in judaism, christianity, buddhism, hinduism, atheism, etc. (note: spare me the crusades. im talking about NOW not centuries ago.)

2) acts. there is also no comparison. here's one example. mormons routinely go on missions. the primary purpose of a mission is to convert others. they routinely do this in majority catholic or protestant countries. because even if many other christians (especially fundies) think the mormons are wack, they don't KILL or threaten to kill them (maybe you can find AN isolated incident). try this in a majority muslim country. go there and try to convert people to your religion. i dare you.

[drobert_bfm]

27. 30% of Americans say the Bible is 100% true.

And the Bible calls for the execution of apostates.

[Dervill Crow]

42. Those 30% of Americans are not Roman Catholic.

Admittedly, I don't know what it is like currently, but the adult Roman Catholics I know were discouraged from reading the Bible when they were students in parochial school because it would "confuse" them.

[pnwmom]

14. People will care if there are enough Muslims who want to enact Sharia law

in (formerly) Democratic countries.

This is already happening in Africa. We shouldn't be so sanguine that it would never happen anywhere else.

[FightTheRight89]

20. Christianity is not a hate-mongering religion.

And neither is Islam.

[judasdisney]

6. In A World About To Be Ruled By Fundamentalist Wackjobs

I'm going to take my dogeared Portable Thomas Jefferson Reader and my dog and girlfriend and move to a cave until all the good complacent folks have let the rabies wildfire renew the face of the earth.

[LeftyMom]

7. They all bow and scrape before the same imaginary being.

I don't really care which strain of silliness is currently ascendant.

[cliffordu]

8. SO: maybe we should kill a bunch to even this thing up.....

Oh, I forgot -

We already are.....

:banghead:

[54anickel]

11. OUCH!!! n/t

[DavidDvorkin]

18. Theists more numerous than atheists, world in peril: me

[drobert_bfm]

22. Now There's something I can agree with!

:-)

[DavidDvorkin]

28. Maybe we'll have a real Renaissance, one of these days

Or let's call it The Awakening.

[drobert_bfm]

21. Since when is Islam a "single religious denomination"?

Islam is *not* monolithic, and there are quite a few separate "denominations" within it. The fact that the Vatican is lumping all of Islam like that is curious; it makes one think that Catholicism is attempting to play the *minority*/*victim* card.

Even Shi'a Islam, which has more of a tendency to recognize central authorities, has quite a few groups. I don't care whether you call them sects, factions, or denominations. And Sunni Islam is fractured to just about the same degree as the various sub-sub-groups of Protestant Christians in the U.S.

This complete lack of understanding of Islam is one of the main reasons why the Iraq debacle happened in the first place. Get educated, people...

[harun]

29. The difference comes in the details of the beliefs and the fact

that the Catholic Church is an institution and an authority on what is Catholic Doctrine. There is no institutionalized Islamic authority that defines what the doctrine is to the Muslims anymore. We don't need it because it was all well documented and clearly defined in the early years (after 640 AD). Shia's, Sunni's, Sufi's, etc. when asked would all agree on the same doctrine in terms of the beliefs. They do differ however politically. That is why most of us lump us all together as one religion. We definitely disagree on politics however. That is how we got the Shia/Sunni split.

When talking about the different Christian denominations they are so all over the map in terms of belief that I am not even going to try and list the differences here. I also don't like to try and explain someone else's religion, people who want the details should ask the adherents. The differences being big enough that I see many people consider them different religions, like the Catholic church is doing. Also many of these factions also have other institutions associated with them that define different doctrines for their followers.

That being said there is nothing really to be gained by saying our numbers are bigger than their numbers. Seems when people bring it up it is usually to try and scare them. There is no intrinsic benefit before God in getting the highest numbers, other than there is a lot of other followers around to practice with now.

[CJCRANE]

35. Even worse is that Iraq had a SECULAR govt.

So Bush in his apparent war against islamic extremism Bush has actually allied himself with fundamentalist regimes and replaced Iraq's non-religious govt with a fundamentalist shi'ite one.

[truthisfreedom]

33. Jesus is/was not Catholic

For good reason.

[IronLionZion]

45. um

because it didn't exist yet? Jesus told Peter to go start it. Peter was the first pope.

[Orsino]

37. Catholics should drop out now!

:7

[entanglement]

40. Translation: "Time for the Catholic faithful to crank up the production of little Catholics..."

:evilgrin:

[goforit]

41. And after their pedofile mantra.....they are going to have far less.

[slackmaster]

43. They're being born faster than they can kill each other off

Amazing.

[sofa king]

44. Hopelessly ignorant sub-goup A now outnumbers hopelessly ignorant sub-group B

Yeah, that's how I read it. If you don't like it you can pray to your magical sky pixie of choice for me to go to your magic Guantanamo Bay.