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This most massive error: The numbers are completely wrong. As of February 2006 the world population was 6.5 billion. Yet if you add the total number of religious people you get 6.917 billion ± .1 billion. In other words there seems to be more religious people in this world than there are people.... This entire page needs to be rewritten.
The numbers do not match. For example the number of Buddhists in this article is shown as 378 million. But in the article that is suggested alonside http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_by_country the total is over 415 million. I suspect the same happens with other religions. Those writting articles should check for sources in Wikipedia itself for the sake of consistency.-- Anagnorisis
What is the source of the 2.1 million number? This sympathetic page states that "All totaled, there are about 8,000 to 11,000 Satanists in North America." Religious tolerance states that there were never more than 20k-30k Satanists in North America during LeVay's peak, and there are less now. So, please provide a source to back up your claim. -- Goodoldpolonius2 00:27, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This is concerning the number of followers of Hinduism. For further information, look at the talk page of the article on it.-- GatesPlusPlus 14:54, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Confucianism is actually not a religion, but a set of philosophy. Confucious himself, like most of the Chinese in his time, had Chinese folk religion, but it doesn't mean his whole philosophy is a religion. Most Chinese don't consider it as a religion.
It's somewhat like the confusion between 道家(the philosophy of Tao) and 道教(the religion of Tao). Lauzi's philosophy(the philosophy of Tao) is quite close to pantheism or atheism, while "the religion of Tao" was founded by 張道陵 as a polytheism religion. Although the founder of Tao religion claimed and worshipped Lauzi as the ultimate pioneer of Tao religion, the philosophy of Tao is very distinct from the religion of Tao, and Lauzi himself never intended to be worshipped. (both are listed as " Taoism" in Wikipedia however)
Confucianism and worshipping Confucious are distinct. Confucianism is the philosophy of Confucious, like the philosophy of Plato or the philosophy of Socrates, while worshipping Confucious is a part of Chinese folk religion, just like worshipping ancestors.
On wikipedia itself, it says Falun Gong claims 70 million, and the Chinese officials claim 10 million. How about mentioning this?
Juche is said to have 19 million adherents. I guess this is the population of North Korea? -- Palnatoke 06:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This entry is preposterous. There is virtually no basis for considering a national ideology to be a religious system. It should simply be removed. Hans Joseph Solbrig
are there any reputable sources, besides adherents.com & that one evangelist writer mentioned, that consider juche a "major religion"? i'd have to also question the assumption that the entire population of the country are adherents of juche as a religion. Appleby 22:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
After reviewing the various notes on this discussion page in this section and elsewhere, it appears to me that there is a consensus to revise the estimate from Adherents.com downwards. I suggest that we cut it approximately in half (to 10 million) and add a note at the bottom about why. We already deviate from Adherents.com on purpose in the case of the Falun Gong, so I suggest that we not "make a religion" out of devotion to its estimates. — Wookipedian 06:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
This page is really a cool page. I was like 'woah' when I read it. I do question some of the numbers though. Just because there are x million people in N Korea doesnt mean they all follow the state religion. And I wonder how you got the numbers for 1 billion Atheism vs 300 milion Traditional Chinese religion? Do the 1 billion in China really eschew all religion and adopt the communist atheism as their own true feelings? A difficult question im sure but one worthy of mention in my opinion.
Thank you for this page, keep up the good work.
See(everywhere about 150,000):
And I found no information about so big number (over 2 milions). Vuvar1 22:51, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Christianity, Islam, Judaisim, and Bahi'ism are all just sects of Abrahamanisim. Also, Buddisim, Shintoism, Taoisim, and Confucianism are often worshipped together (shinto + buddah = Japanese religion) (buddah + tao + confucuian = many easern Asians).
