JUST SAY NO TO RELIGION

Major Religions of the World
Ranked by Number of Adherents

Source:  www.adherents.com

(Sizes shown are approximate estimates, and are here mainly for the purpose of ordering the groups, not providing a definitive number. This list is sociological/statistical in perspective.)

1. Christianity: 2.1 billion
2. Islam: 1.3 billion
3. Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion
4. Hinduism: 900 million
5. Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
6. Buddhism: 376 million
7. primal-indigenous: 300 million
8. African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
9. Sikhism: 23 million
10. Juche: 19 million
11. Spiritism: 15 million
12. Judaism: 14 million
13. Baha’i: 7 million
14. Jainism: 4.2 million
15. Shinto: 4 million
16. Cao Dai: 4 million
17. Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
18. Tenrikyo: 2 million
19. Neo-Paganism: 1 million
20. Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
21. Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
22. Scientology: 500 thousand

Introduction
The adherent counts presented in the list above are current estimates of the number of people who have at least a minimal level of self-identification as adherents of the religion. Levels of participation vary within all groups. These numbers tend toward the high end of reasonable worldwide estimates. Valid arguments can be made for different figures, but if the same criteria are used for all groups, the relative order should be the same. Further details and sources are available below and in the Adherents.com main database.

A major source for these estimates is the detailed country-by-country analysis done by David B. Barrett’s religious statistics organization, whose data are published in the Encyclopedia Britannica (including annual updates and yearbooks) and also in the World Christian Encyclopedia (the latest edition of which – published in 2001 – has been consulted). Hundreds of additional sources providing more thorough and detailed research about individual religious groups have also been consulted.

This listing is not a comprehensive list of all religions, only the “major” ones (as defined below). There are distinct religions other than the ones listed above. But this list accounts for the religions of over 98% of the world’s population. Below are listed some religions which are not in this listing (Mandeans, PL Kyodan, Ch’ondogyo, Vodoun, New Age, Seicho-No-Ie, Falun Dafa/Falun Gong, Taoism, Roma), along with explanations for why they do not qualify as “major world religions” on this list.

This world religions listing is derived from the statistics data in the Adherents.com database. The list was created by the same people who collected and organized this database, in consultation with university professors of comparative religions and scholars from different religions. We invite additional input. The Adherents.com collection of religious adherent statistics now has over 43,000 adherent statistic citations, for over 4,300 different faith groups, covering all countries of the world. This is not an absolutely exhaustive compilation of all such data, but it is by far the largest compilation available on the Internet. Various academic researchers and religious representatives regularly share documented adherent statistics with Adherents.com so that their information can be available in a centralized database.

Statistics and geography citations for religions not on this list, as well as subgroups within these religions (such as Catholics, Protestants, Karaites, Wiccans, Shiites, etc.) can be found in the main Adherents.com database.

This document is divided into the following sections:

Alternative summary listings of major world religions and numbers of adherents:

• Christian Science Monitor (1998): Top 10 Organized Religions in the World
• Encyclopedia Britannica’s Adherents of All Religions by Six Continents
• Tigerx.com’s Top 10 Religions – A casual but insightful attempt divided along the lines of functional religious cultures rather than classical categorization
• Minnesota State University’s “Religions of the World” website lists the “world’s six major religions” as: Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Animism, Christianity and Hinduism. Read the site’s introduction (from: http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/ religion/) here

The Classical World Religions List

There are twelve classical world religions. This is the list of religions described most often in surveys of the subject, and studied in World Religion classes (some of them more for historical rather than contemporary reasons):

• Baha’i
• Buddhism
• Christianity
• Confucianism
• Hinduism
• Islam
• Jainism
• Judaism
• Shinto
• Sikhism
• Taoism
• Zoroastrianism

The “World’s Major Religions” list published in the New York Public Library Student’s Desk Reference is typical of world religion lists which are functionally-oriented, yet still strongly classical (New York: Prentice Hall, 1993; pg. 271):

• Baha’i
• Buddhism
• Confucianism
• Hinduism
• Islam
• Judaism
• Orthodox Eastern Church
• Protestantism
• Catholicism
• Shinto
• Taoism

In modern Western thought, the first writers to divide the world into “world religions” were Christians. Originally, three religions were recognized: Christians, Jews and pagans (i.e., everybody else).

After many centuries, with the increased Western awareness of Eastern history and philosophy, and the development of Islam, other religions were added to the list. Many Far Eastern ways of thought, in fact, were given the status of “world religion” while equally advanced religious cultures in technologically less developed or pre-literate societies (such as in Australia, Africa, South America, and Polynesia) were grouped together as pagans or “animists,” regardless of their actual theology. It’s true that by the standards applied at the time, the Far Eastern religions Westerners encountered were often in a different category altogether than the religions they classified as pagan. One can not directly compare, for example, the local beliefs of the Polynesian islands of Kiribati during the 1500s to the organizational, political, literary and philosophical sophistication of Chinese Taoism during the same period. But one could certainly question whether Japanese Shintoism, as an official “world religion”, was theologically or spiritually more “advanced” than African Yoruba religion, which was classified simply as animism or paganism.

During the 1800s comparative religion scholars increasingly recognized Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism as the most significant “world religions.” Even today, these are considered the “Big Five” and are the religions most likely to be covered in world religion books.

Five smaller or more localized religions/philosophies brought the list of world religions to ten: Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism, Shinto and Zoroastrianism.

Beginning around 1900 comparative religion writers in England began to take note of the Sikhs which had begun to immigrate there from India (part of the British Empire at the time). Sikhs, if mentioned at all, had been classified as a sect of Hinduism during the first three hundred years of their history. But after the influential British writers began to classify Sikhism as a distinct, major world religion, the rest of the world soon followed their example.

