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The future of world religions
DairyLama
Veteran Veteran
I thought this might be of interest. It looks like Buddhism isn't going to get any bigger!
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/religious-projections-2010-2050/
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Muslims make more kids then others, thats the reason. And if you dont belive you are in trouble.
Buddhism are way more chill, but I thought it would increase, since western people (and other parts of the world) are more familliar to meditation and buddhas teaching?
I think Buddhism will gradually attract more numbers in the west, but it looks like that will be outpaced by Islam.
Why does the number matter? Buddhism is already outpaced by Islam. It doesn't matter to me who labels themselves as what. It matters more the way that they behave in our society. I know more "well-behaving" Muslims than I do Christians, I think! Also, why is someone "in trouble" if they don't understand that Muslims have more children?
@karasti I mean you can be in trouble if you are not muslim.
For example, It is not religion freedom in countries like Iran , so I think there you will be forced to believe in Islam, even you like it or not. 98 % of the population are muslims, and the other 2 precent?.. are In jail?
Ok, thank you, I understand what you meant now
Source?
well, while I personally cannot give you a bona fide reliable, documented source, it's odd to think that top of the leader board in Boy's names in the UK, Mohammed is pretty much outpacing others, plus what I heard a young Muslim man say on a sunday morning religious debate programme -
"You don't need to fear us because you're scared we are terrorists. We will just outbreed you, because in Islam, big families are the norm, not so much in other religions. Islam will win the day by sheer numbers."
And he meant it.
From the book "The Myth of the Muslim Tide"
(Myth) 1. Muslims have a higher birth rate than other religions, and will take over the world by population
Two generations ago, it seemed as if Islamic countries were destined for out-of-control population growth. People spoke of an “Islamic fertility rate” – – more than 5 children per family, on average – – and predicted minaret spires foresting the Earth. Today, it is readily apparent that Islam is not connected with population growth. Just look at Iran, the world’s only Islamic theocracy, where the average family had around 7 children in the 1980s – – and has 1.7 today, a lower rate than France or Britain. Or look at the United Arab Emirates, with 1.9 children per family. Or Turkey, ruled by an elected party of devout Muslims for a decade, which now has 2.15 children per family. Or Lebanon, where, despite Hezbollah’s rise, has only 1.86 children per family (so that its population will be shrinking). Around the world, the average Muslim family size has fallen from 4.3 children per family in 1995 to 2.9 in 2010, and is expected to fall below the population-growth rate, and converge with Western family sizes, by mid-century. This is a crucial sign that Muslim societies are undergoing a major modernizing, secularizing wave – – even if they elect Islamist parties while doing so.
Thank you for the clarification' @karasti.
Don't shoot the piano player, I was merely passing on what I heard, but as I stated, I could lend no reliable source or credence to it...
Not at all, I don't know how reliable this guy's information is either, I just found it interesting. Who knows how accurate birth rate reporting is in any of those countries.
I don't think population means much...it sounds realistic about the change in the growth rate of the Muslim population from modernization. Just think about how much the Christian population has changed -- not from growth but from those who are in a sense, 'escaping' the fundamental type religions no matter what they are - due to the tremendous amount of physical, verbal, sexual and mental abuses from all these dysfunctional families all over the planet. Religion is just one aspect of societies that is cycling through time, that is petrifying...getting sick and dying...and changing at the very least.
@vinlyn
http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2008/muslimsineurope.aspx
In Austria, for example, Muslim women had a total fertility rate (an estimate of lifetime births per woman) of 3.1 children per woman in 1981, well above the 1.7 average for the majority Roman Catholic women. By 2001, the rate for Catholics had fallen to 1.3, but the Muslim rate had fallen to 2.3—leaving a difference of just one child per woman between Muslims and non-Muslims.
conclusion from this article/study:
The study confirms the perception that Muslim women have more children than non-Muslims in Western Europe, but shows that the gap is not as large as many believe..
I blame the lack of dharma expansion on sangha and their non breeding tendencies ...
I'm not arguing the point. I was simply asking for a reference.
But it still seems like a big jump to make a generalization that Muslims produce more children in general than Asians or Africans or South Americans or Latin Americans from an article entitled "Do Muslims Have More Children Than Other Women in Western Europe?".
Perhaps this is a better comparison: http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?v=25.
And, if we really want to carry this further, then I would suggest that the center of Muslim life -- the Middle East -- cannot sustain its population in terms of either water or food. What will that mean?