Superstud
===>What? "Abrahamanisim" is not a definable religion, but a vague (almost to the point of meaningless) category for several clearly distinct religions that are incompatible with one another. The variety of Eastern religions are certainly syncretized, particularly in China and Japan, but that doesn't mean they are somehow not distinct. They all have different histories, worldviews, adherents, and make specific, mutually exclusive claims about the world. For that matter, since Buddhism is a religious offspring of Hinduism (as are Jainism and Sikhism), by your reasoning, they are all one large religion also. Furthermore, Sikhism was founded as a syncretistic faith between Hinduism and Islam, so are both of those huge religious traditions really the same mega-religion? Of course not. Justin (koavf) July 9, 2005 17:37 (UTC)
The article now mentions such high-level families of religion ( Abrahamic religion and Dharmic religion) in two places — the 2nd paragraph of the introduction, and one of the maps of world religious prevalence. I think that is sufficient to deal with this issue. — Wookipedian 21:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I know it's hard to get accurate numbers for the followers of an particlaur religion, but the figure given for Judaism looks high. The Jewish population article estimated 12-14 million Jewish people in the world, not all of whom will actually follow the faith. Hard to see how Judaism can have 15 million adherents at the current time. What is this figure based on? Indisciplined 17:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I have added Mormonism under major branches of Christianity. My reasons follow: they are a major American (United States) contribution to Christianity, have somewhat distinct theology from the rest of Christianity but share the basic characteristics of that religion (i.e. a belief in Jesus as the Messiah), but aren't Protestant. These reasons qualify Mormonism as a seperate branch of Christianity distinct enough to merit inclusion without being under the "others" section. Please, if you have any problems with this at all, contact me here or on my talk page and I'm sure we can work through our disagreements. -- Pahoran513 23:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that Mormons are necessarily outside of the "other evangelical faiths" description included with Protestantism. To have Mormons be seperate under Christianity, we surely must include a long list of other religions, including Quaker, Amish, Pentecostal Snake Handeling, Geeche Baptist, 7th Day Adventists, on and on. I suggest that we include it in under the Protestant category. --
furidoman 12:20, 27 August 2006
I think I agree with john k. Not only do Mormons not consider ourselves Protestant, Protestants don't consider ourselves Protestant. And honestly, I would have no major objections to adding Jehovah's Witnesses or Christian Science to the list--my only reservation is their smaller number of members (which is not to say Mormons are huge--just distinct), and that they are not as famously American. But hey, adding them would not hurt anything. But I do object to Mormons being Protestant--one of our major beliefs is that Protestant faiths, not just the Catholic, have lost God's authority, and a Restoration of that authority was needed. That alone (the beliefs in the errors of Protestantism) should disqualify Mormonism from that classification. -- Pahoran513 16:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
John, you are right--self-definition alone isn't enough. But there is ample theological evidence and non-Mormon claims to promote Mormonism as a seperate branch of Christianity. In fact, sometimes on Wiki it is hard to even be included as Chritians at all. But we are, and we aren't Protestant. Therefore, unless someone has another opinion or something to say, let us consider this discussion over. -- Pahoran513 05:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
listen Im a Technologysist and I feel the new religion of Technolgysism is being left out. we propably have like not even 0.10% but we are a religion from henderson, colorado. - DV
Humanism is mentioned twice: under Non-religious and then later again.-- Ortho 04:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
The assertion that nearly one third of Chinese people are religious is, frankly, bizarre. The adherents.com figure comes from the World Christian Encyclopedia. I don't know how what their methods (or their biases) are, but if nothing else the number seems to depend on a very loose definition of religiousness. I could keep talking, but would have nothing verifiable to say. If the World Christian Encyclopedia is our only source, then I suppose we are stuck with their definition, but it seems very misleading. Pissant 01:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Let all the religions on the page be listed as major religions and keep the classical talk as a historical discussion about what people used to think of as major religions (and add the views of others besides Christians, if possible). Population does not always relate to significance - Singapore has a little over 4 million people, yet it is considered a major economic and military power. Similarly, Sikhism, with 22 million people, is a major religion in India (and has a major influence in the country even with 1 billion non-Sikhs, see Indira Gahndi if you want to know more) and, increasingly, the West; while Zorastrianism, with just 150,000 adherents, is considered "major" because of the role it played in theology and the history of the Middle East. The splitting hairs game is silly and arbitrary. -- Goodoldpolonius2 07:38, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
