The world's fastest growing faiths

1. Islam:Growth rate 1.84 per cent* with 1.3 billion followers worldwide

2. Baha'i faith: Growth rate 1.70 per cent with 7.7 million followers worldwide

3. Sikhism: Growth rate 1.62 per cent with 25.8 million followers worldwide

4. Jainism: Growth rate 1.57 per cent with 5.9 million followers worldwide

5. Hinduism: Growth rate 1.52 per cent with 870 million followers worldwide

6. Christianity: Growth rate 1.38 per cent with 2.2 billion followers worldwide

*rate of change of adherants to this religion between 2000-2005 as a percentage per year

Atheism is growing at a rate of 1.39 per cent and Afghanistan has the fastest growing population of Atheists.

Where are faiths growing fastest?

Faith                           Where is it growing fastest?

Baha'i faith                         Qatar

Buddhism                           New Zealand

Chinese Universalism          Finland

Protestantism                     Afghanistan

Roman Catholicism            Sierra Leone

Confucianism                     Northern Mariana Islands

Ethnoreligion                     Afghanistan

Hinduism                           United Arab Emirates

Jainism                              Uganda

Jewish                               Uganda

Islam                                 Soloman Island (followed by Norway)

Neo Religionism                United Arab Emirates

Shintoism                          Singapore

Sikhism                             United Arab Emirates

Taoism                              Laos

Zoaroastrian                      Netherlands

Figures taken from the World Christian Database

Comments

[Dr. Irene Lancaster]

Do tell us more about Jewish growth in Uganda.

Sounds fascinating.

[frank, sydney]

The number of non believers (secular, atheist, agnostic, non-religious) has been estimated to be between seven hundred and fifty million to as high as 1.1 billion worldwide, which makes unbelief perhaps the third-largest "persuasion" in the world, after Christianity and Islam, and more prevalent or similar in number to Hinduism.
It is also by far the youngest, and growing. It may be growing faster than all the religious faiths!

[Rob]

How does this all relate to migration and birth rate as opposed to converts?

Will this ever become who ever has the most babies wins? Seriously though I wonder what the relationship is between the rise in Christianity (Protestantism) in Afghanistan and the Korean Misssionary hostages. Christian aid groups are taking quite a risk. I wonder if there are any Muslim, or other religious aid grpups there as we never here, or read about them in the news.

[frank, sydney]

Maybe those who tick a census form stating religion need to be divided further into:
1. True believers, who should count in the statistics.
2. Those who say they have a religion but practice it half-heartedly or only partially for essentially social and cultural reasons (historically counted but a nebulous group).
3. Non-believers who are non-religious, non-practicing theists or agnostics who can't quite shed the religious tag for various personal, social or cultural reasons.
Maybe then we'd have a truer reflection of belief, which I suspect is weaker than the statistics above suggest.

[frank, sydney]

Maybe those who tick a census form stating religion need to be divided further into:
1. True believers, who should count in the statistics.
2. Those who say they have a religion but practice it half-heartedly or only partially for essentially social and cultural reasons (historically counted but a nebulous group).
3. Non-believers who are non-religious, non-practicing theists or agnostics who can't quite shed the religious tag for various personal, social or cultural reasons.
Maybe then we'd have a truer reflection of belief, which I suspect is weaker than the statistics above suggest.