"The World's Largest Denomination" redux.

In March, 2008, I posted a piece entitled The World's Largest Denomination in which I commented on a story in Reuters - Muslims more numerous than Catholics.

The Reuters article said that the number of Catholics in the world total 1.13 billion people. The article goes on to say it is estimated that Muslims total around 1.3 billion.
The statement I found most interesting in the Reuters article was "that if all Christian groups were considered, including Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants, then Christians made up 33 percent of the world's population -- or about 2 billion people."

The point of my post was that it seemed odd to me that in comparing the totals, Christians were broken down into separate denominations while, apparently, the Muslims were not. The numbers compared the total of Catholics versus Muslims, where as it should have compared number of Catholics versus Sunni Muslims......subtract the number of Shi'a Muslims (215 million) and we might get a more accurate comparison.

That post sat dormant in the archive of forgotten posts until I received a comment recently from some going by the name anima. Although anima's profile tells us nothing....I don't even know whether address this person as "he" or "she"..... Google Analytics tells me he/she hails from Saudi Arabia (probably Riyadh) and arrived at my blog by googling the phrase vatican confirms muslims largest number of followers.

Rather than address my point, anima comments that
"even then..all the 1.3+ million are bound in unity by the one and only-Holy Qur'an.
so its not just in the name but even the scripture that gave the name-muslim!!!
surprisingly ,catholics and protestants do not follow the same number of Biblical books,fracturing the only scripture they've had which..well..does'nt even address them as 'Christians' !!! "

In reply, I pointed out to anima that
"You cannot say the Sunni and Shia Muslims are united simply because they use the same Qur'an. They are killing each other every day."

Where upon anima says
"Irrespective of the present day escalation in conflict that is obviously among the various repurcussions of the current Occupation in those Muslim countries, muslims (as against the followers of Christ)all over the world have the strongest case.

Islam is the only religion on the face of the earth which has preserved an undisputed documentation of its scripture-the Holy Qur'an ,with regards to:
1.'What'(language or script) was revealed .
2.'When' it was revealed.
3.'Where' it was revealed.
4.'How'it was revealed.
5. unto'Whom'it was revealed.

I say "revealed" and not "revised/updated" as its again a unanimous consensus about the veracity of the claim-the verbatim "Word of God".

No conflict arises from the scripture that names its followers as Muslims and whatever there is, does not pertain to the scripture-again a marked distinction! "

Here is my answer to anima on that
"You wrote;
"Islam is the only religion on the face of the earth which has preserved an undisputed documentation of its scripture-the Holy Qur'an ,with regards to:
1.'What'(language or script) was revealed .
2.'When' it was revealed.
3.'Where' it was revealed.
4.'How'it was revealed.
5. unto'Whom'it was revealed."

I would say that the Latter-Day Saints with their, "Book of Mormon" would disagree with you on that.

"Irrespective of the present day escalation in conflict that is obviously among the various repurcussions of the current Occupation in those Muslim countries"....I'm afraid you'll have to rephrase that because that comment makes not sense as written."

Here in the United States, we have freedom of religion. Some would even say "freedom from religion" as well. Although I was raised in the religion of my ancestors (Catholicism) in this country, I am given the opportunity to study every religion imaginable and decide on my own which one, if any, I will follow. I haven't always looked at myself as Catholic, but after studying Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and Sikhism I've returned to the Church.
Living in Saudi Arabia, anima isn't given that choice. Whatever information anima gets regarding religions other than Islam is bound to be completely distorted by Muslim censors. Anima could not convert to another religion, even if he/she wanted to, under fear of death.

I seriously doubt that anima could be objective in any discussion of religion. He/she is welcomed to prove me wrong.