Muslims Outnumber Catholics?:
This story has received a lot of play, but isn't this comparing apples to oranges? There are still more Christians than there are Muslims, and Muslims, like Christians, are not just one group. Most obviously, there are Sunni Muslims and there are Shiite Muslims, and if I understand things correctly, there are some divisions within those major groupings as well. I'm not sure why it matters, but until (at least) there are more Sunni Muslims than there are Catholics, I think Catholicism is still the world's biggest religion by adherents.
(1) My impression (as an outsider) is that Muslim sects are somewhat less divided than Christian ones. Possibly because all have the duty to make hajjr to the same shrine, at Mecca. You don't see Catholics, Orthodox, Baptists and Pentecostals all making a pilgrimage to pray alongside each other at Rome, Jerusalem and Nazareth.
(2) Many (not all) Catholic writers like to retreat to the "Well, our Church has many more followers than your tiny sect" redoubt when some debating opponent from a minuscule Protestant denomination refutes their "traditional" interpretation of some obscure New Testament passage on hermeneutic grounds. So, losing the plurality slot to "Islam" en bloc may be a symbolic blow to those writers' self-confidence.
(3) In addition, the most prominent Catholic writers oppose abortion, homosexuality and artificial contraception and note with barely-concealed glee that those Protestants who accept these the most enthusiastically (eg, Episcopalians) are dwindling in numbers. "I'm Pro-Life and I Vote - And So Do All My Children" is hard to argue with, as a bumper sticker. Of course, this cuts both ways; now that many Catholics are employing both the Papally-approved and the Papally-disapproved methods of birth control, their procreative rate is higher than those of atheists and liberal Protestants, but lower than those of Mormons, fundamentalist Protestants, and Muslims. Since both Catholicism and Islam gain the vast majority of their adherents through birth rather than adult conversions (unlike, eg, Pentecostals), losing the demographic edge is also a morale-breaker for conservative Catholics, since it indicates they're slack on God's command to go forth and multiply.
Every time a muslim is born the world is a little less free, a little more poor and little more violent.
The problem of the intersection between overpopulation, democracy, immigration, and ideology is a complex one. Unilateral natal disarmament is not an answer, but participating in a birth race is suicide. The first step is to recognize that a lot of the people within our borders are the problem too.
Also, lostmycookies, that is obviously not the real question.
I see the Protestant/Roman Catholic divide as being very similar to the Sunni/Shi'a divide, except that the sides have been reversed. Many of the same theological issues seem to be involved, in particular, the Protestant/Sunni rejection of what they consider Catholic/Shi'a idolatry, straying from the scriptures, and centralization (though Shi'a Islam is not as centralized as Roman Catholicism). This is not a perfect parallel, but does possibly explain why the Protestant Brits in particular tended to favor the Sunni Arabs over their Shiite countrymen when setting up modern Iraq.
Um, no. The Brits worked with who they could, divided and conquered, and made excellent use of existing fragmentation and power relationships within the subject people in building the Empire.
Actually, the better explanation for this is the legacy of the Hussein-MacMahon Correspondence and the fact that the French forced the Hussein family (as in the King of Jordan and former King of Iraq, not as in Saddam) out of Syria.
But another very striking difference is that guns, bombs and mass murder appear to be the current methods for settling one theological divide, but not the other. At least when both sides of the Islamic divide don't team up to use the same methods on the rest of the world's infidels.
Islam is about 700 years younger than Christianity. Think about what methods Christians were using to resolve disputes 700 years ago. And WWII (100's of millions dead) wasn't a dispute between Muslims.
On another note, in the first version of the statement I read, the quote did indeed equate Catholicism with Christianity. I don't know if that was a misquote, but if it wasn't, it shows more than a little arrogance on Msgr. Formenti's part.
While we in the west know it's not a religious fight, I would think that when Muslims look at Northern Ireland they think it's similar to their own infighting.
