“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
—Mat 24:14

There are 6.7 billion people in the world today. The United States ranks third, with 304 million, behind China and India, according to projections released Thursday by the Census Bureau.

The world’s population surpassed 6 billion in 1999, meaning it will take only 13 years to add a billion people.

By comparison, the number of people didn’t reach 1 billion until 1800, said Carl Haub, a demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. It didn’t reach 2 billion until 130 years later.

“You can easily see the effect of rapid population growth in developing countries,” Haub said.

Haub said that medical and nutritional advances in developing countries led to a population explosion following World War II. Cultural changes are slowly catching up, with more women in developing countries going to school and joining the work force.

That is slowing the growth rate, though it is still high in many countries.

The global population is growing by about 1.2 percent per year. The Census Bureau projects the growth rate will decline to 0.5 percent by 2050.

By then, India will have surpassed China as the most populous country.

The Census Bureau updates projections each year on a variety of global demographic trends, including fertility and mortality rates and life expectancy. U.S. life expectancy has surpassed 78 years for the first time, the National Center for Health Statistics announced last week.

The new Census report comes amid record high oil and gasoline prices, fueled in part by growing demand from expanding economies in China and India.

There is no consensus on how many people the Earth can sustain, said William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. He said it depends on how well people manage the Earth’s resources.

Today, industrialized nations use a disproportionate share of oil and other resources, while developing countries are fueling population growth.

There are countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where the average woman has more than six children in her lifetime. In Mali and Niger, two African nations, women average more than seven children.

“There’s still a long way to go in the developing world,” Frey said. “A lot of it does have to do with the education of women and the movement of women into the labor force.”

In the U.S., women have an average of about two children, which essentially replaces the population. Much of the U.S. population growth comes from immigration.

“And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.”
—Mat 24:14

The article, to be published in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, says Huckabee asked the question after saying he believes Mormonism is a religion but doesn’t know much about it. His rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, is a member of the Mormon church, which is known officially as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The authoritative Encyclopedia of Mormonism, published in 1992, does not refer to Jesus and Satan as brothers. It speaks of Jesus as the son of God and of Satan as a fallen angel, which is a Biblical account.

A spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Huckabee’s question is usually raised by those who wish to smear the Mormon faith rather than clarify doctrine.

“We believe, as other Christians believe and as Paul wrote, that God is the father of all,” said the spokeswoman, Kim Farah. “That means that all beings were created by God and are his spirit children. Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship him as the son of God and the savior of mankind. Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what he stands for.”

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said Romney will not debate candidates on their faith or question their faith.

“For those who want to know how Governor Romney’s faith informs his values, they can look at how he lives his life and how he has raised his family,” Madden said.

Earlier this month in Iowa, Huckabee wouldn’t say whether he thought Mormonism—rival Romney’s religion—was a cult.

“I’m just not going to go off into evaluating other people’s doctrines and faiths. I think that is absolutely not a role for a president,” the former Arkansas governor said.

While he said he respects “anybody who practices his faith,” Huckabee said that what other people believe—he named Republican rivals Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton—”is theirs to explain, not mine, and I’m not going to.”

He also resisted wading into theology when pressed to explain why some evangelicals don’t view the Mormon faith as a Christian denomination.