Religion
A religion is a system of beliefs that asserts the existence of at least one of:
- a human soul or spirit,
- a deity or "higher being", or
- the continuation of the self after the death of one's body.
As an uncountable noun, religion is a "way of living" or the set of customs or rituals that follows from such beliefs.
It is notoriously difficult to define what does and does not constitute a religion, due to the sheer variety of human religious beliefs and practices. Taoism and Confucianism, for instance, are sometimes described as philosophies rather than religions.
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Classification
Many religions are subdivided into sects or denominations, resulting in a huge number of labels for the religious to choose from. The major world religions are typically, however, divided into three large groups:
- Abrahamic religions
- including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
- Dharmic religions
- including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, and sometimes Zoroastrianism (historical precursors of Dharmic religion can be found in Vedic religion)
- Taoic religions
- including Taoism, Confucianism, Jeung San Do, Shinto, Yiguandao, Chondogyo, Chen Tao, Caodaism
Largest world religions
According to 2005 data collected by Adherents.com, the religious traditions with the most "adherents" around the world (including traditions outside of the three major divisions listed above) are:
- Christianity (2.1 billion)
- Islam (1.3 billion)
- Non-religious, including secularism, atheism, agnosticism and nontheism (1.1 billion)
- Hinduism (900 million)
- Chinese folk religion (394 million)
- Buddhism (376 million)
- Primal indigenous or "pagan" (300 million)
- African traditional and diasporic (100 million)
- Sikhism (23 million)
- Juche (19 million)
- Spiritism (15 million)
- Judaism (14 million)
- Bahá'í Faith (7 million)
- Jehovah's Witnesses (6.5 million)
- Jainism (4.2 million)
- Shinto {4 million)
- Cao Dai (4 million)
- Zoroastrianism (2.6 million)
- Tenrikyo (2 million)
- Neo-Paganism (1 million)
- Unitarian Universalism (800,000)
- Rastafari movement (600,000)
Major approaches to religion
Other belief systems
(This list is being merged into the one above. Stand By...)
- Animism
- Binitarianism
- Duotheism
- Esotericism
- Gnosticism
- Humanism
- Ignosticism
- Monism
- Nondualism
- Thelema
- Theopanism
- Theosophy
External links
- adherents.com - This site attempts to track numbers of members of different religions, both in the US and abroad.
- American Religious Identification Survey
