{"id":1466,"date":"2015-05-17T00:01:15","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T00:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/islaminamerica\/?p=1466"},"modified":"2015-05-17T00:01:15","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T00:01:15","slug":"do-muslim-babies-always-grow-up-to-be-muslim-adults","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/islaminamerica\/2015\/05\/17\/do-muslim-babies-always-grow-up-to-be-muslim-adults\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Muslim Babies Always Grow Up to Be Muslim Adults?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a provocative assertion:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The recent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pewforum.org\/2015\/04\/02\/religious-projections-2010-2050\/\" target=\"_blank\">Pew survey<\/a> shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion, not because people are converting to Islam, but because they\u2019re having more babies. The fertility rate is much higher than that of any other religious group. That means we\u2019re going to have more and more children growing up with the default presumption that they\u2019re Muslims.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think, however, that it\u2019s not going to be as standard, obvious, or routine for them to stay Muslims when they grow up. Islam has a long, unfortunate tradition of treating apostates very severely, and I think that we\u2019re going to see more of that. And I think that it\u2019s going to backfire.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How former Muslims or children of Muslims engage in the world in the next 20 years is a very, very important question. And I don\u2019t have any clue as to how it\u2019s going to work out.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a quote from Daniel Dennett, co-author of <em>Caught in the Pulpit: Leaving Faith Behind<\/em>. Read more of his musings on religiosity in America here: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/2015\/05\/16\/the_end_of_religion_as_we_know_it_why_churches_can_no_longer_hide_the_truth_partner\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The end of religion as we know it&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a provocative assertion: &#8220;The recent Pew survey shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion, not because people are converting to Islam, but because they\u2019re having more babies. The fertility rate is much higher than that of any other religious group. That means we\u2019re going to have more and more children growing up with&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":502,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostasy-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Do Muslim Babies Always Grow Up to Be Muslim Adults? - Islam In America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/islaminamerica\/2015\/05\/17\/do-muslim-babies-always-grow-up-to-be-muslim-adults\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do Muslim Babies Always Grow Up to Be Muslim Adults? - Islam In America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s a provocative assertion: &#8220;The recent Pew survey shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion, not because people are converting to Islam, but because they\u2019re having more babies. The fertility rate is much higher than that of any other religious group. That means we\u2019re going to have more and more children growing up with&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/islaminamerica\/2015\/05\/17\/do-muslim-babies-always-grow-up-to-be-muslim-adults\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Islam In America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-17T00:01:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Suzy Shuraym\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Do Muslim Babies Always Grow Up to Be Muslim Adults? - Islam In America","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/islaminamerica\/2015\/05\/17\/do-muslim-babies-always-grow-up-to-be-muslim-adults\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Do Muslim Babies Always Grow Up to Be Muslim Adults? - Islam In America","og_description":"Here&#8217;s a provocative assertion: &#8220;The recent Pew survey shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion, not because people are converting to Islam, but because they\u2019re having more babies. The fertility rate is much higher than that of any other religious group. 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