== == new on the scene == ==javascript:insertTags('-- Goodoldpolonius2 00:27, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)',,); Your signature with timestamp
seems to me there's a lot of debate about which religions are major and which are minor. seems to me that's an inherently pov issue that we can never resolve. seems to me that even if we did resolve it, it wouldn't help anything. seems to me if we renamed the page "World religions" this wouldn't be a problem. thoughts? Ungtss 19:26, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
On what basis is Sikhism the 5th largest religion? Using the link behind the "5th largest number" link Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Budism, Chinese traditional are the biggest 5 with Primal Indigenous also larger. I would concede that Primal Indigenous is a catch all and so 6th largest might stand. I understand that consistency and interpretation of numbers is difficult but the credibilty of this article (especially on the front page) is badly undermined when the number on the front page is at odds with the page it links to and claims as its source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rio Alastair ( talk • contribs)
Goodoldpolonius2: "The good thing about Adherents.com is that they give sources for each number, and they have a rather large database, they don't survey themselves, so the methodology shouldn't be an issue"
Adherants.com: "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)."
my bolding
Adherants.com:"The "Secular/Nonreligious/etc." category is probably the most speculative estimate in this list, as this segment of society is difficult to count. The vast majority in this grouping are not aligned with any kind of membership organization. Most figures come from census and survey data, which most countries conduct only infrequently. "
I think the issue here is one of interpretation. Adherants.com are clearly biased against atheism.
How many atheists? It appears to be a matter of opinion: [1] [2] [3]
See also Atheism#Atheism studies and statistics
I would have hoped that national censuses were up to the task of accurately capturing such statistics accurately, but as noted by adherants.com "Most figures come from census and survey data, which most countries conduct only infrequently". So their other figures do not come from census data? Or, the data is speculative because we don't have annual censuses? I'm not sure that I follow their point.
I think the problem is one of marginalisation of "other" beliefs by governments. For example, in Australia there are 120+ sub-categories for "religious affiliation" recognised by the national census taker, the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Over 80 of these are Christian, the two most popular being Anglican and Catholic. The other 78+ sub-categories of "Christianity" represent the beliefs of 22% of the population. The other major world religions ( Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc) only get one sub-category each. That doesn't sound representative to me.
For the 15.5% of Australia's whose religious affiliation is "No Religion", there are just 4 named sub-categories - atheism, agnoticism, rationalism and Humanism (belief system). The 5th sub-category is No Religion nfd (nfd = no further definiton). The ABS do not provide a break-down of these figures, so Australian society cannot rely on its own government to tell them how many Australians are atheist, rationalist etc. All we get is one grand total for the nonreligous. That doesn't sound fair to me.
I'm curious to hear what the experience of people is around the world. What explicit choices do you get on your census form. There's usually an "Other" category, so how many religious affiliations does your government census taker recognise (they usually have something called a census dictionary)? Once they have the figures, does your government treat the nonreligious and religious figures equitably? That is, do you know how many people fit in each of the nonreligous sub-categories?
-- Couttsie 23:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I only raise the question of atheist numbers here to draw attention to the lack of credibility of adherants.com as an unbiased source of information relating to statistics for the nonreligous. Thanks for your comments, which I agree with. -- Couttsie 00:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Humanism is an organised belief system (the wider meaning of religion), with the IHEU as the world body, the Amsterdam Declaration as its official statement of principles, and the Happy Human as a world recognised symbol of Humanism.
Thus, the second half of the article is unduly biased towards the theistic religions, especially when one considers that the non-theistic believers (including Humanists) rank 3rd in the world by numbers - as per the first half of the article (which is not so biased). -- Couttsie 04:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
would atheism be considered a religion, a belief, or something else? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.221.168.245 ( talk • contribs) .
