A World of Religion

By on March 31, 2012 in News 30

In honour of the recent “world’s largest” gathering of atheists in Washington D.C, a reminder of their place in the great scheme of things — there are less than 150 million of them at last global count:

Religion

Still beats the Wiccans, Bahai’i and Yazidis combined. On the other hand, secularism (separation of church and state) counts as 1.1 billion.

Reference: ‘Graphic: A demographic breakdown of the world of religion‘, National Post, 23 March 2012

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  • Malk

    I want to see a frequency map of countries that engage in war laid over this one =o

    • Malk

       ?? I only clicked post as once…??

  • Monkey See Monkey Do

    Doesn’t leave much room for people who aren’t religious, atheist or agnostic. I guess we dont fit into their nice little categories.

    • Antediluvian

      First world problems

      • Monkey See Monkey Do

        Categorization and labelling are world wide problems.

    • cakeypig

       Follow the link and you will find a much nicer graphic than the one above, and it includes ‘Secular / Irreligious / Agnostic / Atheist.’

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    most people get assigned a religion
    the same way they get assigned nationality
    which seems to be the case with this chart
    therefore
    since China’s Communist government is Atheistic
    the number of atheists should increase by about 1.4 billion

    the fact that anyone has to point out the ubiquity of religion
    shows that it is already passing away
    Praise Jebus!

    • http://www.facebook.com/cees.timmerman Cees Timmerman

      I thought they were Maoists.

      • Jin The Ninja

         maoism=/= religious institution or a spiritual doctrine. it is a socio-economic system.

        • http://www.facebook.com/cees.timmerman Cees Timmerman

          I suppose the unquestioning flattery and praise doesn’t go as far as to claim him to be superhuman, so Maoism is just a personality cult, not a religion.

          • Jin The Ninja

            it’s not even a personality cult now. not since deng xiao ping’s reforms in the 1980s.

          • Hadrian999

             it’s no more a religion than washingtonism or lincolnism are. tradition isn’t the same as religion

  • Haystack

    We’re rare and precious. 

  • Jin The Ninja

    one of the worst summaries and catagorisations of global religion i’ve ever seen. (yet) another embarassment brought to you from the national post.

  • Test

    they need to split USA by states

    • Jin The Ninja

      why?

      • JaceD

        Because the USA is far more important than the rest of the world and it needs a much more detailed explanation of itself.

  • Redacted

    What about the Religions that don’t actually have a deity?

    • Jin The Ninja

      in all honesty, i can’t think of any (?) it’s more in degrees of personification. some are very esoteric/abstract in their conception of the divine, some envision a very human figure, but this list is very lacking…so…

      • Redacted

        Good point. I was thinking of some of the eastern religions, but I suppose even the most abstract of them still have a creator being somewhere.

        • Jin The Ninja

          daoism though does lend itself extraordinarily well to an evolutionary scientific paradigm(genesis of the planet), but folk daoism has lots of lesser ‘shen’ /spirits and intellectual daoism refers to ‘she’ although it’s not necessarily a creatrix, more of a gaianist/pantheist structure of the universe.

          • Redacted

            Incredible. You knew exactly what I referred to.

            As for Taoism, I bend my knee before you. It is an idea that intrigues me, but I know nothing of it.

          • Jin The Ninja

            i can tell you that daoism, as a practice, is or is analoguous to an indigenous chinese shamanism in the way of tengriism or bon/ the philosophical aspects of it are highly intellectual at least on par with any of the greeks or romans. there isn’t really an adequate way to describe it, because it’s dogma is unstructured, can be paired with buddhism and/or folk practices very readily, and only requires a very minimal belief (if any) in god-heads, focused on a holistic intuitive morality. chinese medicine is also based on daoist ideas of the body. generally divided into a ‘folk’ practice and an ‘intellectual’ practice, but in reality most daoists are also buddhists, and most believe in both elements of daoism. cultivation of skills (manual, literary/artistic, spiritual) is considered very important. it’s highly eco-centric, using the natural world to describe both internal mechanisms and metaphysical ideas. it’s also very ‘anarchist’ politically in nature. most chinese period fantasy films explore daoist mythology  i.e. storm riders, bride with the white hair, warriors of zu mountain, come drink with me, dance of the drunken mantis, shaolin executioners. water margin (also a novel/tv series). ‘they’ say george lucas used daoism as the real world influence for jedi religion, but it’s a poor example b/c the polarisation between good and evil is not very daoist. sorry for the lengthy post, i don’t know if your above was an invitation to my longwindedness or not:P

  • http://buzzcoastin.posterous.com BuzzCoastin

    upon further reflection
    what really amazes me about this is
    it’s now the 21st century
    we have whizzbang gizmos and mind boggling scientific discoveries
    and according to this chart
    most of the world believes fervently in imaginary super-beings
    who are F-ing with humans for no better reason than
    imaginary super-beings like to F with humans

    delusional, irrational beliefs are some of the root causes of humanities problems

  • DeepCough

    I find the “average” rating of the U.S. extremely suspect considering certain political movements.

  • http://twitter.com/MiGaOh Michael G. O’Hair

    In ho-newer of

  • http://www.facebook.com/TheJakeyl Jacob Newton

    No, its because of people like you, who have this delusional super-being bullshit that your all stuck on.  Its like an inside joke to you people, sure it might make you feel smart and seem REALLY super smart to your same simple minded scientific friends (as some scientists are now realizing these people are not scientists at all, they are just mere deniers and its not even real skepticism!)

    Your fairy tale response has been used by every atheist and self-described intellect out there. 

    I was in those shoes about 10 years ago, but one day you’ll grow up and realize your not super smart, or a know-it-all and there is far more to this world and when you see science coming around and proving the basics of spirituality with science, you’ll finally admit that science and spirituality are one and the same.  Its just the nature of reality. 

    So you can hang on to your super-beings and fairy tales all you want, you just make yourself look small and shallow, and under direct control and manipulation of “SCIENCE”, wake up for once and use your own mind.  They’ve tricked you into all this to make you feel like a true individual and an intelligent being when its nothing more than a mind trap.

  • Gregory Wyrdmaven

    There are also 150 million mentally ill people on the planet.  Oh wait…I’m being redundant.

    In other news, 150 million fish in the ocean do not believe in salt water.

    Both groups are in my “softly spoken magic spells”

    Fiat lux

  • esprit23

    Religions are not ‘evil’ in themselves. In fact, compassion and tolerance towards humanity constitute the core of most religious teachings. Followers who override authentic religious practice with what may be their ‘superiority complex’ have issues. Religion is not a problem. Intolerance is.

  • Markuskylberg

    That map is really confusing. How is the USA “average”? Last i checked some 90% of americans were christian, most republican presidential candidates deny evolution, and not being a christian basically disqualifies one from the presidential race. I would give USA a much darker color.