zzzzzzzaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap!

I think it would make a difference how one defined "fastest-growing." A relatively small religion like Wicca could double in size by picking up a few hundred thousand followers, whereas the Catholic church would have to accumulate an additional billion (give or take) followers to double in size. So, from one perspective, Wicca is faster-growing, even though Catholicism is attracting new members in far greater numbers (by orders of magnitude.)

And also, as you say, it depends who's writing the story. A lot of stories about how fast Wicca is growing seem to be written with the intention of alarming fundamentalist Christians, who enjoy the idea that they are doing battle with a worldwide Satanic conspiracy. So "Booo! The Wiccans are coming!" is a pretty common angle.

Islam is one of the more idiotic religions? Speaking of idiocy...

Islam is one of the more idiotic religions? Speaking of idiocy...

All superlatives in stories like this, whether it's "world's fastest growing religion" or "world's biggest pumpkin" or "world's oldest movie theater", are bullshit indicators. In this case it means "I don't remember hearing much about this twenty years ago, Bob".

Perhaps not in theory, Camus, but certainly in practice.

She even has a black cat, nice touch.

@3

Yes, it is.

So this begs the question: what would be an example of a non-idiotic religion? Buddhism, maybe, and then . . . ?

I've looked into Wicca and while it is just more mumbo jumbo, it's a lot more positive and life affirming than those kiddie raping Cathaholics.

Didn't anyone else see that documentary The Da Vinci Code?

As a practicing Wiccan, Dan, the term warlock is actually a big insult in the pagan circles. It means 'oathbreaker' and used to mean any witch that gave away secrets of the coven, but for some reason was tagged onto men during the '50s by pop culture. Guess they thought witch sounded to girly.
And the media gets Wiccan confused with Pagan all the time. Paganism is the overall term for polytheistic/nature based religions, Wicca is a subset of Paganism.
Just to let you know.

We Orthodox Druids find it humorous all this talk about Oh Poor Me I Am A Wiccan ... Especially since some of us have been serving in military units for far longer ...

Hey Will,
Do you attend any of the local pagan meetings, or you strictly Druid? Go to Pantheacon?
Not trying to pry, I just always find it interesting when I find fellows in general public.

@13 - nah, you Wiccans have been trying to recruit us Druids since my Harrowsmith publishing days - I used to get tons of scented letters from you.

Not. Wanting. To. Be. Wiccan.

How hard is that to understand?

Great, another Dan Savage post, another lame insult tossed to the crowd.

Kzor - if you find Dan's posts offensive and/or lame, why are you reading them?

I never asked if you wanted to be Wiccan, I asked if you frequented pagan event. I've attended a few Druid workshops held by John Michael Greer at Pantheacon. Doesn't mean he was trying to convert us, or we Wiccans him.
Also, there are Wiccans in the military, and Druids can face the same retaliation as any other pagan group in areas where Wiccans are afraid of coming out.
Why the animosity against other pagan groups?

perhaps wicca is the fastest growing religion because there are no actual set tenants and it seemingly can be made up to fit whatever one wants it to be...

Wiccans irritate me. They purport to be engaging in a pre-Christian European religion, but really, their claims to antiquity have about as much legitimacy as the Masons. Besides, they're following a religion based on natural cycles, particularly surrounding agriculture, when less than 2% of Americans are engaged in farming, almost all of them Christian. Seeing as the majority of the world, and the vast majority of Americans are urban, wouldn't a religion based on your environment be more logically centered around the city?

An urban-centered religion? Sign me up. No spirituality, though; I'm not into that. Just urbanism. We could all get together and lay our hands on concrete.

Many, if not most, Wiccans are self righteous and preachy pricks who claim to love others and the earth to elevate themselves or assume a position of superiority. In this regard, they are a truly a real religion.

Is Indiana not part of the bible belt? Because the wiccans there sure weren't oppressed. Frankly, all the we're-so-oppressed stuff sounds exactly like the christians-under-attack nonsense that you get in a lot of churches.

Even the article doesn't list any actual oppression, just vague "oh, goodness, no one can find out I'm wiccan because they might dislike me - I might get evicted!" There are _laws_ about kicking tenants out because of their religion.

Frankly, most of the wiccans I know are so arrogant and flamboyant about their religion that I have a hard time seeing them as being particularly oppressed. (They're wonderful people! Great friends! I love them to death! They're phenomenally arrogant when it comes to religion, though.)

I don't mind wicca as a nature-centric religion, but I also have a lot of trouble with people trying to cast it as a historical religion. It's quite modern, and while its foundation was steeped in old lore and ideas, it's certainly not an ancient religion.

If you hear anyone claiming that they are doing the exact same rites as their ancient predecessors did, they're either misinformed or loony. Any decent Neo-Pagan of whatever stripe will be forthright that theirs is a reconstructionist religion. And while some may be all "Brighter Blessed Than Thee", a lot of them have stable heads on their shoulders. The latter group don't get as much attention because they're not the loudmouths. But then, that's true of most movements, isn't it?

All organized religion is idiotic.

You have been linked by Richard Dawkins' site:

http://richarddawkins.net/article,1123,n,n

Strange I found it there before here, since I read both sites, but Slog far more frequently.