Even though an overwhelming number of people are atheist/humanist/whatever (over 1 billion), this is no case to include them. As per the above example, just because there are an overwhelming amount of "non-computer users" doesn't mean we list them. To genericize even further, it's like listing how many people have 12 toes and putting "Twelve toed people — 1" and then "non-twelve toed people — 6.49999 billion"... it just makes no sense to include irrelevent adherences — OL P 1999 06:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course atheism should be on the list. While it may not be a religion, it does represent the way many millions of people believe (or don't). They should completely remain on the list. -- Pahoran513 17:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I've added a reference to Religious_pluralism because I think relationships between the world religions are a subject that many people who come to this page are looking for. By the way, the article currently named "Religious pluralism" needs a lot of improvement, so hey guys, you who know about religions, come on over and write what you know about the relationships between them.-- Robin.rueth 15:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I have created Interreligious relations (see comments on talk page), and Women as theological figures - additions welcome. Jackiespeel 21:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I just went and took a look at the religious pluralism article. It seems approximately totally irrelevant to the topic of this one. I see no justification for referencing it here, and certainly no justification for referencing it in the introduction section. — Wookipedian 16:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Quite a few people seem to have problems with the data from adherents.com, and i don't feel right using a website as a primary source. Would it be possible to get a second, more-trusted source for the population data? - ℘yrop (talk) 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
As not everyone is happy with adherents.com as a primary source I almost hestitate to mention this, but I prepared my own version of their 2005 pie chart of world religions. Their original is a bit untidy and in my opinion it is cluttered with too much text on the chart itself. I don't know whether creating a new pie chart from the figures means the copyright would still belong to adherents.com. Probably there are Wikipedians who would know the answer straight off. If the derived Major World Religions pie chart is of interest, please let me know and I'll upload it somewhere for a preview. -- Bookish 22:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please explain to me what are the characteristics of this category? Is this what they call themselves? Or if someone else groups them thusly, who does so, and what are the diagnostic traits? Otherwise, why should these not be counted as "other"? Timothy Usher 07:16, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
From the looks of the history of this article, I'm probably jumping right into an on-going edit war, but this article really needs consistency in its era notations. All religions listed are currently followed by BCE/CE terminology except for Christianity and Islam, which both say AD. I also noticed that they have been going back and forth between AD and CE through constant reverts. Have editors of this page ever come to any sort of agreement on these terms? Although there is not officially a policy favoring one era notation over another, the guidelines do call for consistency within articles. As the majority currently being used in this article is BCE/CE, it seems as though the others should be changed (and kept) to reflect this.
rom
a
rin
talk to her ]
21:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Good compromise, for now, to put them both. I know some people are against writing BC/BCE and AD/CE, but I think that in this particular context, it's better to do so than to fight over which one should go in the article.
rom
a
rin
talk to her ]
17:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
Comment(s) | Press [show] to view → |
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This page quotes the number of Buddhists as 324,000,000, while the page Religion in China
[6] quotes 1 billion (80%), apparently arbitrarily picking this figure from the "Surveys" that "have found that about 30% to 91% identify with Buddhism as one of their religions."
[7]
Which puts the number between 1.1 and 1.7 billion, it would seem from what I have read that 324 million is too low and 1 billion is too large, while I don't recommend a figure between these is simply guessed, it would be useful to have the two figures the same. I only mention this because I quoted both figures in the same document, very nearly causing embarrassment. Not quite sure how this Talk section works so apologies if this ends up in the wrong place. == Number of Buddhist Adherents == The number of Buddhist followers on the article is estimated to be "250 million". This is ignoring the number of chinese buddhists which number at "More recent surveys put the total number of Chinese Buddhists between 660 million (50%) and over 1 billion (80%)" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bodhidhamma ( talk • contribs) 18:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC) |
Last edited at 18:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 21:19, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
This most massive error: The numbers are completely wrong. As of February 2006 the world population was 6.5 billion. Yet if you add the total number of religious people you get 6.917 billion ± .1 billion. In other words there seems to be more religious people in this world than there are people.... This entire page needs to be rewritten.
