I get these links sent to me from some of my right wing friends that say Islam is taking over in the US (and western Europe). Things that talk of creeping Sharia law and that people are converting to Islam in droves. In fact, more people are converting to Islam in the US than to any other religion.
What I’ve read elsewhere from more moderate sources, say Islam is actually hugely unpopular in the US and Brittan, and while there are Islamic converts, it’s actually quite low compared to other religions. And the “creeping Sharia law” stuff is mostly
BS. Islam is not “being taught” in American schools, and while England does allow arbitration in some civil matters, they aren’t caving in to Islamic banking rules, and they aren’t putting their laws second to “Sharia law”.
Here’s a typical link:
I realize these are right wing sites with right wing links, but when I’ve look to send some counter info, all the googling I do takes me more right wing propaganda.
I’m wondering why there’s not much out there with a more moderate point of view,
and if there’s any validity to some of this hype.
This was easily debunked. The textbook in question was written in 1992. So here you had a group “ACT! For America” that wanted to meet at a high school to talk about “creeping Sharia
law”. The principal of the school said no, and they, “ACT! America” screamed, “SEE! EVIDENCE OF CREEPING SHARIA!!!”
But the linked article in the OP, and articles like:
Drive around your home town. Count the number of churches you see. (You’ll probably want a piece of paper or something to make tally marks on, 'cause otherwise I imagine you’ll lose track pretty fast.) Separately, count up the number of mosques you see.
I’ll bet you see a LOT more churches than you do mosques.
They are difficult to debunk because the factoids presented tend to be true. An awful lot of people have moved from a specific Christian belief to a vaguely Christian-based, but not particularly religious system of belief.
The numbers for Islam also appear to be correct.
The problem is the context (and what they fail to say). So Islam grew from 1 million adherents in 2000 to 2.6 million adherents in 2010? OK. The U.S. population grew from 281,421,906 to 307,745,538 in the same period. So while the number of Muslims grew by (gasp) 66.7%, Muslims as a percentage of population grew from 0.356% of the U.S. to an unbelievable 0.849%! In only ten years, they went from a third of a percent of the population to almost nine-tenths of a percent of the population. Why, in a hundred years, they will probably make up a tenth of the population,* (provided, of course, we are not “rescued” by the hordes of Catholics and Pentecostals invading across our Southern borders).
This is the problem with alarmists and idiots pushing agendas of hatred. They will occasionally use actual facts, but in ways that fall apart when viewed with the slightest illumination of intelligence. In fact, if Muslim immigrants to the U.S. follow the pattern set by Muslim immigrants to Europe, they will tend to join their previously Christian neighbors in embracing more secular beliefs.
In fact, I suspect that various events may come together in ways that will result in more than ten percent of the nation being Muslim much sooner than a hundred years from now, but my speculation has no more factual basis than their weird belief that we are going to be overrun with Muslims any time soon.
In that particular link, John, you’re correct, “Islam is taking over” isn’t what’s said. I had sent a link as a rebuttal to a message that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the US. I found and sent a link that said about 12,000 Americans convert to Islam in the US per year. 70+% of them women who marry Muslim men. His reply was this link that says between 30,000 and 50,000 prisoners in America convert. I can’t find my link at the moment, but I’ll say I remember it as being way more credible.
To be fair I was taught about it in both grade school and high school. I’m pretty sure the nuns and priests that ran those two schools didn’t have world religions on the curriculum to indoctrinate me to Islam though. If so they were under DEEP cover and had a weird sales strategy.
Yeah, but it’s CREEPING. It’s gaining increasingly greater amounts of converts!
Exponential growth is the Boogie Man of old people. Be it cost of living, land development, different believers, births of babies with different skin color.
Somehow it’s never the exponential growth of their medical bills burden on everyone else.
If a religion has one adherent, and gains a second, it just grew by 100%. It is probably, at that point, the nation’s fastest growing religion.
Christianity isn’t growing because it reached saturation a long time ago. Individual denominations may grow at the expense of others, and which ones are growing probably varies from year to year.
If Islam IS increasing I welcome it to keep things on a even keel. The limits of Christianity’s legal power is also the same as Islam. If nothing scares Bible thumpers like Islamic prayer in public schools they’ll stop using bullshit excuses for allowing them to do it.
I’ve heard Mormonism is the fastest growing religion, though maybe because it’s technically a kind of Christianity, it doesn’t count as a separate growing religion, hence the mulsim statistic.
Either way, sounds stupid.
I’ve heard of Islam being a creeping problem in Europe to some extent, but hear in the states they’re in the extreme minority.
number of churches and mosques? I dunno if that’s a good metric. Things that cater to smaller constituencies tend to be bigger since they have to be the only game in town or one of the only.
For example, I love crazy ethnic food, and I can weirdly get more obscure crazy ethnic things here in New Jersey than I can in New York City, (almost) the largest city in the world. Why? The one weird restaurant has to cater to the ethnic community for the entire county, plus I can drive there.
It’s a serious problem. In a few decades, they could be up to 1% of the population! They’re all around me! I knew at least 2 here! Well one is not religious in the least, and the other one moved away to contribute to a theocratic state (Utah). So <1 is after me!
I saw two “parents object to teaching Islam” news stories recently. The first was pure Islamophobic tripe, the second had a point as they did not object to historical teachings but it veered into almost proselytizing.
I don’t know where the nearest mosque is but I do know where the Scientology meeting hall or whatever they call it is.