Unless you have a time machine, I think we're all living in the here and now and the methods this "young" religion are using to "resolve disputes" seem to be directed towards a great number of nonparties to such "disputes". Why always the need to somehow tutt-tutt and absolve the barbarians cutting heads and blowing themselves up with nail-studded bombs strapped to their chests?
As a real outsider -- i.e., a Jew, having no dog in this fight -- I am positive your impression is wrong (at least as of late). There have not been calls from mainstream leaders of Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox groups for their followers to commit serious acts of violence against other Christian groups. Not the same with Islam. By the way, this does not make Islam "worse" than Xtianity -- historically, there has been plenty of violence between mainstream sects of Xtianity. And as a Jew, I do find Islam to be closer to Judaism than it is Christianity. I believe that was the mainstream Jewish view until quite recently actually -- see, generally, discussions amongst classical Rabbis of whether belief in the trinity is in fact polytheism.
On the other hand, fundamentalist US Protestants have no problem seeing Jews in Israel as their military allies, despite the much wider theological differences.
Certainly the issues of the Shi'ite/ Sunni split do parallel those that divide Caths from Prots (iconoclasm; authority of clerical hierarchy; a fixed vs a developing oral tradition alongside the scriptures; self-inflicted pain as a good work; and the founder's intentions as to who would succeed him). But overall, Muslims cluster around the centre, and have a narrower spread theologically, than Christians do (even allowing for the Druze and the Jehovah's Witnesses).
Agreed, it's still cheating to compare one branch of Religion with the whole of Religion B.
Agree with you in your response to Bruce Hayden's incorrect speculation re why the British favored the Sunnis. HOWEVER, you are very confused about "the Hussein family." King Hussein was not part of the "Hussein family." Indeed, "Hussein" is not his family name; it is his first name, he was Hussen ibn (son of, like the Jewish ben) Talal ibn Abdullah. The present King of Jordan is Abdullah II, or Abdullah ibn Hussein ibn Talal. They are not members of the "Hussein family" but are a part of the Hashemite clan-- a clan originating from the Hijaz (not Syria) -- i.e., a lot of modern-day Saudi Arabia. They were the guardians of Mecca &Medina until the Sauds forced them out of the Hijaz. They claim to be direct descendants of the prophet Mohammed. They were then installed as Kings of Transjordan (now the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan), Iraq and Syria by the English and French, respectively. They eventually were overthrown in Iraq and Syria, but remain in power in Jordan.
> "whether belief in the trinity is in fact polytheism"
See this http://volokh.com/posts/1204021413.shtml#331777. As a Christian, I readily concede that, at first glance, the Christian version of monotheism could easily be mistaken for polytheism by even an intelligent observer: the Jewish and Muslim versions simply can't.
That's funny, seeing as the Anglican Church owes its theology to Lutheranism.
I know, I know. Sucks to be you, I'm sure. But the resentment looks ugly.
Says who? My father is an Episcopal priest, and he has said that our theology mirrors Orthodox Christianity, or at least it did before the heresies of the Twentieth century corrupted it.
Revelation 19: 19-21
Who is absolving anything? It was an accurate observation of what happened in the so-called Christian world from roughly 800-1700AD. Millions of Christians and non-Christians alike were killed in religious wars, in dugeons, or at the stake for nominal acts of heresy. Of the Christians slaughtered in these acts, very large portions of these were break-away groups, eventually Protestants after the times of Luther and Zwingle, and a considerably smaller portion were Catholics killed in retaliatory actions. Northern Ireland of recent times was a living legacy of this violence.
This is a very GOOD analogy for where Islam is at right now, although inevitably imperfect. It is not an absolution of anyting to make the observation -- the actions are just as barbaric now as they were when Christians perpetrated them upon each other in the Middle Ages.
CrazyTrain: Re the trinity, I think the dominant view amongst classical Rabbis who had this debate was that the trinity was not in fact polytheism. I believe that view still holds today -- and there are some reasons why this actually is a very important question for some Jewish laws re Jews interactions with non-Jews. Not being Orthodox, and not being as learned as I would like to be in this, I do not know the specifics however.
