The World's Largest Denomination.

The headline was straightforward enough.....Muslims more numerous than Catholics: Vatican.
At first glance, the story appears to confirm that statement:
"Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism as the biggest single religious denomination in the world, the Vatican said on Sunday.
Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, who compiled the Vatican's newly-released 2008 yearbook of statistics, said Muslims made up 19.2 percent of the world's population and Catholics 17.4 percent."

"The Vatican recently put the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people. It did not provide a figure for Muslims, generally estimated at around 1.3 billion."

There is one question I have about the statistic......brought up by this quote;
"He said 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."

For these statistics, the Christians have been separated into different denominations.......they note "Orthodox churches, Anglicans and Protestants" which actually just touches the surface on the different Christian denominations.
Why, then, are Muslims not separated into Sunni and Shia for these statistics?
Is the number 1.3 billion Muslims for the total of both denominations added together or is it 1.3 billion Sunni?
So, the question still remains.....are there more Catholics than Sunni ?

Fitna back online.

After a bit of surfing, I found a link to Fitna on Youtube.

Update:After this Youtube video of Fitna was put online, it was removed.
I have found a link to another website that has the video.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=216_1207467783

'Fitna' pulled from Web

AMSTERDAM -- The controversial anti-Muslim film by Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has been removed from the Web by its British Internet provider, which said its employees have been seriously threatened.

"Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature and some ill-informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, LiveLeak.com has been left with no other choice but to remove 'Fitna' from our servers," the company said.

The 15-minute short film was posted Thursday and taken down Friday and had been seen by some 3 million people.

The link I provided not longer takes you to the film. If you did not view the film right after I posted it then you are no longer able to see it.
So much for Freedom of speech.

Fitna

From the wikipedia article on the film "Fitna".

Fitna is a film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Dutch parliament. The movie offers his views on Islam and the Qur'an. The film's title comes from the Arabic word fitna which is used to describe "disagreement and division among people", or a "test of faith in times of trial". The movie was released to the Internet on 27 March 2008.
Wilders released the movie on March 27, 2008 at 7pm local (Dutch) time on the video website Liveleak.The Dutch version of the movie received 1.6 million pageviews in 2 hours. The English version garnered over 1.2 million in 5 hours.

Wilders originally negotiated a possible broadcast of the film on Dutch television. The contents of the film were not known at the time. None of the Dutch broadcasting companies would agree to show the film in its entirety, without editing. Wilders then said that he would "Rather have [the film] entirely on the Internet, than half on television".

Later the Dutch press centre Nieuwspoort was reported to be willing to show the film, as long as Wilders would pay for the increased security during the press conference and the weeks after it, which he declined to do.

On March 22 the NMO (Dutch Muslim Broadcasting Association) offered to air the film if they could preview the film for any possible illegal material and Wilders would take part in a debate after the airing with pro- and opponents.Wilders declined, saying "No way, NMO."

The movie shows a selection of Suras from the Qur'an, interspersed with newspaper clippings and media clips. The movie is accompanied by music from the Peer Gynt suite by Edvard Grieg, specifically Aase's Death.

A link to the film can be found here.

Bud Tugley Weds.

Last December I wrote a post about the heart warming story of the Alabama man who won $20 Million in the Georgia lottery.
Now, I have the privilege of announcing the marriage of lottery winner, Bud Tugley.
The complete story can be found on this link to the I.N.N. website.