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I also did a double take when I learned that they were Muslim-majority too. It flies in the face of a lot of assumptions.
by Froztnova 11mo ago
I also did a double take when I learned that they were Muslim-majority too. It flies in the face of a lot of assumptions.
- throwaway290 11mo agoWhy? It's a big religion in the world and I heard it grows at 30% per year
- rar00 11mo agotypo? Rounding it up to 2 billion, 30% means 600 million per year
- throwaway290 11mo agoMaybe. Could be somebody was repeating some sort of misinformation. Quick check says more like 20% in 10 years.
- _DeadFred_ 11mo agoHow much of that is just because people aren't allowed to leave the religion though? My whole family would be considered Catholic if we still had those sorts of old thinking rules that Islam still has. Instead we have lots of people becoming Catholic and lots leaving balancing out.
- cdmckay 11mo agoWhich assumptions are those?
- lordnacho 11mo agoAsk someone in the West what the largest muslim country is.
- Froztnova 11mo agoMostly just that it's easy for an American (or at least, myself circa several years ago) to assume that the overwhelmingly vast majority of Muslims live in middle eastern countries, and when I first learned that Indonesia was the world's largest Muslim majority country it proved that mental heuristic to be entirely inaccurate. I suppose it shouldn't be too surprising though, I mean Christianity sure as hell got around too.
- lawlessone 11mo agoYeah if i only went by TV news i'd come to the same general conclusion. And if i narrowed it down to just Fox i'd probably think it was the UK.
- flopsamjetsam 11mo ago> Mostly just that it's easy for an American (or at least, myself circa several years ago) to assume that the overwhelmingly vast majority of Muslims live in middle eastern countries, and when I first learned that Indonesia was the world's largest Muslim majority country it proved that mental heuristic to be entirely inaccurate. I live in Australia, and when I was growing up I thought the same, even though Indonesia are a very close neighbour of ours. Indonesia is featured quite a bit in our local news these days, and that together with lots of Aussie tourists in Indonesia, plus lots of Indonesian students studying here, has made us a little more knowledgeable about our neighbours.
- bouncycastle 11mo agoAlso, the Indonesia that most Australians only ever visit is Bali, which is mostly Hindu.
- aruggirello 11mo agoIt seems things are improving for Christians in Indonesia in 2025 - or is the data missing? https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/ https://www.opendoors.org/en-US/persecution/countries/
- 11mo ago
- aprilthird2021 11mo agoYou must not have known about Malaysia then either?
- Froztnova 11mo agoCorrect, it was around the time I learned how big Islam was in certain parts of Southeast Asia in general. It's just massively under-represented in news and popular culture and my historical/geographic education never really went into much detail on Asia.
- yieldcrv 11mo agoCheck out the predominant races there, you’ve probably never heard of them!
- nokun7 11mo agoWhat sorts of assumptions?