The Adherents website has this interesting chart of major world religions. As shown there are approximately 33 Christians for every 21 Muslims. I decided to try a very simple projection. In the Christian group, assume 28 of 33 Christians (14 couples) reproduce with an average two children for each couple. Also assume 18 of the 21 Muslims have an average of five children for each of the nine couples.
Now let's assume all the Christians and Muslims parents are 20 years old and all of their children will be born within the next 20 years. Assume no one dies until they are at least 40 years old. [Demographic calculations are far more complex than this exercise.]
At the end of 20 years, there will be the original 33 Christians plus (14 x 2) children = 61 total Christians. There will be 66 Muslims, 21 original parents plus (9 x 5) children. Other factors not considered, this very simplistic calculation shows the Muslim population greater than the number of Christians within one generation.
1 comment:
A few things:
- Education level is more of a predictor of fertility than religion.
- Your two and five-children items are pretty big assumptions. Two and four would put the population takeover another 15 years into the future.
I wouldn't doubt population pressures have entered into the minds of conservatives running the US. It would be relatively easy to export Western education and secular values into willing Muslim nations and prune the new generation of unwilling nations. Or wait--maybe that's what's already happening.
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