The numbers do not match. For example the number of Buddhists in this article is shown as 378 million. But in the article that is suggested alonside http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_by_country the total is over 415 million. I suspect the same happens with other religions. Those writting articles should check for sources in Wikipedia itself for the sake of consistency.-- Anagnorisis
What is the source of the 2.1 million number? This sympathetic page states that "All totaled, there are about 8,000 to 11,000 Satanists in North America." Religious tolerance states that there were never more than 20k-30k Satanists in North America during LeVay's peak, and there are less now. So, please provide a source to back up your claim. -- Goodoldpolonius2 00:27, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This is concerning the number of followers of Hinduism. For further information, look at the talk page of the article on it.-- GatesPlusPlus 14:54, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Confucianism is actually not a religion, but a set of philosophy. Confucious himself, like most of the Chinese in his time, had Chinese folk religion, but it doesn't mean his whole philosophy is a religion. Most Chinese don't consider it as a religion.
It's somewhat like the confusion between 道家(the philosophy of Tao) and 道教(the religion of Tao). Lauzi's philosophy(the philosophy of Tao) is quite close to pantheism or atheism, while "the religion of Tao" was founded by 張道陵 as a polytheism religion. Although the founder of Tao religion claimed and worshipped Lauzi as the ultimate pioneer of Tao religion, the philosophy of Tao is very distinct from the religion of Tao, and Lauzi himself never intended to be worshipped. (both are listed as " Taoism" in Wikipedia however)
Confucianism and worshipping Confucious are distinct. Confucianism is the philosophy of Confucious, like the philosophy of Plato or the philosophy of Socrates, while worshipping Confucious is a part of Chinese folk religion, just like worshipping ancestors.
On wikipedia itself, it says Falun Gong claims 70 million, and the Chinese officials claim 10 million. How about mentioning this?
Juche is said to have 19 million adherents. I guess this is the population of North Korea? -- Palnatoke 06:36, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This entry is preposterous. There is virtually no basis for considering a national ideology to be a religious system. It should simply be removed. Hans Joseph Solbrig
are there any reputable sources, besides adherents.com & that one evangelist writer mentioned, that consider juche a "major religion"? i'd have to also question the assumption that the entire population of the country are adherents of juche as a religion. Appleby 22:27, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
After reviewing the various notes on this discussion page in this section and elsewhere, it appears to me that there is a consensus to revise the estimate from Adherents.com downwards. I suggest that we cut it approximately in half (to 10 million) and add a note at the bottom about why. We already deviate from Adherents.com on purpose in the case of the Falun Gong, so I suggest that we not "make a religion" out of devotion to its estimates. — Wookipedian 06:01, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
This page is really a cool page. I was like 'woah' when I read it. I do question some of the numbers though. Just because there are x million people in N Korea doesnt mean they all follow the state religion. And I wonder how you got the numbers for 1 billion Atheism vs 300 milion Traditional Chinese religion? Do the 1 billion in China really eschew all religion and adopt the communist atheism as their own true feelings? A difficult question im sure but one worthy of mention in my opinion.
Thank you for this page, keep up the good work.
See(everywhere about 150,000):
And I found no information about so big number (over 2 milions). Vuvar1 22:51, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Christianity, Islam, Judaisim, and Bahi'ism are all just sects of Abrahamanisim. Also, Buddisim, Shintoism, Taoisim, and Confucianism are often worshipped together (shinto + buddah = Japanese religion) (buddah + tao + confucuian = many easern Asians).