Anyways yeah #3, Islam is just as idiotic as Christianism and Wicca and Scientology and all the other supernatural, magical belief systems.

Dear Dan, Wait a minute. Just what is a "non-idiotic" religion? From what I have learned from you, even Presbyterianism is not quite up to snuff. What gives? How do you know?

Why all the hostility to Wiccans? They don't go around banging on people's doors, interrupting lunch and telling people they will burn in hell if they don't repent, and if a kitchen witch grows organic food and doesn't see the need to poison the earth then I'm all for it.
Perhaps the Xians are about to get their come-uppance though, as this article in The Register suggests

Why all the hostility to Wiccans? They don't go around banging on people's doors, interrupting lunch and telling people they will burn in hell if they don't repent, and if a kitchen witch grows organic food and doesn't see the need to poison the earth then I'm all for it.
Perhaps the Xians are about to get their come-uppance though, as this article in The Register suggests

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/18/hong_kong_bible_kerfuffle/

Oops, sorry about @27 :-), too much coffee and my finger stuttered...my story .

The Abrahamic religions are all basically idiotic.
I respect people's right to whatever they want to believe, and there are some very good and decent things brought out in some religions by decent people...But Islam, Mormonism, Scientology...I mean, especially with that last one, Dan's got it right.

I think there is a lesson in what Dan Savage has written. Those of us who are not vanilla, whether it's paganism, gender variation, gay, bi, BDSM, or what have you, need to

1) see that we have things in common in how the vanilla world treats us

2) work together to protect our rights & freedoms

3) support one another to the best extent that our value systems allow us to

Most of the pagans I know are supportive of equality for GLBT people. Most of the GLBT people I know are supportive of religious freedom for pagans. We need to pull together. We need to walk out of our closets *together* & support each other in that endeavour. The vanilla world will have a hard time stuffing us back in our closets if we all step out of them together in mutual support.

And to Will, some of us know perfectly well we are reconstructionists. The pagan population includes people who are passionate about the historical facts of their trads as well as 'fluffies' who talk about the Burning Times.

Blessed be,
WW

I thought all Wiccan meant was you played D&D or were into Renaissance fairs...

Oh yeah and then try being a GAY wiccan.

If youre not in the right circumstances to be perfectly accepted, you may bang your head against the mirror each morning asking, "Why oh why am I a double minority and out of two closets?"

Yes, they can tell you... stop being a Wiccan, that's the easy part. Or just keep it a secret. Or tell people one or the other, usually the gay one, because that's who you really are.

I know maybe there's some gene inside that's making this homo thing work. But I do also feel there's something deep inside me that is this Wicca thing. This trendy business that people seem to blame on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. For the record, a five-year old could write the plots for Charmed better, but that's beyond the point.

I think I do it for May Day, gayest holiday of the Pagan year. That and I totally, like, think God is like, both male and female and stuff...

And oh Dan, keep saying warlock. Piss off the majority of Wiccans out there. It actually doesn't mean "oathbreaker" but is from a word "varlokkar" which means "spirit-song." Wicca could be the fastest growing religion in the world, but about a third of those people are living off recycled anthropological theories from decades long ago. Their rewriting of history can be as bad as a Christian Science book.

She attends classes about Wicca on Friday nights, and she has yet to caution her older child, a preschooler, not to tell anyone about them.

“My son says, ‘Yeah, Mommy’s going to witch school,’ ” she said. “I’m just waiting for the day he says that in front of a teacher.”

This is the sort of thing that disturbs me most about religion in general, the unfair burden theism puts on the children of Heavy Believers (of whatever faith). Religious affiliation tends to be more a product of birthright and environment than of any rational deliberation over the various flavors available to the spiritual person looking for holy fulfillment. A child born in Afghanistan, for example, is simply born into Islam and will be so deeply programmed in that faith by the time he or she reaches the Age of Reason that it’s all but impossible to rewire those controls; the same could be said about the child born into a Pentecostal or Southern Baptist household: they simply have no choice in matters of denomination. The child of a Wiccan parent, however, rarely has this sort of deep familial tradition from which to draw strength when battling the opinions of scoffing peers, teachers or the more conventional clergy; they only know what their parents tell them (or, worse, what they’ve covertly overheard) and must suffer the social consequences of being put, against their will, on the Fringes. Either that, or they’re placed in the even more uncomfortable position of denouncing the beliefs of their parents in order to ward off the torment of their peers. Either way, Heavy Believers put an unfair burden on their children by piling upon their shoulders the facts of a religious system before they are prepared for the enlightenment that should precede the dogma.

Wow, so much anger toward a bunch of people that want to dance in a circle and celebrate life.
Sometimes the loudest members of a minority give the worst impression to the general public. It's unfortunate, but the general public shouldn't make their decisions about a group just by hearing from 2-3 people. Of course, we all do.
But it is interesting the anti-faith bias so many people on the boards have. I've always tried to be respectful of others beliefs (and atheism is a belief), why can't you offer the same respect?

