Islam is the fastest growing religion

[4GS]

Why?
What's the attraction?
In my opinion, Islam is a backward, medieval, repressive, sexist excuse for a religion so why is it the fastest growing religion in the world today?

[Reverandfunk]

i may form my own

Personally I respect people who wish to be religious, but its all basically a load of old tosh in my opinion and anyone who needs a 2000 year old book of fairytales to tell them how to live their life is a bit sad.

[jno]

because things like repression, sexism and so forth aren't the concern of devotees, any more than the colour of a steering wheel is to someone who buys a car. They take it up because it offers them some certainty about life and death in an uncertain world. They see a faith whose believers stand up and fight back against enemies.

More broadly, it may be because Muslims have more children. Christians in the industrialised west have smaller families these days (why? Because they can't spare the time... want more money to spend on themselves... are all gay these days anyway...)

[Theland]

Islam is stuck in the seventh century. It is backward, as are the countries that adhere to it, living either on oil or handouts from the West.
Compare Israel with its surrounding Arab countries. Compare the number of Nobel prizes won by Jews compared to Arabs.
Islam is violent and preaches violence, but its adherents must have a sense of belonging, even though they trade in their free will to the mullahs.
It is the greatest threat to western civilisation I can think of, other than the liberals who let them into our country, and then bend over backwards to islamise the country to make these aliens welcome.
It's time to close down the mosques and boot out the mullahs.

[lightoftruth]

simply put....islam is still a aggressivly converting religion. As in islam is still going through the same phase christianity went through when we started sendinig out missionaries etc and converting the "heathens."

i heard this on bbc have your say and thought it was quite profound

"freedom of religion also means freedom from religion"

[jno]

some people snigger than Muslims drink, despite the teachings of their religion. Others snigger that Muslims hand in their free will to the mullahs. These contradictory claims can't both be true as descriptions of all Islam, Theland. The truth is that there are millions of Muslims in many countries. Some are suicide bombers. Some are cheerful ladies without headscarves, like the one I work with. Many are Arabs. Some may be Cypriots (like Cat Stevens). But the biggest Muslim country is Indonesia, I believe. Generalisations are pointless and wrong.

[Theland]

Know your islam. The so called extremists are doing nothing more than being true to their faith. Read your koran.
The moderates are the apostates, and thank god there are millions of them.
However, polls suggest thousands in the U.K. are sympathetic to suicide bombers in THIS country, and many hundreds would don a bomb belt and blow you up for their religion.
I kid you not.
Look at the "Religion Of Peace" web site. Are they making this stuff up?

[Octavius]

You are rather narrow-mindedly focussing your attention on a very small fundamentalist section of a very largely followed religion. Of course, this is something most ABers go along with, just like all Christians are right wing gay-haters and God-fearing condom burners and paedophiles, of course. Or that all football fans are hooligans and vise versa etc etc.

Such eponymous opinions like that, I find execrable. To understand why religion of any form is important to some and not to others you really need to understand the psyche of those indulging and then look at the bigger picture. To condemn people for following a particular path is as futile as bemoaning someone because they have decided to support Milwall, without really knowing why. But that in itself doesn�t excuse your ignorance.

[brionon]

They are out Breeding us !

[jno]

"polls suggest thousands in the U.K. are sympathetic to suicide bombers in THIS country, and many hundreds would don a bomb belt and blow you up for their religion."

Source, please?

[Octavius]

Actually Brionon I think the biggest �problem� in that respect is Buddhism, since China is reportedly churning out circa 16million sprogs a year.

[brionon]

Oct, Yes but remember how the Buddhists re-acted to the shelling of their Statues by the 'Peace loving' Muslims in Afganistan. No violence ,nothing. The buddhists are OK.

[Octavius]

Well yes, if you consider self-immolation (such as that of Thich Quang Duc) a more desirable and rational form of protest, then yes you are right.

[brionon]

Well it's certainly better than blowing up people on trains for example. So yes I do.

[NikkiB]

I think you have to work out how it's growing. If it's by birth rate, that doesn't make it any more credible than any other lifestyle or religion.
The Islamic community in this country generally have a much higher birth rate than non muslims.
And as for the figures on converting, I wonder how many of those are true spiritual shifts, rather than some Englishwoman going through the motions of conversion in order to please her Muslim husband-to-be and his traditional parents.
I suspect that the "fastest growing religion" mantra may be an empty boast.

[Lucy Thomas]

It is the fastest growing religion because they all have about 23 kids.

[Theland]

jno - there are more polls like this - google them yourself. Pew polls for example. I stand by what I said.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5111248.stm

[beso]

A popular teaching in the Moslem faith is that one should look to the errors of others to see what is wrong with society. People are a lot easier to motivate into taking action against the shortcomings of others than contemplate becoming a better person themselves.

And despite Jesus teaching that people should look inwards to find answers, the great historical "successes" of Christianity are due to the exact same backwards notions by those who would call themselves Christian.

The problem is the weakness of people. Religions have learnt to exploit it.

[Peace123]

Birth rate lol... THe reason that Islam is the fastest growing religion is because it is not what you think it to be. Islam is a peaceful loving religion, and instead of looking at media or they way people are following the religion, pick up the Quran and give it a read. You will definatley see a different side for sure.