Pew’s Projection of the Comparative Growth of World Religions — and My Comment about Probably Even More Culturally Isolated Scientific Thinking

© 2016 Peter Free

 

22 April 2016

 

 

Only fools try to predict the future, but . . .

 

Let’s do some very broad, ‘history in the making’, probability analysis — based on this from the Pew Research Center:

 

 

The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion. If current trends continue, by 2050 …

 

The number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world.

 

Atheists, agnostics and other people who do not affiliate with any religion – though increasing in countries such as the United States and France – will make up a declining share of the world’s total population.

 

The global Buddhist population will be about the same size it was in 2010, while the Hindu and Jewish populations will be larger than they are today.

 

In Europe, Muslims will make up 10% of the overall population.

 

India will retain a Hindu majority but also will have the largest Muslim population of any country in the world, surpassing Indonesia.

 

In the United States, Christians will decline from more than three-quarters of the population in 2010 to two-thirds in 2050, and Judaism will no longer be the largest non-Christian religion. Muslims will be more numerous in the U.S. than people who identify as Jewish on the basis of religion.

 

Four out of every 10 Christians in the world will live in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

© 2016 Conrad Hackett, Phillip Connor, Marcin Stonawski, and Vegard Skirbekk et al, The Future of World Religions: Population Growth Projections, 2010-2050, Pew Research Center (02 April 2016) (complete PDF here) (at page 5)

 

 

Doesn’t sound like a prescription for world peace, does it?

 

Islam and Christianity, historically and still presently frequently at odds, will grow more equal in numbers. The trend presumably favorably influences Islam’s ability to stand up for itself in the face of Christian-based militarism from the United States.

 

India, likely to become one of the world’s major hegemons, may potentially face internal fierce internal clashes between its own historically at odds Hindus and Muslims. Recall how the past’s bloody animosity motivated the creation of Islamic Pakistan out of Hindu India’s “rib”.

 

Furthermore, the proportion of people who like to think of themselves as above the “tedious” religious frays of the past, meaning agnostics and atheists, will find themselves shrinking noticeably compared to those who “believe”. One could tentatively conclude that the world will further increase in its tendency to quarrel over matters that agnostics tend to think are beside Reality’s main point.

 

Symbolically, the world’s arguably most peace-oriented religion (Buddhism), already proportionately tiny compared to the rest, will rapidly further decline in its already negligible influence.

 

 

With all that in mind — estimate what may happen to scientific thinking’s grip on global direction

 

In the United States, one of the nations that has most benefited from scientific thinking (with regard to its standard of living), one-third of the population already denies human evolution.

 

And of those who purport to accept evolution as fact, 24 percent effectively destroy its scientific basis by thinking that a Supreme Being guided it.

 

This not exactly a stunning tribute to scientific rationality, even from a nation with a noticeably rising proportion of young non-religionists.

 

Therefore, it seems unlikely that the world’s already intellectually isolated scientific minority is going to become any better integrated with the world’s teeming billions of ignoramuses.

 

I use the word “ignoramuses” here as a descriptive, rather than a pejorative label. Although readers may safely assume that I do not equate widespread ignorance with anything likely to become substantially positive.

 

 

The moral? — I doubt that our 30 to 50-year future is going to be any more pleasant than the its just-behind-us equivalent

 

Looking ahead, anticipated water and food shortages, combined with potentially more obstreperously competing religions and a declining portion of thoughtfully peaceful rationalists — will probably create still more bloody conflict and/or harsh oppression.

 

This is a reasonably safe bet. Even for and from a fool.