Be Wary of Racism and Islamophobes
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Anonymous
Not all Muslims believe that, FWIW. |
Anonymous
It's clear you didn't view all of the links I provided. You're bent on just arguing. Here is another link but since you are not likely to watch it, I'll summarize: http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/a-bad-moon-rising-the-growth-of-islam-in-the-us/ It's written by a Christian missionary group (I am not seeking these out, but these groups are worried enough about the spread of Islam in the US that they are writing about it more and more). The article claims Islam is growing rapidly due to immigration, procreation, and conversion. It does not identify which contributes the most to the Muslim population growth, but finds conversion significant enough to mention: "Estimates vary, but Islam now seems to make up about 2.4 percent (or six million) of the United States population. Making up fifteen percent of all legal immigrants, over a hundred thousand Muslims enter this country legally each year. Furthermore, it is estimated that there are annually tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who are believers in Islam. In addition to immigration, there is also procreation. Muslims tend to have more children than non-Muslims because most do not practice any form of birth control. Conversion also adds to Muslim growth. It is estimated that there are over 25,000 conversions to Islam in this country each year. Because most of these converts come from Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish backgrounds, they not only entail the expansion of Islam but a shrinkage in other religions. There are now over 12,000 mosques in the United States with at least one in each state. In California, Muslims make up 3.4 percent of the population, and 4.7 percent of the population of New York state. As of 1995 there were 165 Islamic schools, 426 Islamic associations, around 90 Islamic publications, and twelve national Islamic organizations. Just like Webb’s American Islamic Propaganda Movement, many of these projects receive funding from Islamic nations such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. By the next millennium, Islam will probably be the nation’s second-largest religion." |
Anonymous
| Who cares? |
Anonymous
Leaving alone the fact that you've quoted a biased, agenda-driven source, let's focus on the numbers: Over 100,000 Muslims immigrate to America every year. It is ESTIMATED (not known) that 25,000 people convert to Islam in America every year. I'm going to ask you two questions. One is very simple. The second is less so. A simple question: what number is higher, a hundred thousand (immigration) or twenty-five thousand (conversion)? Remember, you said Islam in the U.S. is growing NOT by immigration BUT by conversion. So? I think an average nine-year old ought to be able to answer that question. A less simple question: If I wanted to know how many people convert to Islam in America every year, who would I call? How are conversions recorded? How are they reported? HOW DO YOU KNOW how many convert every year? |
Anonymous
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So I feel compelled to ask, again:
What is the evidence for your claim that "Islam in the U.S. is growing not by immigration but by conversion"? |
Anonymous
The people you quote have an agenda, and the agenda is to scare people into thinking Islam is a threat. I would bet they are beefing up the numbers to do that. |
Anonymous
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Omg the ad I am getting at the bottom of this page is for Muslima.com
I smell a conspiracy!!!! |
Anonymous
Seriously? |
Anonymous
I"m getting one for Natural Organic Latex Mattresses. I must be tired. |
Anonymous
Two really important points to remember: 1. The U.S. does not track religious affiliation of new immigrants it admits. 2. There is no single source that tracks, reports and aggregates conversions. |
Anonymous
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I live in the USA. I know a lot of people....some are Muslim; On my side of the street, we go (of four houses): Muslim, LDS, Jewish, Muslim. There is no conflict (because of religion). Once, there was because a fence was not properly placed.
As far as I can tell, the muslims do not have concubines, they are not terrorists, and they seem to be friendly. One celebrates Halloween, one does not. I have seen one out on his prayer mat. We get along -- except he did not like my yappy dog (we kept her inside)....but his grandchild did. As for my good friends, one is a secular muslim from Iran -- just like I am a secular Jew from the US. If you judge people on what they do, you will find there are great people in all groups. Black, white, jews, christians, buddists, and *Gasp* even muslims. The problem in the US with muslims centers on the fact that, like Judaism, there is no central authority in Islam. So, anyone with the right title can claim to be the authority, and issue a fatwa. Similarly, in Judaism, when a radical Rabbi says we can flatten Gaza, it does not represent the Jewish position, just his position. By comparison, a papal declaration is binding for catholics. |
Anonymous