Superstud
===>What? "Abrahamanisim" is not a definable religion, but a vague (almost to the point of meaningless) category for several clearly distinct religions that are incompatible with one another. The variety of Eastern religions are certainly syncretized, particularly in China and Japan, but that doesn't mean they are somehow not distinct. They all have different histories, worldviews, adherents, and make specific, mutually exclusive claims about the world. For that matter, since Buddhism is a religious offspring of Hinduism (as are Jainism and Sikhism), by your reasoning, they are all one large religion also. Furthermore, Sikhism was founded as a syncretistic faith between Hinduism and Islam, so are both of those huge religious traditions really the same mega-religion? Of course not. Justin (koavf) July 9, 2005 17:37 (UTC)
The article now mentions such high-level families of religion ( Abrahamic religion and Dharmic religion) in two places — the 2nd paragraph of the introduction, and one of the maps of world religious prevalence. I think that is sufficient to deal with this issue. — Wookipedian 21:21, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
I know it's hard to get accurate numbers for the followers of an particlaur religion, but the figure given for Judaism looks high. The Jewish population article estimated 12-14 million Jewish people in the world, not all of whom will actually follow the faith. Hard to see how Judaism can have 15 million adherents at the current time. What is this figure based on? Indisciplined 17:20, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
I have added Mormonism under major branches of Christianity. My reasons follow: they are a major American (United States) contribution to Christianity, have somewhat distinct theology from the rest of Christianity but share the basic characteristics of that religion (i.e. a belief in Jesus as the Messiah), but aren't Protestant. These reasons qualify Mormonism as a seperate branch of Christianity distinct enough to merit inclusion without being under the "others" section. Please, if you have any problems with this at all, contact me here or on my talk page and I'm sure we can work through our disagreements. -- Pahoran513 23:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't think that Mormons are necessarily outside of the "other evangelical faiths" description included with Protestantism. To have Mormons be seperate under Christianity, we surely must include a long list of other religions, including Quaker, Amish, Pentecostal Snake Handeling, Geeche Baptist, 7th Day Adventists, on and on. I suggest that we include it in under the Protestant category. --
furidoman 12:20, 27 August 2006
I think I agree with john k. Not only do Mormons not consider ourselves Protestant, Protestants don't consider ourselves Protestant. And honestly, I would have no major objections to adding Jehovah's Witnesses or Christian Science to the list--my only reservation is their smaller number of members (which is not to say Mormons are huge--just distinct), and that they are not as famously American. But hey, adding them would not hurt anything. But I do object to Mormons being Protestant--one of our major beliefs is that Protestant faiths, not just the Catholic, have lost God's authority, and a Restoration of that authority was needed. That alone (the beliefs in the errors of Protestantism) should disqualify Mormonism from that classification. -- Pahoran513 16:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)
John, you are right--self-definition alone isn't enough. But there is ample theological evidence and non-Mormon claims to promote Mormonism as a seperate branch of Christianity. In fact, sometimes on Wiki it is hard to even be included as Chritians at all. But we are, and we aren't Protestant. Therefore, unless someone has another opinion or something to say, let us consider this discussion over. -- Pahoran513 05:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
listen Im a Technologysist and I feel the new religion of Technolgysism is being left out. we propably have like not even 0.10% but we are a religion from henderson, colorado. - DV
Humanism is mentioned twice: under Non-religious and then later again.-- Ortho 04:47, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
The assertion that nearly one third of Chinese people are religious is, frankly, bizarre. The adherents.com figure comes from the World Christian Encyclopedia. I don't know how what their methods (or their biases) are, but if nothing else the number seems to depend on a very loose definition of religiousness. I could keep talking, but would have nothing verifiable to say. If the World Christian Encyclopedia is our only source, then I suppose we are stuck with their definition, but it seems very misleading. Pissant 01:31, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Let all the religions on the page be listed as major religions and keep the classical talk as a historical discussion about what people used to think of as major religions (and add the views of others besides Christians, if possible). Population does not always relate to significance - Singapore has a little over 4 million people, yet it is considered a major economic and military power. Similarly, Sikhism, with 22 million people, is a major religion in India (and has a major influence in the country even with 1 billion non-Sikhs, see Indira Gahndi if you want to know more) and, increasingly, the West; while Zorastrianism, with just 150,000 adherents, is considered "major" because of the role it played in theology and the history of the Middle East. The splitting hairs game is silly and arbitrary. -- Goodoldpolonius2 07:38, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
