Present day religious adherence and trends
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
M
ahatma
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."
UNIT 2.
WORLD RELIGIONS
TEXT 1
Diversity in perception
W hile reading the text pay attention to the following questions:
What are the main religions in the world and in what countries are they practiced?
What did the environmentalists blame biblical tradition for?
World View
Each group of people has from the very beginning of civilization and regardless of time or location seen the need to evolve what is called a world view: a world view is a culture's orientation towards God, humanity, nature, the universe, life, death, sickness, and other philosophical issues that influence how we see our world. Religion is but one kind of world view, and even the person who says there is no God has answers to the large questions about life and death and what really matters.