@33
Oh, and I was curious about the Etymology of warlock and this is what Wikipedia had to say. Looks like we're both sorta right.
**
Etymology
The commonly accepted etymology derives warlock from the Old English wǣrloga meaning deceiver, or "oathbreaker".
A derivation from the Old Norse varð-lokkur, "caller of spirits" has also been suggested, however the Oxford English Dictionary considers this etymology inadmissible.
**

Fnarm, I'm already writing a Bible for this. The symbol will be a grid of steel embedded in concrete.

Hey Enigma, it's not hostility towards those people, but rather hostility towards their magical, anti-reality world view. We are at a point in history where rationality and science are in a great struggle against magical and mystical points of view. You can dislike a belief system without disliking the individuals who have that belief system.

Mormons have claimed for years that LDS is the "world's fastest-growing religion." Want to know the basis of that claim?

Baptism of the dead.

Yes, they're baptizing their dead ancestors and dead famous people - and then they can count those people as Mormons.

Mormonism - the world's fastest-growing religion comprised mainly of dead converts.

oi! i'm a follower of Islam, love reading Dan's articles, and don't find any religion (including my own) to be idiotic...just the followers. So...for those of you who feel they can just call religions idiotic for the sake of calling religions idiotic, do your research.

wicca is the new black.

i see so many little girls toting crystals and claiming "wicca" as their religion because they think being a witch will freak out their parents... goes hand in hand with dying your hair blue. eventually most "grow out" of it.

it's interesting in that the only other religions you see people trying on for size are the trendy ones, such as scientology or kabbalah. any other religion you might just come to your senses later and walk away from the belief systems you inherited as a child... but rarely do you see someone pick it up on their own accord, only to put it down a few years later.

i'm all about exploring new religions, but i think it's pretty disgusting to *claim* one as your own, your "true belief", just to walk away from it later for whatever else happens to be the "fastest-growing".

it's an insult to those who really believe in what they're doing... and who's to say which is "truth"? no one knows until they're dead, and even then maybe not. but what if you just insulted the one that happens to turn out to be "right"? then you'd be totally screwed!

ps - i heart quotation marks

Tiffany,

Have you ever considered that rationality and mysticism can co-exist?

Some examples of what this might mean:

is the human brain wired to experience mystical states? that is, are religious & mystical experience ones that arise out of (theoretically) comprehensible neurologic activity?

if we believe that our beliefs can change the world, do we change our behavior (perhaps unconsciously) & thereby bring about changes around us that we then think are 'magickal' when they really arise from our behavior?

I am a scientist and a religious person. I don't find any conflict. The physical world works according to principles which are at least theoretically know-able thru rationality. We don't know all of them yet, of course. No one has been able, to the best of my knowledge, to come up with a completely workable universal field theory (if I'm wrong it's because I don't keep up in that area, it's not even close to my area). That doesn't mean it can't be done.

Given all that, I believe there are Deities, and that They do know what's going on in this universe. They choose to act only thru the physical laws of the universe, I don't believe in 'miracles', just in physical events that are explicable even if the explanation isn't currenty available. Contact with those Deities is important to my emotional well-being. Maybe I'm just changing how my nervous system is working, but it is beneficial to me. Of course I can't prove thru physics that They exist. I don't need to prove it to myself, and I don't care if I can prove it to anyone else because I'm not trying to convert anyone or convince anyone.

I am very much a pragmatic, show-me-the-data person. My subjective data tells me that my belief system is helpful to me, and that's good enough for me. I don't need to market it to anyone else, and if believing in the absence of Deity is good for someone else, that's fine for them.

Blessed be,
WW

@42
Wonderful way of putting it WW. I was trying to come up with a response to Tiffany, but I find it hard to put my ideas into cohesive words.
I don't think there has to be a seperation from magic and science, as I love to question the world I'm in and try to discover all I can about it. I think magic and science do that from different, but complementary, points of view.

I'd imagine it has to do with what you call a religion.

More than likely, Islam is the fastest growing among it, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Siekhism, etc ...

If you consider various generally accepted denominations of Christianity to be religions, Mormonism rises to the top ...

If you cast a wider net ... well then, there's a good chance (though not necessarily) you're trying to prove a point and whichever less established/accepted religion you like/dislike is going to rise to the top.

What, exactly, does "fastest growing" mean, though? Is it just the number of new human beings born into a given religious culture and therefore considered new adherents at birth? In this case surely Islam is leading the pack there, given population densities and birth rates among Muslims right now. Or does "growing" mean adult members signing up with a new faith following conversion from another one, or from agnosticism/atheism? Or does growth imply the size and scope of the "church" itself, not only its membership rolls but its financial power, political strength, social infiltration, etc.? Seems like a rather vague term, doesn't it?

Hey guys ISLAM is the fastest growing religion... If you are real christians you have to watch these theological disputs of Islam with Christianity :
http://www.islamiska.org/media/deedat.htm

I would be happy to watch your theological disputes, sir, but I'm afraid it's too early on a Monday morning for me to withstand the Twilight Zonesque collision of Islam and Scandinavia. "Vad vet du om Ali och hans relation med profeten Muhammed Fred vara över honom" requires many, many more cups of coffee than I've yet had this morning.