It would be rather startling to find opinion otherwise. IIRC, the "Elohim" used at the beginning of Genesis and elsewhere is uniplural, plural being three or more. One of three, three in one. A person would have to subscribe to a 'living text' method of interpretation to do away with that.
Spoken like a true Christian.
Well, that's what we USED to say when you weren't around. But that was before Vat II. Now when no Prots are around, we put on gorilla suits and dance the Bum-Bum Dance to the music of winsome Thracian folk melodies played on the pan-flute.
(I think liturgical reform has gone a bit too far, to be perfectly frank.)
And every time you touch yourself, God kills a kitten.
This is what the Brits used to say about the Irish...
> "It would be rather startling to find opinion otherwise. IIRC, the "Elohim" used at the beginning of Genesis and elsewhere is uniplural, plural being three or more. One of three, three in one."
Extremely interesting. Would it be accurate, then, to say that the rabbis' consensus is (a) it is not contrary to Jewish monotheism to believe that there is one god who is three distinct persons, but (b) it is contrary to Jewish monotheism to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was one of those persons incarnate?
(analogous to the majority conservative Catholic and Protestant view of Islam: "Yes, there is one God - but Allah isn't him")
www.IGOTUGGs.com
www.BehindtheApprovalMatrix.com
Ummm, no. This is a creative way to look at the text if you are a Xtian, but it is utter hogwash if you are at all familiar with Hebrew. And although I don't know for sure, I would be completely and totally shocked if any Rabbi had ever put forward such an interpretation of the Hebrew to support the view that Xtians who believe in the trinity are not polytheists because of this bizarre reading of the Hebrew.
I am competent in Biblical Hebrew, and can tell you quite confidently that your view (which I had never heard before) is entirely incorrect. First, although elohim is indeed a generic plural for "gods," it is used in the context of references to God (as in the one God) with singular forms of verbs, whereas references to generic gods are used with plural forms of verbs. Second, most of the older portions of Genesis refer to God's personal name -- which I am too superstitious to render, but is referred to as "the LORD" -- and it also is always singular. Third, although there are certain double-plural noun forms (aye-im), most nouns even in reference to pairs, use the same plural as Elohim (-im), and I am not familiar with any pair form in Biblical hebrew for a reference to two gods. Fourth, the bedrock prayer of Judaism, from Exodus, is the Sh'ma -- Hear O' Israel, the LORD is our God [where the form is plural, with a 1st person plural possessive suffix], the LORD is one. (Compare to the Koran and the central prayer of Islam: There is no God but Allah.) Conclusion: there is nothing in the text of the Hebrew Bible (and especially not in the Torah) that supports a trinital form of God. Nothing. Zilch. Zero.
(a) No. The Rabbis' consensus (apparently not as solid as I first thought) is based on other factors (here is a very simple explanation).
(b) Irrelevant, see (a) above.
I'm tired of this crap about some kind of moral equivalency between Islam and Christianity. Let's focus on the here and now. Converts to Islam don't have to fear for their lives.
Well, not now, at least. But a couple hundred years ago, hoo-boy, a whole 'nother story.
I suspect that if we give the upstarts enough time, they will come around to what the catholics have finally learned after much bloodshed.
The American Civil War was not about interpretation of the Bible, but about interpretation of the Constitution with regard to slavery; neither side claimed the Bible was authoritative, but all agreed the Constitution was.
Contrariwise, the English Civil War was as much about religious doctrine as political structure. Both sides championed particular religious doctrines and sought to enforce them.
As to the story DB cited, it's wrong because Islam is not a single religious sect. There are some Moslems, such as the Ahmadiyya, who are not recognized as Moslems by others. (That's why Nobel laureate physicist Abdus Salam has never been honored by his native country of Pakistan.)
Another thing: Islam has no real formal "church" type organizations, AFAIK. The "ayatollahs" of Shi'a Islam come closest, but there is no central authority which confirms this title. The authority of Al-Azhar University in Cairo is purely by reputation, AIUI, and is not binding on anyone. Wiki sez that the Grand Sheik of Al-Azhar issued a fatwa recognizing Shi'a Islam as valid in 1961; but the mullahs and imams in Saudi Arabia still denounce the Shi'a in vicious terms.
