Growing

On the growing bar it said my city will grow in 1 turn (s) but it didn't it was more like ten can someone please explain. I believe this number in the star by the city name determines how many tiles you can work I have 3 population but can work 4 tiles ? Also how do state what religion you want your city or kingdom to be. In the civivs I clicked Theoacy and it said I had converted to Christianity but one of my cities is hindu and i dont know where to change it.

1st Question: When you build a worker or Settler all 'Growth' goes to the creation of these units. Were you building one of these?

if you mean ur city boarders, that is controled by something else called Culture.

The Size of your city could be 12 but if your culture is not very good then your boarders wont expand. To get culture get a religion and build temples etc.

You can change ur state religion but it doesnt automaticly change the religion of ur city, to spread your wanted religion you must build a temple for that religion, that will allow you to make missionarys who you can send out to your other towns and spread that religion there.

Take a look thru the civ encyclopedia (SP?) thats in the game, it explained quite alot for me while i was starting out.