Present day religious adherence and trends

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 358.

Christianity is the religion with the largest number of professed adherents, followed by Islam and Hinduism. These statistics show the number of professed adherents of the major world religions. In addition, approximately one billion people do not profess any belief in a religion. These figures are necessarily approximate.

Geographical distribution of the main religions worldwide:

Christianity: 2.1 billion

Islam: 1.3 billion

Hinduism: 850 million

Buddhism: 400 million

Chinese traditional religion: 394 million

Primal-Indigenous: 300 million

African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million

Sikhism: 23 million

Juche: 19 million

Spiritism: 15 million

Judaism: 14 million

Bahá'í: 7 million

Jainism: 4.2 million

Shinto: 4 million

Cao Dai: 4 million

Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million

Sant Mat / Surat Shabd Yoga : 2 million

Tenrikyo: 2 million

Unification Movement: 1.5 million

Neo-Paganism: 1 million

Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand

Rastafari movement: 600 thousand

FAMOUS PEOPLE ABOUT RELIGION

Mahatma Gandhi who was born a Hindu wrote the following about religion in his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth

"Thus if I could not accept Christianity either as a perfect, or the greatest religion, neither was I then convinced of Hinduism being such. Hindu defects were pressingly visible to me. If untouchability could be a part of Hinduism, it could but be a rotten part or an excrescence. I could not understand the raison d'etre of a multitude of sects and castes. What was the meaning of saying that the Vedas were the inspired Word of God? If they were inspired, why not also the Bible and the Koran? As Christian friends were endeavouring to convert me, so were Muslim friends. Abdullah Sheth had kept on inducing me to study Islam, and of course he had always something to say regarding its beauty."

He then went on to say:

"As soon as we lose the moral basis, we cease to be religious. There is no such thing as religion over-riding morality. Man, for instance, cannot be untruthful, cruel or incontinent and claim to have God on his side."

He also said the following about Hinduism:

"Hinduism as I know it entirely satisfies my soul, fills my whole being ... When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita."

Later in his life when he was asked whether he was a Hindu, he replied:

"Yes I am. I am also a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist and a Jew."