It should be recognized that Islam has no "priesthood" - Moslem clerics are teachers or liturgical performers like rabbis and cantors. There is no apostolic succession, and no spiritual power to fight over.
Isn't this racist?
i nominate this for best joke of the thread.
No it has little to do with race. Islam is both a religion and a political movement that can be adopted or rejected by a person of any race. It's a repulsive statement in that it advances the notion of collective guilt. However a non-trivial fraction of current day Muslims, at least 20% of those under 30, refuse to unconditionally reject violence as a means of advancing their movement. That's a fact based on surveys.
As a side note on the quote below:
Isn't this subject to the same criticism as the often conflated view of Anti-Zionism vs. Anti-Semitism. The "movement" is political but driver by a religious philosophy (i.e. anti-Zionism) while the abhorrent acts (murder, terror) are commited by individuals who are associated with a particular culture/religion (i.e. anti-Semitism). Isn't it a grossly inaccurate to then paint the entire culture as being evil/dangerous based on the acts of a minority who are more closely associated with a political/philosophical movement then the culture/religion as a whole.
Yes.
anym_avey: Who is absolving anything? It was an accurate observation of what happened in the so-called Christian world from roughly 800-1700AD. . .
This is a very GOOD analogy for where Islam is at right now, although inevitably imperfect. It is not an absolution of anything to make the observation -- the actions are just as barbaric now as they were when Christians perpetrated them upon each other in the Middle Ages.
Nicely said. The evil committed by some (many) Muslims in the early 21st Century no more means that Islam is an evil faith than the evil committed by some (many) Christians over the ages means that Christianity is an evil faith.
Catholics have been the single largest Christian denomination in America since the 1890's. But ask any Catholic of the World War II generation and you'll find that they consciously felt themselves to be a minority in America, for certainly good reasons. Thankfully, anti-catholicism in America has receded. But it's important to remember that Al Smith was sunk in 1928 on his religion, despite it being the "largest denomination in America."
the issue is islam AS practiced. and christianity AS practiced. not AS practiced x many years ago.
christianity AS practiced means that none but an infinitessimally small # of christians do the kind of violent evil ACTS that a MUCH MUCH larger %age of muslims routinely do in response to somebody daring to criticize their religion, let alone convert from it
I agree. There is no equivalence between the religions. However, history shows an equivalence between the behavior of the self-identified adherents of each.
1) Where do you actually draw the line between Catholic and Protestant? The Anglican tradition (of which I am a member, as an Episcopalian) as well as the Lutheran one recite the Nicene Creed as our confession of faith. That creed includes the line, "We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church." I'm sure other denominations use it too, but those are the two big ones I know of off the top of my head.
2) Do the various Orthodox Churches fall into the "Catholic" category or into neither? They're clearly not Protestant sects.
3) At what point would the increasing influence of various ecumenical movements begin to change your opinion?
As for earlier point about there being less division between Shiite and Sunni (than between Catholic and non-Catholic Christian). I can't help but think about the bloody fights in Iraq as contradicting this point.
It is possible to become stuck in the past, but it is also possible to become stuck in the present. I think the more important issue than how either religion was practiced either in the past or in the present is how they will be practiced in the future. The history of Christianity supports the notion that the existence of evil practices done in God's name during part of a religion's history does not mean that such practices will be conducted throughout the rest that religion's future. The most important issue would seem to be how to transition from the present to that better future.
It is possible to become stuck in the past, but it is also possible to become stuck in the present. I think the more important issue than how either religion was practiced either in the past or in the present is how they will be practiced in the future. The history of Christianity supports the notion that the existence of evil practices done in God's name during part of a religion's history does not mean that such practices will be conducted throughout the rest that religion's future. The most important issue would seem to be how to transition from the present to that better future.
