The title of this blog is a quote from Thomas Merton from his book New Seeds of Contemplation. 

I will post my faith based entries here from now on.

In Lawrence Solomon: World’s most populous faith we learn that adherents to Christianity are increasing and that adherents to Muslims are decreasing.

Mr. Solomon says:
"Christianity shows no sign of losing its paramountcy, especially since Islam — its long-standing competitor — has never been an economic contender and will soon have peaked in population.
Stats released this week from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life show Christianity’s dominance through the raw numbers of adherents. Almost one-third of the globe’s population — 2.2 billion people — describe themselves as Christian, 600 million more than the world’s Muslims, at 1.6 billion, and 1.2 billion more than the world’s Hindus, at one billion the third-largest among the faiths." 
and that:
"The overwhelming majority of adherents to Islam — 96% — today live in Third World countries. Although some Muslim countries have oil wealth, none have an advanced economy and few have the free-market culture and rule of law needed to propel them to the ranks of successful Christian nations. Neither does Islam have Christianity’s near-universal appeal — to rich and poor, to men and women, to literally all ethnic groups and all political ideologies. Unlike Islam, Christianity is well represented throughout most of the world, with roughly one-quarter of all Christians each in Europe, South America, and Africa, and the final quarter split between North America and Asia."

Great article. Read it all.