What are the most popular religions?
by David K. on Mar.04, 2009, under Faith, Follow
- Image by *Muhammad* via Flickr
Ever wonder how many people practice a given religion? As you would suspect since it is private and not every culture is as tolerant as the US and not ever country has a sophisticated census, here are some of the basic religious member rates around the planet. The summary table below also is a quick reference on the high level beliefs, the date the religion start (as best can be told) and the trends. This was put together from multiple sources – census data and websites.
| Religion | Date Founded | Sacred Documents/Texts | Membership 5 | % of World/Trend |
| Christianity | 30 CE | Bible | 2,039 million | 32% (In decline) |
| Islam | 622 CE | Qur’an & Hadith | 1,226 million | 19% (growth) |
| Hinduism | 1500 BCE | Bhagavad-Gita, Upanishads, & Rig Veda |
828 million | 13% (flat) |
| Chinese folk | 270 BCE | Local/None | 390 million | 6% |
| Buddhism | 523 BCE | The Tripitaka & Sutras | 364 million | 6% (flat) |
| Tribal Religions, Shamanism, Animism | Prehistory | Oral tradition/Storytelling | 232 million | 4% |
| Atheists | Skeptics have always existed | None | 150 million | 2% |
| Sikhism | 1500 CE | Guru Granth Sahib | 23.8 million | <1% |
| Judaism | 4000 BCE | Torah, Tanach, & Talmud |
14.5 million | <1% |
| Baha’i Faith | 1863 CE | Alkitab Alaqdas | 7.4 million | <1% |
| Confucianism | 520 BCE | Lun Yu | 6.3 million | <1% |
| Jainism | 570 BCE | Siddhanta, Pakrit | 4.3 million | <1% |
| Zoroastrianism | 600 to 6000 BCE | Avesta | 2.7 million | <1% |
| Shinto | 500 CE | Kojiki, Nohon Shoki | 2.7 million | <1% |
| Taoism | 550 BCE | Tao-te-Ching | 2.7 million | <1% |
| Wicca | 800 BCE, 1940 CE | None | 0.5 million – best guess | <1% |
Here is another view – which shows a different cut.
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