Sunni Islamic groups are closer to Protestant in the Christian tradition organizationally.
Notably both Shi'ites and Sunnis are experience a phenomena similar to that of Christians in the Second Great Awakening around the 1830s and 1840s in the United States, which gave birth to American Christian fundamenalism (the South was previously the most secular part of the United States). An important factor in rising Islamic fundamentalism is that a much larger and less educated part of the population as a result of rising literacy is reading and interpreting the scriptural texts directly rather than mediated by an clerical elite whose religious training provided interpretation that softened plain readings of the religious texts.
No need to read further than that.
Catholics are in communion with Rome. This includes Byzantine Catholics as well as us garden-variety RCs. Protestan denominations are not in communion with Rome, as a matter of their own choice. If an individual Protestant wants to heal that rift, s/he is very welcome to do so. If the Church of England wants to do so, it will have to make some changes. The chief of which is that the British monarch will no longer be the head of the church, which would become the Church *in* England, and not the Church *of* England.
2) Do the various Orthodox Churches fall into the "Catholic" category or into neither? They're clearly not Protestant sects.
"Neither". Although like the RCs, they also claim an unbroken chain of Apostolic Succession, and don't accept the doctrine of sola scriptura.
Exactly the responses I would expect from a Roman Catholic. The real trick is going to be seeing what someone of a Calvinist or American evangelical tradition says. :D
I left myself wide open to this by not being clear enough... Re-stated:
1. At the level of theological agreement, there is a higher degree of unity among Muslims than among Christians. I would measure this by saying that, if you asked every person in the world who states their religion as "Muslim", "Do you agree or disagree with the theological propositions in the following list...?" you would get more landslide yes or no majorities (80-90%) than among self-identified Christians (60-70%). Especially among Sunnis and Shia, but even including Alawites, Ahmahdiya, Ismailis, Druze, etc (just as the "Christian" electorate would have to include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists, and UUs). I'm working on self-identification here. No point a Trinitarian telling a JW "You're not really a Christian" if the JW is willing to forego a blood transfusion in obedience to what the JW sees as a command from God recorded in the Christian Bible.
2. At the level of political conflict, yes, Muslims do fight each other violently. But so to have Christians, and not even along the "obvious" Biblicist vs Traditionalist axis, but even within each axis (Caths vs Orths, Luths vs Calvs, etc). Taking up arms against each other does not disprove theological similarity. Cromwell allowed the Jews to return to England, yet persecuted Catholics. That does not show that Congregationalism is close to Judaism than it is to Catholicism.
IOW: people may fight despite close theological similarities. Existence of fighting does not prove wide theological differences.
Response: "Yes, but the USA as a whole has a larger population than Brazil."
Response to response: "Well, yes, but the Union of South American Nations has 382 million people to the USA's 300 million..."
And so on. Again, we're comparing apples and oranges. Ranking a state within a unified federation against an independent nation within a loose free-trade union is like ranking the largest branch of the largest (but loosely-united) religion against the combined branches of a smaller (but less-divided) religion.
I am not saying that being disunited is inherently bad (after all, I'm a Protestant!). Scientology is extremely united. No breakaway sects or schismatic bishops - all very on-message. I do not count that, however, as confirmation of the truth of Scientology.
Of course, if a believer has the word of God to follow, then contrary statements by the UN General Assembly or the Columbia University Law School are irrelevant. That would be a good reason that a radical Muslim could give to explain why "error has no rights". But the "Islam still has a few centuries yet before it will evolve enough to produce a Muslim Areopagitica implication is just dumb.
(In addition, any Muslim will tell you Islam was not "started" by Muhammad in the 7th century CE, but dates back at least as far as Abraham, five millennia ago, who in the Islamic view was a practising Muslim avant la lettre - hence the Feast of Eid).
True, Islam is not a race. Criticising the doctrines or practices of adult Muslims is fair game for political debate in a free democracy.
