I just looked at the major religions ranked by size and was shocked

[ecstatic]

http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Christianity: 2.1 billion

Islam: 1.3 billion

I was under the impression that Christianity and Islam were tied, with slightly more people practicing Islam.

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion

The site says this group makes up about 20% of the world population. I guess being here in America it seemed as if there were only a handful of people under this category. This group doesn't appear to have a strong voice worldwide--

Hinduism: 900 million

Chinese traditional religion: 394 million

Buddhism: 376 million

primal-indigenous: 300 million

African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million

Sikhism: 23 million

Juche: 19 million

Spiritism: 15 million

Judaism: 14 million *Estimates of the world's Jewish population range from about 12 million to over 17 million. On the high end of realistic estimates of how many people would consider themselves Jews seems to be about 15 million, but a figure this high would include a large number of non-practicing, purely ethnic Jews.

I figured Judaism would be at least in the top 5, but to see less than 20 million was a shocker for me.

Judaism is far more important in areas such as history, literature, science, politics, and religion, than its relatively small numbers might suggest.

So true... If these rankings were based on the religion's impact on world history, I'm guessing Judaism would be among the top 3.

[Snow]

1. Something to be careful of,

most religions outside western traditions are not exclusive. Example of the US military doing a religious headcount in Japan after WWII, found that by adding up everyone who said they followed a given religion, the total was something like 3 or 4 times the population. There's even a few places in western relgious bodies where that happens - my Quaker meeting has probably a dozen jews, of whom probably half are active practicing followers of judaism, and one is a rabbi.

[rosesaylavee]

2. Never heard of Juche before but googled it...

guess I have been living in a cave for a while... not Osama's but a small middle western US one. :)

INteresting that it is only in North Korea where it originated - makes me wonder if it is state mandated?

[ecstatic]

6. Wow, love your sig pic! LOL nt

[rosesaylavee]

8. Thanks -

feel free to use it. I found it here on DU last year and just haven't found another I like as well.

[Hand]

9. Yes, it is.

It was the basic principle of self-reliance put forth by Kim Il-Sung and presumably continued by Kim Jong-Il, although calling it a religion is a stretch, IMHO.

It hasn't worked out very well, either.

[rocktivity]

3. Well, non-Christians outnumber the Christians

I'd like to see a further breakdown of the Christian segment. Assuming, of course, that Christianity is being defined as a religion that involves worshipping Christ.

:headbang:
rocknation

[INDIA]

10. Question for you...

"I'd like to see a further breakdown of the Christian segment"

What mainstream religion would you prefer take over the "Christian Segment"

[TallahasseeGrannie]

15. Didn't the poster

mean a statistical breakdown and not an actual breaking down of the religion?

T-Grannie

[rocktivity]

18. I guess I should have said "breakdown WITHIN the Christian segment"

How many are Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, etc.

:headbang:
rocknation

[INDIA]

24. Gotcha, 200th POST!!

[ecstatic]

12. I'm having a hard time finding up to date information on this but

From what I'm seeing, there are 3 main branches of Christianity: Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant. Under those 3 branches are 33,830 different denominations!! I believe most of the denominations are under the Protestant branch, which appears to be split into major denominations below:

Branch Number of Adherents

Catholic 1,050,000,000
Orthodox/Eastern Christian 240,000,000

Protestants- Approx 590MIL but extremely divided unlike the other two major branches:
African indigenous sects (AICs) 110,000,000
Pentecostal 105,000,000
Reformed/Presbyterian/Congregational/United 75,000,000
Anglican 73,000,000
Baptist 70,000,000
Methodist 70,000,000
Lutheran 64,000,000
Jehovah's Witnesses 14,800,000
Adventist 12,000,000
Latter Day Saints 12,500,000
Apostolic/New Apostolic 10,000,000
Stone-Campbell ("Restoration Movement") 5,400,000
New Thought (Unity, Christian Science, etc.) 1,500,000
Brethren (incl. Plymouth) 1,500,000
Mennonite 1,250,000
Friends (Quakers) 300,000

http://www.adherents.com/adh_branches.html#Christianity

[Warren Stupidity]

4. 1,1B? We need to get organized!

There are almost as many of the non-religious as there are muslims. I too find this a fascinating statistic. Now if we could just start building atheist mega-non-churches all across exurbia we could start having a major impact on the political landscape.

