Muslim Birthrates fall worldwide

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That's a tough question. I'd say never. Keep in mind that a child NOT accepting Christ is not a blank check for just giving up on them or cutting them off (shunning) from the family. It's more about keeping them in prayer, bringing it up in conversation, and so on in order to be persuasive. Obviously an adult who is able to leave home, can do what he wants if he never wants to go to church again.

Every parent, though, I think has the responsibility to pass on religion/tradition to his progeny. Children don't really have that much choice in their upbringing, and no parent should really have that much trouble keeping their dependents in church (you live under my roof, you live under my...). "The world" gets them for a lot more time than we do, so it's important that we at least try. Further, I think people in general have a natural concern for spirituality. It's far better to keep kids in a safe situation with controlled influences rather than some new, pseudo-Christian, comet-worshiping, suicide cult.

I'm not going to be critical of Islam--but I HAVE read some of the Koran, and I mean actually found one in a bookstore, held it in my hands, and turned to three different random pages. Each time there was a reference to killing the infidels, much to the horror of my liberal, "open-minded" gf (what are the odds of finding those references completely at random if one is unfamiliar with scripture?). I don't know what it has to say about children, but I do know that there are those who believe in "honor killing" should a member of the family convert to or practice another religion. I'm not aware of exactly how often these kinds of things are practiced beyond the more extreme, fundamentalist adherents to Islam you hear about all the time in the news, but it does seem to me that current Christian practice, even in the strictest homes, is much easier when one takes into account the potential rebellious child.

And you're right... It IS highly ingrained into culture. I imagine it's not unlike Roman Catholic sentiment during the Medieval period. If you were born in a former Roman or barbarian country, it was just assumed you were a Christian.

Thanks. That answers what I wished to know. I'm not a parent. It would be easy to criticize this as excessive indoctrination but of course, that is the very role that parents play regardless of belief. For good or ill, we become(at least briefly) what our parents demonstrate to us. Sometimes we adopt the exact opposite view point, but there is no escaping the influence of the parent.

I snipped your text short, but it was all interesting. Thanks.

So do think this is a good or a bad thing? I think children should have the right to choose their own path when they're old enough, no matter what their religion is to begin with. Do you have the same opinion?

Whether it is a "good" thing or a "bad" thing depends on the agenda of the religion and/or its adherents.

Here's what I think, and I'm sorry for not answering the question more directly: I think that, as a Christian, God demands we believe in and trust Him for salvation. But a perfect God who creates man "in His own image," including God's will--the ability to make decisions, discern truth, act independently, etc.--can't violate His own nature by MANDATING such that a person must be directly confronted by God or Jesus Himself and choose either life or death at that very instant. What Adam represents by introducing sin into human nature is a child-like creation, knowing ONE sin and acting in rebellion, however naïve. God visits punishment on all who do wrong, of course, which means the death penalty. Adam, however, can also ask for mercy, so even though Adam is sinful, he is NOT unrepentant. Now, think of Adam as a metaphor for the rest of humanity. In making a perfect creation in mankind, although corrupted by Adam's sin, God knows that it is POSSIBLE that much of His own creation will reject Him, but mercy awaits those who do not.

What little I know about Islam is it is not quite so forgiving. God is "up there," looking down upon us, watching us, and MAYBE if we are good enough we will rest in His eternal presence. So I think in the midst of killing the infidels, they are called on to be peaceful amongst each other and with neighbors in foreign countries, they recognize their failures and ask for mercy from their distant God. My understanding (and someone who knows more correct me if I'm wrong) is that the "honor killing" is about purging families from unrepentant children (read "progeny," they're still your children when they're "of age"!) who are unfit to continue living. However, because God is merciful, we should also be merciful. So what they'll do is have their children committed to mental institutions to remove them from society or attempt to "re-educate" them into accepting Islam and return to the fold or rot if they don't. There was that girl in the US who ran away from home because she feared she'd be killed because she converted to Christianity, and I've heard fears expressed that now after she's been returned to her family, there is the possibility they may return home, upon which something like that could potentially happen.

This, to me, is like saying a person is not their own to do as they please with their soul. You COULD argue that killing a person for not adhering to an ideology is doing that person a favor because they'll no longer risk further endangering their own souls to sinful Godless life and that perhaps God will be MORE merciful to a child/young adult put to death rather than one allowed to continue on. Come to think about it, I remember something I heard on the news right after Saddam Hussein's execution. Upon his death, he was absolved of any/every wrongdoing, as though he'd paid the final price with his life and should therefore be forgiven. I don't know if that's an Islam thing, but it's the same basic concept that I'm getting at.

But in my mind, I can't understand why God wouldn't want a willing servant. To force or coerce someone into believing to such as an extent would be to deprive them of their ability to give their lives and souls freely. While I will always keep my children in church as long as I am able, the choice really is ultimately theirs to make. The best I can do is give them a head start.

If you are a non-Christian, whether practicing another faith or simply opposed to Christianity and/or all theistic world-views in general, then you should be keenly aware what this approach ought to mean for you and your own children. The single most effective way to spread any ideology at all, even non- or anti-theistic ones, is to reproduce. Whatever you teach your own children is pretty much always going to be with them. Of course, you do have to be prepared for the event that the child makes up his OWN mind and accepts what you WANT him to believe is FALSE. Just ask William J. Murray.

Most Muslims are nominal Muslims. Few actually attempt to practice the religion. I'm from an Islamic background (although I practice the Baha'i faith), I live in a Muslim neighbourhood (in a city with 3.5 million Muslims), and there's only one family which practices the religion to its conventional form (headscarf, 5 time daily prayer, etc). In the poorer parts of the city however, Muslims are more religious. Fanaticism and honour killings are virtually unheard of these days. The last time we heard of a forced marriage was of two women who complained to the cops that their parents were forcing them to marry two rich Arabs from the Gulf, while they wanted to marry their boyfriends, one who was a painter, and the other, a carpenter. Not that Islam recommends forced marriage (it prohibits it), but nevertheless, this has been a common feature of Muslims throughout the east.

Strangely, Muslims are more religious in Western countries than in their own countries. I noticed with my family members, as soon as they migrated to the west, they became ultra-orthodox and shunned Western society, considering Westerners to be 'filthy infidels' who 'drink alcohol, eat pork, and go naked in public'. Upon returning to visit India, they displayed themselves as Westerners, with American accents and Western culture written all over their faces.

Since this thread didn't sink in the first time, I'll bump this public service announcement.

Do you mean bump the thread that mentions the falling birthrate of Muslims. Good time to bring it up again, seeing as we're gearing up for the 9/11 anniversary once again and that we have current threads about that "ground zero mosque" withy all the insane angry replies.

Lets thwack people over the their heads with reality for a change. The "Islamification" of Europe and America is not happening. You can see this because the birthrates of Muslims are dropping just like they are in Europe and almost everywhere else.

I'll admit, Jono, I find the not-a-mosque that's not-at-ground zero a really disturbing non-issue.

They are actually building a mosque that is semi-independent from the community center at the same location. But still, not at ground zero, and a non-issue.