However, extending this to condemn the birth of a baby whose parents happens to be Muslim is, if not racist in the strict sense, uncomfortably close to it. Who knows? That baby may grow up to be a great Muslim theologian who conclusively refutes al-Qaeda's ideology on Quranic grounds and helps bring about an Islamic renaissance.
Choices made by adults can be a problem. The birth of a baby is not the problem.
I'd suggest it has nothing to do with religion. Cultures evolve, and religion is a subset of culture. In the West, religion didn't evolve; the culture advanced to a point where it stripped religion of its ability to create havoc.
That's the problem with trying to label Islam as peaceful, violent, backwards, etc. It exists in various cultures, and those cultures are very different from one another.
Religion isn't held accountable for the misdeeds of its adherents in the West, so I wouldn't wait for religion to be held accountable for the misdeeds anywhere else. In the West a person is held accountable for his own misdeeds.
Thus, "progress" would be a function of the society rather than the religion: compare Christians in, say, Africa or the Pacific Islands with Muslims in Delhi or Ankara.
There does seem to be some empirical support for this hypothesis: the problem is that I'd guess a majority of the people who often argue "Well, Islam at 14 centuries old is no more repressive than Christianity used to be, on its 1,400th birthday, so just give it time" would turn blue rather than say openly that some societies are further up the ladder of civilisation than others, and instead resort to very strained moral equivalence like "9/11 = 7 abortionists killed by Christian fundamentalists 1973-96", and so forth (Exhibit A: Avi Lewis).
I do challenge this part and propose an amendment: After the culture evolves, the religion often evolves too. Once most of Western Europe decided it was sick of devastating religious wars fought over transubstantiation and iconoclasm, Christianity (eventually) evolved in response, re-interpreting Jesus' words "compel them to enter" in the parable of the wedding feast, and re-discovering "turn the other cheek" and the parable of the wheat and the tares.
(This does not necessarily refute Christianity. As the Hebrew Bible depicts, God may use calamities and misfortunes to bring people back to the truth).
Agree. As the people adopt different attitudes, the religion really has no choice, since it's staffed by those folks. The old books on the shelf may not change, but the attitudes and practices do. Take a look at Aquinas Summa. In the most important Catholic theological work he condones killing heretics, yet the Catholic Church today takes an opposite view.
Another interesting characteristic of some of the cultures in which Islam is the religion is the tendency to justify cultural practices by using religion. For example, in Saudi Arabia many people say Islam forbids women to drive. In most other nations where Islam is practiced, women drive anywhere they want.
A problem arises when Westerners who are not familiar with either the cultures or the religion attribute the Saudi practice to all Muslims because some Saudis say Islam commands it.
While non-religious views did eventually grow in the West, I think it at least overstates the case to suggest that the "mellowing" over religious disputes was some non-religious cultural force overcoming religion. Instead, what happened was that religious camps themselves developed theories of allowing tolerance, and only after religious communities developed tolerant spaces was there room for the truly non-religious to grow and flourish. In fact, the entire notion of freedom of religion grew as a distinct strain WITHIN Christian thought.
Of course, the dominant strain for centuries was the "kill the heretics" strain, but from the earliest days, there were Christians who argued for what we would now call church-state separation. One deeply religious reason was the idea that one's faith was not genuine if it was not freely chosen. Another idea was that the Church needs to be free from State interference, e.g., to stop kings from deciding doctrine and appointing bishops etc.
On top of this, the wars of religion left many people of different religious backgrounds looking for a modus vivendi, a way to call a truce and stop killing and dying. But while that was the practical motivation, they were able to justify freedom/tolerance by pointing to the long-existing (if underused) religious justifications for freedom. (Older examples included the Edict of Milan, in which Constantine announced religious freedom in the Roman Empire, and Pope Gregory the Great's instruction that conversions must be voluntary, not compulsory.)
Thus, it is more accurate to say the idea of religious freedom grew within certain strands of religious thought, and eventually grew to include the freedom to be non-religious. But the record does not support the idea that a non-religious cultural impulse overrode religion.
How can an infant have a religion? This is ridiculous. All babies are atheists.