Hang on a minute - you're comparing Religion to race/nationality....
A lot of Asians and particularly, Africans contain a Muslim contingency... Latin Americans and South Americans are nationalities, not religions...
It means they will migrate, just as they have been doing throughout Europe.
I think you're confusing 'Arab' with Muslim.
The arab world is not the only country with a prevalent Muslim religion...
A lot of Asians and particularly, Africans contain a Muslim contingency... Latin Americans and South Americans are nationalities, not religions...
You're right. My mistake. But that does not alter my premise that the article cited was not a means for jumping from a group of Muslims in western Europe to global domination.
You're also assuming that countries around the world are going to continue to allow the influx of Muslim migration, and I think it's probably that -- considering what is going on in the Muslim world right now -- that other nations are going to begin putting up barriers to Muslim migration into their countries. France is certainly beginning to question the wisdom of their almost open-door policy of recent decades. And as violence and terrorism spreads through Muslim areas of Africa and elsewhere, I think many are going to erect a big stop sign.
We my well be questioning it, but as a European nation, there is nothing, legally, that we (the UK) can do to stem the flow of Cross-Europe Migration - and we have a lot more people 'coming in' than we have 'going out'. (That's also in comparison to other `European countries...) Remember that the UK is also Head of the Commonwealth, so not only do we have an open-door policy with Europe, we are subject to permitting commonwealth influx, too...
I noticed this in the article: Hurrah!
"Buddhists appear headed for similarly rapid growth in Europe – a projected rise from 1.4 million to 2.5 million."
So, Spiny... any children that you know of....?
Well according to this, it would seem the Bodhisattvas will have their work cut out for them, ie, ending the suffering of all sentient beings...(well thankfully they have all the lifetimes they need to do their work) No peace for the wicked so they say.....
My hairdresser believes the future of religion is the merging of two or more for instance buddhism and christianity. I would not be surprised because here in America many engaged Buddhists have some kind of merging of their religions going on anyways.
So who are US Buddhists merging with? Could you give some examples?
Buddhism did not originate in the US so mostly all US Buddhists would have been born in the dominant faith ie Christianity. Of those born Buddhist here are a couple of examples I could find https://americananglican.org/can-one-be-christian-and-buddhist-at-the-same-time/ http://www.thebcmc.org/2013/10/10/are-you-a-buddhist-christian/. There are those born Buddhists in some Asian countries - who have embraced Christianity because of the decay in Buddhism there. Its not about proving something is possible but that to reinvigorate religions it will become relevant for them to reinvent themselves within the context of the general population diverse as it may be.
@boobysattva, We've said here before, you can meld Buddhism into any religion you want, and it works.
You CANNOT, however, meld any religion into Buddhism. Then, it WON'T work...
@federica pardon this last post and totally understand your consternation given the views you and everyone here holds. But do read up syncretism and even chrislam (not for shock value). Best.
Read what I said, again.
Any religion in the world, can have Buddhism incorporated into it.
Therefore Islam will still have Allah, Christianity will still have God/Jesus and Judaism will still have Yahweh...
Buddhism cannot absorb other religions to their fullest extent, because Buddhism views the existence of God as totally inconsequential, and not worth pondering.
Unfortunately for your point of view, there are Buddhist/_____ out there (and here) who do what you say cannot be done.
As more than one Thai monk explained to me, "You can be Christian and Buddhist". I know you don't like that, but you are not the final authority on the concept of syncretism. It isn't a question of one religion absorbing another religion (if one views Buddhism as a religion). That is just worrying about whether "your" religion is dominant. It's about looking at parallel principles and understanding that in this world only the very limited see things in an all or nothing at all perspective. That all or nothing at all perspective is exactly what is driving radical Islam and the anti-gay folks here in the United States -- a lack of vision to understand that their personal mindset is not the only logical or valid mindset...or even to accept the right of people to have a mindset different from their own. It is the same limited mindset that leads some Christians to say that the Bible is the actual word of God. It is the same mindset that further leads them to discount science (and evolution and climate change, etc.), because they can neither comprehend or accept anything outside their rigid mindset. And it is the mindset that has caused, over the centuries, one religion to fight another religion.
And I forgot to add that in relation to your comment that, "Buddhism views the existence of God as totally inconsequential, and not worth pondering" is not the way that I was taught by monks.
