One of my students included this diagram in her journal. I thought it was interesting. I thought Judaism would have been a larger religion, though from looking at other statistics, it does have nearly 30 times as many adherents as scientology...
From the same site, a list of the 22 largest religions in the world:
1 Christianity: 2.1 billion
2 Islam: 1.3 billion
3 Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 million
4 Hinduism: 900 million
5 Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
6 Buddhism: 376 million
7 primal-indigenous: 300 million
8 African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
9 Sikhism: 23 million
10 Juche: 19 million
11 Spiritism: 15 million
12 Judaism: 14 million
13 Baha'i: 7 million
14 Jainism: 4.2 million
15 Shinto: 4 million
16 Cao Dai: 4 million
17 Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
18 Tenrikyo: 2 million
19 Neo-Paganism: 1 million
20 Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
21 Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
22 Scientology: 500 thousand
4 comments:
Why did you think there were more Jews?
I really don't know. Just some strange thought I had, I guess. Perhaps because it's so often discussed alongside Christianity and Islam - "religions of the book", I guess - that I thought the numbers would be comparable.
Their calculation of the number of Jews in the world is probably based on a strict matrilineal definition. You're bound to overestimate the numbers when you meet so many people who can claim some Hebrew ancestry without the mitochondrial DNA necessary to claim Jewishness (or without the faith to claim that they are actually practising Judaism). Most of my friends here in the USA are Red Sea Pedestrians of some sort but I only know one person who keeps kosher, observes shabbat etc.
The more important question is: How many Christians are left when you exclude all those you consider heretics?
How many of those included in Christianity would I consider to be heretics? Probably about the same amount as would consider me a heretic!
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