Elonka wrote:
] Mike the Usurper wrote:
] ] Elonka wrote:
] ] ] 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.
]
] Heh, *you* accusing *me* of a preconceived view makes me
] giggle. ;)
]
] Anyway, care for another source?
]
] From the 2005 New York Times Almanac, page 486, section
] "Nonreligious and Atheists":
]
] An estimated 887 million people (15 percent of the world's
] population) profess no religion, are agnostic or are
] indifferent to religion. Another 222 million people (4
] percent) are declared atheists who do not believe in God. More
] than three-quarters (852 million) of these nonreligious and
] atheists live in China, where religious observance is sharply
] curtailed by the government. An estimated 12 percent of people
] in Europe are nonreligious, compared with 9.8 percent in
] Oceania, 7.2 percent in North America, and 3.3 percent in
] Latin America.

So basically what that means is out of China's roughly 1.2 billion people, 80% don't have a declared religion, or rather do, but their declaration is state orthodoxy and probably be considered dubious. Removing China from the mix gives a rouch world population in the area of 4.25-4.5 billion, with approximately 250 million of those not having a preference or atheist. That gets us 1/17-1/18 or 5-6%.

That still leaves the question open however, what is the criteria? What qualifies them one way as opposed to another? There's an old saying, numbers lie. Stack on top of that what we know about polls, and now we have some serious questions.

What does "religious" mean?

RE: Major Religions Ranked by Size