Baha’is are the most recent entrant to the “Classical” list. The religion is only about 150 years old. On their official website, Baha’is claim 5 million adherents worldwide, established in 235 countries and territories throughout the world. While most comparative religion textbooks produced during this century either ignore them or group them as a Muslim sect, the most recent books give them separate status and often their own chapter. Baha’is have achieved this status partially through their worldwide geographical spread and increasing numbers, and partially by constantly insisting that they are indeed the “newest world religion.”

The Adherents.com “Major Religions” list presented on this web page differs from classical lists because it draws more from an extremely large body of contemporary affiliation data, rather than relying heavily on the lists and texts of past commentators (Hudson Smith, Noss, Barrett, etc.).

There are many distinct religions or religious movements which have more adherents than some of the classical world religions, but which are not part of the classical list for various reasons. These reasons include:

• the religions which are not included on the classical list are too new (Scientology, Neo-Paganism)
• they are concentrated in only one country (Cao Dai, Ch’ondogyo, Tenrikyo)
• they lack identifiable central organizations or unifying scriptural literature (Neo-Paganism, New Age, Spiritism)
• their adherents primarily name a different, more established traditional religion as their religious preference (most practitioners of Vodoun are nominal Catholics, practitioners of New Age religions are often nominally Protestant, Catholic or Jewish)
• their religion is still strongly associated with a major religion from which it arose, but no longer wishes to be an official part of (Tenrikyo and many other Japanese New Religious Movements, as well as many religions emerging from Indian/Hindu environments)

Parameters of this List

In order to rank religions by size, two parameters must be defined:

1. What constitutes a “religion”?
2. How is “size” determined?

With a working definition of “a religion” and a method for measuring size, criteria for what constitutes a “major” religion must be determined, otherwise this list could be impractically inclusive and long.

“Major religions”, for the purposes of this list, are:

• Large – at least 500,000 adherents
• Widespread – appreciable numbers of members live and worship in more than just one country or limited region
• Independent – the religion is clearly independent and distinct from a broader religion

What is a “religion” for the purposes of this list?

There are countless definitions of religion. But only one can be used in making a ranked list.

We are using the groupings most described used in contemporary comparative religion literature (listed above). Each of these “world religions” is actually a classification of multiple distinct movements, sects, divisions, denominations, etc. None of these world religions is a single, unified, monolithic organization. The diversity within these groupings varies. Hinduism is often described as a collection very different traditions, bound by a geographical and national identity. So broad is this religious “umbrella” that it includes clearly polytheistic, tritheistic, monotheistic, pantheistic, nontheistic, and atheistic traditions.

The Babi & Baha’i tradition, on the other hand, is probably the most unified of the classical world religions. It is almost entirely contained within one very organized, hierarchical denomination, the Bahai Faith, based in Haifa, Israel. But there are small schismatic groups, such as the Arizona-based “Orthodox” Baha’is, Azali Babis (probably defunct), and four or five others.

All adherents of a single religion usually share at least some commonalities, such as a common historical heritage and some shared doctrines or practices. But these rules can’t be pushed too far before being overburdened by exceptions. A listing of doctrinally and organizationally meaningful divisions or denominational “branches” (such as Catholic, Eastern/Orthodox Christian, Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, Evangelical Christian, Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, etc.) would clearly be useful, but that is the subject of a different list: Major Branches of Major World Religions.

In the following list the classical world religions are listed with the most cohesive/unified groups first, and the religions with the most internal religious diversity last. This list is based primarily on the degree of doctrinal/theological similarity among all the various sub-groups which belong to these classifications, and to a lesser extent based on diversity in practice, ritual and organization. (Obviously these classifications include both majority manifestations of these religions, as well as subgroups which larger branches sometimes label “heterodox.”)

Classical World Religions Ranked by Internal Religious Similarity:
Most Unified to Most Diverse

1. Baha’i
2. Zoroastrianism
3. Sikhism
4. Islam
5. Jainism
6. Judaism
7. Taoism
8. Shinto
9. Christianity
10. Buddhism
11. Hinduism

No “value judgement” is implied by this list. There are adjectives with both positive and negative connotations which describe both ends of this spectrum. From an academic, comparative religions viewpoint, there is no basis for “prescribing” whether it is better for a religion to be highly unified, cohesive, monolithic, and lacking in internal religious diversity, or whether it is better to be fragmented, schismatic, diverse, multifaceted and abounding in variations on the same theme.

In a practical sense, most people actually practice only one form of whatever religion they belong to. Buddhism, for example, if viewed as a whole, can be understood to have a large amount of internal variation, including the Theravada and Mahayana branches, all of their sub-schools, various revivalist sects, as well as Tibetan and modern Western forms. But most actual Buddhists are not actually involved in all of these; rather they practice one, internally cohesive, fairly unified form, such as the Geluk order of Tibetan Buddhism, or Japanese Amida-Buddha worship.

How is classification done for official government figures? It is important to note that data for the size of various religions within a given country often come from government census figures or official estimates. Such governmental endeavors are interested primarily in physical population demographics, such as how many people live in a household and how many telephones there are per person. These studies are not theological treatises. They merely classify Hindus as all people who call themselves Hindu, Muslims as all people who call themselves Muslim, Christians as all people who call themselves Christian.

From a sociological and historical perspective, most religions have arisen from within existing religious frameworks: Christianity from Judaism, Buddhism from Hinduism, Babi & Baha’i faiths from Islam, etc. For the purposes of defining a religion we need to have some cutoff point. Should Sikhism be listed as a Hindu sect (as in many older textbooks), or a world religion in its own right?

To manage this question we have chosen once again to use the most commonly-recognized divisions in comparative religion texts. These definitions are primarily sociological and historical, NOT doctrinal or theological in nature.

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