Different PP here. I posted last night (pls go back and read it) that I DID view all the links you put up, and they're irrelevant. To recap. You posted links about relative growth rates among different religions. But you never provided links about the growth rates of immigrants to the US, so you hadn't provided enough evidence to support your assertion. That assertion, as we remember, is that Islam in the US is growing faster through conversion than through immigration. You also asserted that, soon, there will be a Muslim on every block and in every family. So now you've given another link, which is good, and PP has done the work for you in making the comparison between 100,000 immigrants per year and 25,000 converts (maybe) per year in the US. Since you keep pushing this, here are a few more points. 1. As a researcher, I HATE it when sources say, "It is estimated that...." Give me a source, so I can evaluate your so-called estimates. Did you call a store-front mosque and simply extrapolate from there? The figure on Muslim illegal immigrants is particularly suspect, because I've worked with figures on illegal immigrants in another context, and we really have little clue about the demographics of illegal immigrants. I tend to agree with PP's that the passage above was put together by a Christian group that's looking for donations. 2. Attrition. Another PP here is correct, it's impossible under Islamic law to leave Islam it (the penalty is death). Also, family pressures can be enormous. So to the extent actual numbers are collected from mosques, if any Muslims once on the mosque's rolls have left Islam for atheism or (gasp) Christianity or Buddhism, the mosque's rolls would never reflect that, because again it's legally impossible to leave Islam. Yet I, and apparently some other PPs here, know some secular ex-Muslims and my friend even attends a church (gasp) in VA with some ex-Muslims. 3. A lot of conversions are required by Islam's own laws, or result from family pressure, so they're pragmatic. Islam requires a non-Muslim man to convert to Islam so that the children will be Muslim. For non-Muslim women the same rule doesn't exist but, as a PP mentioned, family pressures can be huge because the innocent children might be exposed to Christianity (gasp) or something. I worked at a big international organization here in DC, and just in my office there was a woman who converted to Islam to marry a Muslim diplomat but still attended her (gasp) Episcopalian church. |
Anonymous
I don't know whether or not the US tracks religious affiliation of immigrants. If it doesn't, then presumably somebody arrived at that 100,000 figure by totaling up the immigrants from places like Egypt, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, and other predominantly-Muslim countries. That's yet another reason to question that particular source.... Here are a few more points. Because, apparently, it's necessary to spell out the obvious. 1. For Muslim PP to be correct (note: I have no clue whether the immediate PP is the Muslim PP, or not), that is, to substantiate her claim that more people in the US are converting to Islam than immigrating here, we'd have to be able to say that >75,000 of those 100,000 immigrants are non-Muslim. That's the only possible way the immigrant number can be less than the convert number. Now it's certainly true that lots of Parsis, Bahaiis, Christians and Jews are fleeting Muslim persecution in places like Egypt, Syria, Iran, Pakistan and Nigeria. But you'd have to argue that >75% of immigrants from Muslim countries (>75,000 of the 100,000 immigrants) are actually non-Muslims fleeting Muslim persecution. 2. Certainly, some immigrants from places like Egypt, Pakistan and Iran are Christians, Jews, Bahaiis, Parsis, atheists, and others who are fleeing Muslim persecution. 3. However, the minority religion populations in these places are tiny following centuries of persecution. Egypt probably has the largest Christian population, and that's arguably 10% (probably less) of Egypt's total population. Nigeria has lots of Christians being persecuted by Muslims, but there are large Christian areas in Nigeria and that weakens the case for asylum. Bottom line: if the Muslim poster is trying to argue that, of the figure of 100,000 immigrants, 75,000 of these are non-Muslims, that really defies credibility. (And if that's actually true, yay for Islam for persecuting so many people out of their countries.) We may not have actual numbers, but Muslim PP's most recent set of numbers doesn't support her claims unless we really torture the numbers beyond believability. Signed, PP with the husband who's about to divorce her, and who serves burnt meals to her academically failing kid who is doing drugs and porn. (Did somebody call me dumb?) |
Anonymous
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Let us spell this out again: The U.S. does not track religious affiliation of its new immigrants. But there's always the good old Pew Forum that at least bothers to explain how they arrived at their numbers. The Pew does agree that Muslim immigration has been steady at around a hundred thousand a year. Here you go:
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/05/17/the-religious-affiliation-of-us-immigrants/ "The U.S. government does not collect data on the religious affiliation of immigrants. However, estimates can be made using information gathered by the Department of Homeland Security on the countries of origin of new green card recipients. To estimate the religious breakdown of immigrants from each country, the Pew Research Center relied primarily on the New Immigrant Survey, a nationwide survey conducted in 2003 by scholars at the RAND Corporation, Princeton University, New York University and Yale University that asked more than 8,500 recent legal immigrants about their religion, among other questions.3 The use of survey data along with country-of-origin data improves the reliability of the estimates because, in some cases, the religious makeup of migrants differs from the religious composition of the overall population in their country of birth. This study does not automatically assume, for example, that if the population of Country A is 75% Muslim, then 75% of migrants from Country A to the United States must be Muslim. On the contrary, the study uses data from the New Immigrant Survey on the religious breakdown of new U.S. green card recipients to estimate the religious affiliation of the vast majority (95%) of legal immigrants." |
Anonymous
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Let us reiterate the point on the converts again:
No one, nowhere in the U.S. collects any data on how many people converted in a given year. There isn't anyone you can call up and say, hey, can you pull up the data on conversions between November 2012 and November 2014? I want everyone to keep this in mind when they see another number on conversions to Islam (or to any religion, really): No one, nowhere, collects data on the number of conversions to Islam. All the numbers you see are guesses. |