== == new on the scene == ==javascript:insertTags('-- Goodoldpolonius2 00:27, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)',,); Your signature with timestamp
seems to me there's a lot of debate about which religions are major and which are minor. seems to me that's an inherently pov issue that we can never resolve. seems to me that even if we did resolve it, it wouldn't help anything. seems to me if we renamed the page "World religions" this wouldn't be a problem. thoughts? Ungtss 19:26, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)
On what basis is Sikhism the 5th largest religion? Using the link behind the "5th largest number" link Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Budism, Chinese traditional are the biggest 5 with Primal Indigenous also larger. I would concede that Primal Indigenous is a catch all and so 6th largest might stand. I understand that consistency and interpretation of numbers is difficult but the credibilty of this article (especially on the front page) is badly undermined when the number on the front page is at odds with the page it links to and claims as its source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rio Alastair ( talk • contribs)
Goodoldpolonius2: "The good thing about Adherents.com is that they give sources for each number, and they have a rather large database, they don't survey themselves, so the methodology shouldn't be an issue"
Adherants.com: "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)."
my bolding
Adherants.com:"The "Secular/Nonreligious/etc." category is probably the most speculative estimate in this list, as this segment of society is difficult to count. The vast majority in this grouping are not aligned with any kind of membership organization. Most figures come from census and survey data, which most countries conduct only infrequently. "
I think the issue here is one of interpretation. Adherants.com are clearly biased against atheism.
How many atheists? It appears to be a matter of opinion: [1] [2] [3]
See also Atheism#Atheism studies and statistics
I would have hoped that national censuses were up to the task of accurately capturing such statistics accurately, but as noted by adherants.com "Most figures come from census and survey data, which most countries conduct only infrequently". So their other figures do not come from census data? Or, the data is speculative because we don't have annual censuses? I'm not sure that I follow their point.
I think the problem is one of marginalisation of "other" beliefs by governments. For example, in Australia there are 120+ sub-categories for "religious affiliation" recognised by the national census taker, the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Over 80 of these are Christian, the two most popular being Anglican and Catholic. The other 78+ sub-categories of "Christianity" represent the beliefs of 22% of the population. The other major world religions ( Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism etc) only get one sub-category each. That doesn't sound representative to me.
For the 15.5% of Australia's whose religious affiliation is "No Religion", there are just 4 named sub-categories - atheism, agnoticism, rationalism and Humanism (belief system). The 5th sub-category is No Religion nfd (nfd = no further definiton). The ABS do not provide a break-down of these figures, so Australian society cannot rely on its own government to tell them how many Australians are atheist, rationalist etc. All we get is one grand total for the nonreligous. That doesn't sound fair to me.
I'm curious to hear what the experience of people is around the world. What explicit choices do you get on your census form. There's usually an "Other" category, so how many religious affiliations does your government census taker recognise (they usually have something called a census dictionary)? Once they have the figures, does your government treat the nonreligious and religious figures equitably? That is, do you know how many people fit in each of the nonreligous sub-categories?
-- Couttsie 23:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I only raise the question of atheist numbers here to draw attention to the lack of credibility of adherants.com as an unbiased source of information relating to statistics for the nonreligous. Thanks for your comments, which I agree with. -- Couttsie 00:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
Humanism is an organised belief system (the wider meaning of religion), with the IHEU as the world body, the Amsterdam Declaration as its official statement of principles, and the Happy Human as a world recognised symbol of Humanism.
Thus, the second half of the article is unduly biased towards the theistic religions, especially when one considers that the non-theistic believers (including Humanists) rank 3rd in the world by numbers - as per the first half of the article (which is not so biased). -- Couttsie 04:45, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
would atheism be considered a religion, a belief, or something else? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.221.168.245 ( talk • contribs) .