Rather, their position was that in regard to human suffering and its elimination, we are going to deal with what we know, and that is what we find in the Buddhist scriptures. That is not to say there are not things outside the Buddhist scriptures that we cannot be aware of or understand. God may or may not exist. Since we can't know, we will start on "this side" of that possibility and deal with what we can verify.
No, there aren't.
Yes, I agree, of course you can.
I never, anywhere said you couldn't be.
You persistently misunderstand me, @vinlyn , or perpetually fail to get what `i mean....
Never said, implied or even so much as hinted that I was. But I believe I'm correct in my assertion...
I don't mean that the religion is absorbed by another... I mean that the person practising is the one who can absorb Buddhism into his theistic religion entirely, but that a Buddhist cannot entirely absorb a theistic religion while proclaiming to be 'fully' Buddhist. ....
Well it's the way I was taught by the Buddha, so I think he trumps them every time. Sorry to your monks and all that....
I'm so happy that you were taught directly by the Buddha and are conversant in his language.
Being taught by Monks is exactly the same as learning the way I learnt, so don't come the clever smartass with me.
Where did THEY get their info from?
My conversations with you are finis.
Thank God for that.
I think God is rejected more fully in some sects of Buddhism than in others. If someone tells me they are a Christian Buddhist I'm certainly not going to ask them to prove their point and tell them "I hope you mean you are a Christian practicing Buddhism, and NOT a Buddhist practicing Christianity!" because it's none of my business what they are or how they practice. My sister will tell you she is partially Christian, but she rejects most of what Christianity as an organized religion offers. Yet, it's not really for anyone else to tell her she's not a Christian. Nor for anyone to tell her she is not a Buddhist or a Pagan (both of which she also identifies with) if she believes in God.
I have the utmost respect for people who can fully embrace multiple belief sets and make them work. It seems to me (of those people I know who do that successfully) that they are the most open-minded and most compassionate. They see things from multiple angles. And most of all, they don't live with a mind of rejection, which most of us still do regardless of whether we have rejected Christianity or Islam or whatever. We tend to make a clear line of "I believe in this, and I don't believe in that" but these people are able to incorporate much more into their lives from a variety of useful wisdom traditions, and I think that is pretty awesome. I try to do more of it as I continue in my own practice. I am more open to it than I was a few years ago but still find it difficult.
I really don't mind if people choose to, want to, decide to or state they are practising two religions, one of which is Buddhism.
What I am saying is that if one practises one religion and decides to practise Buddhism with it, then Buddhism - being Non-theistic - will pretty well fit in completely.
If someone chooses to profess they are primarily Buddhist, it's far more difficult to then incorporate a theistic religion with, into or alongside Buddhism, because Buddhism has no Godhead, and to introduce one can only mean that a wholehearted and unequivocal adhesion to Buddhism is not practicable.
One can adopt some basic, general premises, but complete adhesion, to both religions - equally AND simultaneously - is highly unlikely.
Born a Christion is great, good sense of community and story hour every sunday! However you'd be a fool if you didn't consider the Buddhist point of few( fix urself) as a better teaching. People aren't stupid and suffering never ends.
I understand what you were saying before, so no problems there. But how much of that assertion depends on exactly how you practice Buddhism? I can honestly tell you that in none of my retreats or teachings with my teacher has there been an exclusion of God. Now, I don't believe in God, so it's not an issue for me. But it's also never once been brought up, so someone with the same levels of teaching could well feel they are 100% adhering to Buddhism without knowing otherwise. The only material I have read, actually, where God is flatly denied is Trungpa's stuff (and I quite agree with his opinion on the matter). Now, I'm sure this is covered by sutras. But not every "complete Buddhist" relies on sutras for their learning. I don't. I read very few of them. So it seems it depends largely on how a person defines Buddhism even so far as saying "I am 100% a Buddhist." So it seems it is, in theory, possible for someone to consider themselves fully Buddhist while believing in God or Jesus even if it doesn't necessarily make logical sense to everyone.
Like I said, my sister will tell you she is a Christian. But she does not believe in a virgin birth of Jesus or even his resurrection. She believes only in the things he taught about how to live a decent life. She believes in a God/creator/universal creationary force but she does not believe in heaven. But she will also tell you she is a Buddhist. Not a Christian who uses parts of Buddhism. So, do you get to tell her she is wrong? Whose definition is she required to use when she claims to be a Christian? A Buddhist? Is she wrong in only using her own definition? Is someone else right in putting their definition of it on her?
And really, does it matter?