[ecstatic]

7. lmao... Of course, then it would morph into something religious! nt

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. I'm intrigued

describe a mega non church for me. What would they do? Would the food be any good?

[Warren Stupidity]

21. The food would be great!

Of course you might want to ask about the brownies before you eat them. Also no BORING sermons. Mostly it would resemble a huge starbucks with lounge chairs, lattes, good music, great discussions. All gentle tolerant people of any flavor would be welcome. We'd be organizing the vote of course, and perhaps we would be providing self defense courses and training in how to survive and organize in a crypto-totalitarian state.

In all seriousness, we need to think long and hard about how to develop a real sustainable counter culture, (unlike that failed one from the 60s) one that can compete and perhaps even win out over the hideous nightmare society being developed in the theo-fascist megachurches of jesusland. Either that or its time to update those passports, make your assets portable, and be prepared to emigrate on short notice.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

26. I know we are joking, kind of....

but...but....I could get into this. As long as I can be a believer but shut up about it, count me in. I have more in common with any atheist than I do with any fundamentalist.

This is what we are missing on the left. A real life community DU.

T-Grannie

[Warren Stupidity]

34. I'm not joking so much as dreaming

about what might have been and what still could be. I'm just an old hippie wistful about the possibilities we forgot to nurture. By the way there would be no need to hide your spirituality - my atheism is always up for debate, and it is the enlightment spirit of tolerance and rationality that I want, not some fundamentalist atheism that denies the validity of your personal world view.

On the serious side community cannot be only virtual. Without a real world component we exist at the mercy of the state and can vanish overnight when they decide to pull the plug.

Here's to the progressive secular mega non churches!

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. No question. To this day, Judaism remains the matrix of

Christianity, which relies for its own development on Scripture, tradition and the Holy Spirit.

[MindPilot]

11. The proportion of non-believers worldwide

appears to be roughly the same as here in the US. I would have expected the US to have fewer non-believers than the rest of the world.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. if you rely on our media, you will be misinformed.

20 -25% is probably about right, with another 45% firmly entrenched in beliefs AND science. That last 30% is wicked. Faith comes first, and they ignore all else.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

13. thank GOD for that 1.1 Billion. Hmmm. Let me rephrase that.

Be grateful for the 1.1 billion who see the LIGHT

as a byproduct of high pressure and high temp fusion reactions within the centers of large, dense collections of matter we call stars.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Read the notes carefully ... it's more complicated than that ...

Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: This is a highly disparate group and not a single religion. Although atheists are a small subset of this grouping, this category is not synonymous with atheism. People who specify atheism as their religious preference actually make up less than one-half of one percent of the population in many countries where much large numbers claim no religious preference, such as the United States (13.2% nonreligious according to ARIS study of 2001) and Australia (15% nonreligious).

...In most countries only a tiny number of people (zero to a fraction of 1 percent) will answer "atheism" or "atheist" when asked an open-ended question about what their religious preference. A slightly larger number of people will answer "yes" if asked pointedly if they are an atheist. A slightly larger number than that will answer "no" when asked if they believe in any type of God, deities, or Higher Power. A slightly larger number answer "no" when asked simply if they "believe in God" (omitting wording indicating more nebulous, less anthropomorphic conceptions of divinity). Finally, a larger number of people answer "none" or "non-religious" when asked asked an open-ended queston about what their religious preference is. Although figures vary for each country, average numbers indicate that roughly half of the people who self-identify as "nonreligious" also answer "yes" when asked if they believe in God or a Higher Power.

But such a high figure is difficult to support with current country-by-country statistics, and perhaps reflects Communist-era official government statistics.

Remember that China is officially atheist, so probably accounts for a big portion of the *reported* total.

[ecstatic]

19. good points... Though I'd imagine most atheists would feel uncomfortable

admitting to it due to fear of being ostracized or worse. I didn't know China was officially atheist--I thought its main religions were Buddhism and Islam. I'm still very ignorant on these issues.

[muriel_volestrangler]

25. China is not exactly "officially atheist", though it is secular

The State dept view on China and religion:

The Constitution provides for freedom of religious belief and the freedom not to believe; however, the Government seeks to restrict religious practice to government-sanctioned organizations and registered places of worship and to control the growth and scope of activities of religious groups. The Government tries to control and regulate religion to prevent the rise of groups that could constitute sources of authority outside of the control of the Government and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Nonetheless, membership in many faiths is growing rapidly.

