Elonka wrote:
] ] Christianity: 2 billion
] ] Islam: 1.3 billion
] ] Hinduism: 900 million
] ] Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million
] ] Buddhism: 360 million
] ] Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
] ] primal-indigenous: 150 million
] ] African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million
] ] Sikhism: 23 million
] ] Juche: 19 million
] ] Spiritism: 14 million
] ] Judaism: 14 million
] ] Baha'i: 6 million
] ] Jainism: 4 million
] ] Shinto: 4 million
]
] When reading these statistics, the number I found most
] surprising was the relative tininess of the world's Jewish
] population (14 million) in comparison with other major world
] religions (1 billion-plus). For some reason I'd thought it
] was a larger religion, perhaps because I know so many people
] of that faith. It made more sense as I dug deeper though,
] since approximately half of the world's Jews (about 6 million)
] live in the U.S., half in Israel, and the next largest
] percentage is listed simply as "Europe".

This is not a number which is surprising at all. While the US jewish population is the highest oiutside Israel, that comes up for two reasons. 1) The history of anti-semitic pogroms throughout Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and 2) Hitler's Germany wiping out as much of it in Europe as possible, and the subsequent formation of Israel as a haven for the survivors. Millions of the remaining Jews from other countries (especially the USSR) swelled Israel's population while dropping the proportions in every other country.

]
] It puts some of the conflicts in the Middle East into a
] different perspective for me though. That the world's first
] two largest religions, Christianity and Islam, should seem to
] be so distracted -- even obsessed -- with a religion that is
] 1% of their size.
]

This is again not surprising. Although hardline adherants to either Islam or Christianity would be loathe to hear it, both religions have their roots in Judaism. Fundamentalists in both groups see Jews as unrepentant heretics, and their focus is not at all surprising. What IS surprising is that Jews don't see those other groups in the same sort of light, and don't spend all their time trying to figure out how to blow up mosques and churches with the same fervency that fundamentalist Muslims and Christians figure out ways to blow up synagogues.

]
] I also found interesting the listed quantity of non-religious
] people in the world, 850 million. Though it's worth keeping
] in mind that the number is probably somewhat skewed by the
] state-enforced atheism of China's 1+ billion inhabitants.
] With China included in the numbers, the world's population
] breaks down to about 80-85% religious, 15-20% atheist.
] Removing China from the mix though, a more common percentage
] around the world seems to be 97% religious, 3% non-religious.
] Perhaps 90-10, depending how agnostics are categorized.

I hate to say this, but this looks like you're skewing the numbers to conform to a preconceived view. Removing China from the mix does not support those numbers at all, and it is even noted in the text that China may only be swelling the non-religious number by 250 million, with the remainder of the 1+ billion population falling into Buddhism, Confucianism and a number of smaller sub groups. Removing China from the mix shrinks the entire pie substantially, and comes no where near supporting either the 15-20% atheist with China number, nor the 97% number without, given.

Furthermore, there may be skewing in the numbers based on how they are determined. As an example, what percentage of the US is considered religious vs non-religious? The commentary given this morning on This Week (ABC) considers about 2/3 of the US is considered religious, and their standard was if you had gone to church in the past month. They didn't give a number, but were commenting that the numbers for Western Europe were much lower. Those statistics don't match up with what is listed on Adherents.com, giving numbers closer to 6/7 are considered religious there, so which set of numbers is correct? Are BOTH correct based on different criteria? Which set is more valid for determining which numbers are more significant?

I think about the only safe thing to say about any of this is, more people have been killed in the name of "God," whichever one(s) happen to be in vogue at the moment, than for any other reason.

RE: Major Religions Ranked by Size