I don't care if my religion is outnumbered by any religion whatsoever, as long as in the future my descendants don't get beheaded for differing with the majority religion of turn.
I think being Buddhist while practicing Christianity or vise versa reminds me of 2 folks marrying who then discover that one wants kids while the other doesn't, and you wonder why they never really discussed this before getting married.
I think they can have their marriage and **no one **can say that are not married but who would be surprised that some integral part of their union is inevitably left, unfulfilled.
I think it's funny we need to even have a discussion about people who define their religious life differently than others do. It certainly doesn't affect me if someone fully believes they are both a Christian and Buddhist, nor do I feel it my place to simply tell them they are wrong. Just because my logic and/or perception might not be able to make it fit doesn't mean someone else can't. If it works for them, who am I to judge? My autistic son lives a life of routines that makes little sense to anyone except him. it used to bother me, like fingernails on a chalkboard. But I certainly was the only one affected by allowing it bothering me. Made me feel like I needed to "fix" his crazy routines so that they made sense in my life. How silly is that? Much more for me to learn by talking to him about how it works for him rather than simply telling him he does it wrong. Same with most things so long as those ideals aren't negatively directly affecting/harming others.
Lobster comes unstuck again.
I guess I am not really a real anything, unlikely as that is.
Who wants to be a Buddhist Bunny anyway? All that Dukkha, meditation and Sunday community visits to the Nobility.
m m m . . . maybe I will take up [insert fundamental excursion of choice]
It's not mine either, and it's not anything I have ever mentioned to anyone professing to practise both.
I jut stated my opinion here, as it's under discussion.
But what people choose to do, is entirely their choice, and if they view it as being complete both ways, fair enough. More power to them.
I happen to disagree.
But I've never upped and told anyone so, in the specific sense or situation.
Neither would I....
And there you make my point. She has chosen the parts which lie well with her, from all the callings you mention, yet she does not adhere or commit to any one specific religion/creed wholeheartedly, or claims to be a member of one wholeheartedly, but still practises the others.
I don't believe anyone can fully embrace a belief 'wholeheartedly' if they embrace it alongside other beliefs. You cannot be a full servant to two Masters.
I think you'll find I have often quoted Biblical passages because they happen to resonate, or convey a specific intention in my comments.
I have a lot of respect for Christianity and the faith I was brought up in.
Not so some of the people I encountered in it, claiming to be adherents or representatives. And I don't believe in God, at all.
I use aspects of Christian values - but I don't 'Embrace' catholicism.
I shake hands with it, now and then.....
Federica, that's funny to think someone has control over you. You Brilliant, certainly not for thinking someone has control over you. Personally you can kick me off this site again but not before I say one last thing. How many teachers did you have in grade school?
My guru has students who are Christian. One I know finds the bodhisattva ideal similar to 'love your neighbor'.
@federica I wasn't implying that you said, or thought any of those things. I was just "speaking" in general.
1.
a religion, originated in India by Buddha (Gautama) and later spreading to China, Burma, Japan, Tibet, and parts of southeast Asia, holding that life is full of suffering caused by desire and that the way to end this suffering is through enlightenment that enables one to halt the endless sequence of births and deaths to which one is otherwise subject.
I don't even think we all agree on this definition.
As many members there are on this site, that's how many religions/philosophies we have here.
I don't think there's a line to say. This IS Buddhism. And that's not.
I agree, @Earthninja, but we have at least 3 members of the definition police who say differently.
But let me tell you a strength I see in that definition. It is not all-inclusive of all knowledge or human activity in the world. It talks about life being full of suffering and how to reduce or eliminate that suffering. Period. Everything else that surrounds Buddhism, in my view, are add-ons by people who want to expand its stated purpose to encompass life as those individuals see it. Which is okay...for them (and you or me) as individuals, but it doesn't change what Buddhism is supposed to be.
However, I should add that, in general, formal definitions don't always tell the whole story or the common usage, or ..... And that gets to your last line about the ever-moving line of what is and isn't Buddhism.
I was originally taught that a teaching had to conform to these four seals in order to be called Buddhist.
All compounded things are impermanent.
All phenomena are empty, without inherent existence.
All dualistic experience is intrinsically painful.
Nirvana alone is peace, and is beyond concept.
These arose from Buddhist elders trying to address what sounded like ancient forms of new age movements also claiming to be Buddhist. Sound familiar?
If any Buddhist lineages or schools of any of the participants here disagree, then I'd really appreciate hearing about it.
PM me if you want, if it's contentious.