Even though an overwhelming number of people are atheist/humanist/whatever (over 1 billion), this is no case to include them. As per the above example, just because there are an overwhelming amount of "non-computer users" doesn't mean we list them. To genericize even further, it's like listing how many people have 12 toes and putting "Twelve toed people — 1" and then "non-twelve toed people — 6.49999 billion"... it just makes no sense to include irrelevent adherences — OL P 1999 06:09, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
Of course atheism should be on the list. While it may not be a religion, it does represent the way many millions of people believe (or don't). They should completely remain on the list. -- Pahoran513 17:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
I've added a reference to Religious_pluralism because I think relationships between the world religions are a subject that many people who come to this page are looking for. By the way, the article currently named "Religious pluralism" needs a lot of improvement, so hey guys, you who know about religions, come on over and write what you know about the relationships between them.-- Robin.rueth 15:15, 7 October 2005 (UTC)
I have created Interreligious relations (see comments on talk page), and Women as theological figures - additions welcome. Jackiespeel 21:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I just went and took a look at the religious pluralism article. It seems approximately totally irrelevant to the topic of this one. I see no justification for referencing it here, and certainly no justification for referencing it in the introduction section. — Wookipedian 16:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
Quite a few people seem to have problems with the data from adherents.com, and i don't feel right using a website as a primary source. Would it be possible to get a second, more-trusted source for the population data? - ℘yrop (talk) 21:23, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
As not everyone is happy with adherents.com as a primary source I almost hestitate to mention this, but I prepared my own version of their 2005 pie chart of world religions. Their original is a bit untidy and in my opinion it is cluttered with too much text on the chart itself. I don't know whether creating a new pie chart from the figures means the copyright would still belong to adherents.com. Probably there are Wikipedians who would know the answer straight off. If the derived Major World Religions pie chart is of interest, please let me know and I'll upload it somewhere for a preview. -- Bookish 22:16, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Can someone please explain to me what are the characteristics of this category? Is this what they call themselves? Or if someone else groups them thusly, who does so, and what are the diagnostic traits? Otherwise, why should these not be counted as "other"? Timothy Usher 07:16, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
From the looks of the history of this article, I'm probably jumping right into an on-going edit war, but this article really needs consistency in its era notations. All religions listed are currently followed by BCE/CE terminology except for Christianity and Islam, which both say AD. I also noticed that they have been going back and forth between AD and CE through constant reverts. Have editors of this page ever come to any sort of agreement on these terms? Although there is not officially a policy favoring one era notation over another, the guidelines do call for consistency within articles. As the majority currently being used in this article is BCE/CE, it seems as though the others should be changed (and kept) to reflect this.
rom
a
rin
talk to her ]
21:00, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
Good compromise, for now, to put them both. I know some people are against writing BC/BCE and AD/CE, but I think that in this particular context, it's better to do so than to fight over which one should go in the article.
rom
a
rin
talk to her ]
17:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
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This page quotes the number of Buddhists as 324,000,000, while the page Religion in China
[6] quotes 1 billion (80%), apparently arbitrarily picking this figure from the "Surveys" that "have found that about 30% to 91% identify with Buddhism as one of their religions."
[7]
Which puts the number between 1.1 and 1.7 billion, it would seem from what I have read that 324 million is too low and 1 billion is too large, while I don't recommend a figure between these is simply guessed, it would be useful to have the two figures the same. I only mention this because I quoted both figures in the same document, very nearly causing embarrassment. Not quite sure how this Talk section works so apologies if this ends up in the wrong place. == Number of Buddhist Adherents == The number of Buddhist followers on the article is estimated to be "250 million". This is ignoring the number of chinese buddhists which number at "More recent surveys put the total number of Chinese Buddhists between 660 million (50%) and over 1 billion (80%)" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bodhidhamma ( talk • contribs) 18:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC) |
Last edited at 18:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC). Substituted at 21:19, 3 May 2016 (UTC)