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51509.htm

Though it is very likely there are a lot of atheists in China.

[eppur_se_muova]

30. Actually, I just thought they were not expressing sufficient caution ...

about whether this summary "perhaps reflects Communist-era official government statistics".

Marx made that famous quip about religion being "the opiate of the masses", and Marxism/Leninism treats all religions as an enemy, or perhaps more precisely, as an intolerable competitor. The CCSU systematically destoyed churches throughout the old SU and strenuously forbade any form of worship. Mao followed more or less the same path, with the Red Guards destroying many ancient temples and shrines during the Cultural Revolution in an effort to eradicate the "old" religion (one of the "three olds", or maybe it was the "four olds", can't remember). Of course, religion mostly went underground, whatever the official claim that good comrades had no religion.

Reading a few paras further, they seem to weigh this very carefully, and acknowledge these numbers involve some guesswork, and are more likely to overstate the numbers in each category. It just seems to me that with atheism being the only acceptable belief under doctrinaire Communist regimes, these numbers are in greater danger of "misoverestimation" than most of the others.

[Meshuga]

20. High rate of Jewish Nobel Prize winners

"Judaism is far more important in areas such as history, literature, science, politics, and religion, than its relatively small numbers might suggest."

The problem with Christianity is that it puts a choker on its followers since their scientists cannot question their own faith. In Judaism there is no prohibition on what the person can study. No wonder there is a higher rate of Jews getting Nobel prizes in science even when we are only a few points of a percent of the total world population. It's not because Jews are smarter, it's because we are allowed to question and we can study anything without fear.

[beam me up scottie]

23. "The problem with Christianity" ?

Nice use of the broad brush there, Wiggles.


Aren't you the person who recently accused atheists of intolerance because some of them mock christianity?



:popcorn:

[Zebedeo]

28. Props to you, bmus n/t

*

[beam me up scottie]

29. Don't mention it.

:)

[SPKrazy]

27. Come On Wiggles, Broad Brush There Isn't Fair

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The problem with Christianity is that it puts a choker on its followers since their scientists cannot question their own faith. In Judaism there is no prohibition on what the person can study. No wonder there is a higher rate of Jews getting Nobel prizes in science even when we are only a few points of a percent of the total world population. It's not because Jews are smarter, it's because we are allowed to question and we can study anything without fear.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What a bunch of hooey. So all Christians put a "choker" on their followers?
Most Christian religions don't do anything of the sort. In fact, I don't think that any Christian denomination (except maybe the snake handlers in the woods) does that, and I'm not sure about them.

I don't fear anything from my Church. I think your whole thesis is flawed from the get go!

Try again

[Zebedeo]

31. "Your problem is . . ."

does not lead to a productive discussion.

[Proud_Democratt]

32. There may be other reasons also. Wiggles.

Lack of education and other endeavors may have prohibited many Christians from the fields of science.
How many Jewish football/ baseball players are there?
What I'm saying is...the type of religion might not dictate this.

[pagandem4justice]

22. And minor faiths?

Very interesting survey. I second the other poster's comment that religious affiliation is not exclusive (in other words, some respondents might answer for more than one faith). Also, what of those surveyed who adhere to what is not considered a "major" faith, such as the various branches of Paganism? Were ethnic faiths considered "indigenous" also, such as Asatru, Kemetic, Hellenismos? And (may start a tempest in a teapot with this one) should Judaism be considered a "major" faith, with so comparatively few adherents?

[Maat]

33. You bring up good points.

And I'm in the New Thought category (at least they didn't call it 'New Age' this time; that's incorrect). I'm a Religious Scientist ( www.rsintl.org ). However, they describe 'New Thought' as being composed of Unity and Christian Science. Actually, New Thought is composed of Relgious Science, Divine Science and Unity; I'm not sure about Christian Science. Glad to know there's 1.5M of us, though.

Ah, I was correct; Christian Science is NOT considered to be a New Thought faith:


From this movement emerged several religious denominations that are actively spreading today, including Divine Science, Religious Science, the Unity Church and the Universal Foundation for Better Living, with the largest of these being the Unity Church, comprised of over two million members worldwide. Although Emma Curtis Hopkins, formerly associated with Christian Science, was considered the "teacher of teachers" of several key New Thought leaders, Christian Science developed in a different direction and is not considered a New Thought denomination.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Thought