How many people believe what...

[Queeaqueg]

I read somewhere:
"Faith is dying in the world, there are more atheists than there are religious believers"
Of course, I went out to show that is wrong.

This is what I got. I have done my own research and this is what I came up with:
Christian(Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentecostal, Anglican, Monophysite, AICs, Latter-day Saints, Evangelicals, SDAs, Jehovahs, Quakers, AOGs and Nominal) - 2.1 Billion
Islam - 1.3 Billion
None Religious/Atheism(Agnostic, Humanist, people answering 'none'. This group also includes Theist, deist, spiritual people who don't conform to a religion - 1.1 Billion
Hinduism: 900 million
Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
Buddhism: 376 million
Primal-indigenous: 300 million
African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
Sikhism: 23 million
Juche: 19 million
Spiritism: 15 million
Judaism: 14 million
Baha'i: 7 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 thousand
Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
Scientology: 500 thousand

The strange thing that in the 'None Relgious' part only a few are atheists and non-religious(People who specify atheism as their religious preference actually make up less than one-half of one percent of the population in many countries where much large numbers claim no religious preference).

Many are theist, deists and Spiritual, yet don't confrom with any religion. What I read was that many who say they have no religion but yet have a belief in something spirtual. Others in the list didn't really care.

I think the miskate that people make is that Atheism leads to having no belief or not being part of a religion means you have no belief. You can still be atheist and have spiritual beliefs and you can have belief with conforming within a religion(like me). As it said up there, many theists, deists and spiritual people come under 'None Reigion' but simply don't confrom with that religion.
In the end, though, add up all the those religious believes plus those who have beliefs but don't confrom to religion, it shows that statement is incorrect in a way.

[ur-monkey]

I don't think it's faith per se that is dying. Maybe faith in dogmatic religious credos...

I agree that 'non-religious' shouldn't mislead people into thinking that that means 'non-faith'. I'm not religious but I do have spiritual beliefs, and I'm sure that goes for a load of those 1.1 billion you mentioned.

Maybe religion is an immature phase in human spirituality that we're slowly growing out of, and what we're experiencing at the moment are some serious growing pains!

PS - II've heard many times that Buddhists (and possibly some of the other religions listed, I'm no expert) don't really think of themselves as a religion...

[Holsety]

PS - II've heard many times that Buddhists (and possibly some of the other religions listed, I'm no expert) don't really think of themselves as a religion...

I'm not really sure how they think of themselves. I think if you look at different kinds of buddhism....Mahayana buddhism, which believes in gods, bodhisattvas, etc and IIRC that most people need to rely on a religious structure to reach the state of nirvana, IMO could be considered a "religion".

Theravada Buddhism, which is based on the core teachings of buddha - the 4 noble truths and the 8-fold path - lays out a path to reach enlightenment (have the right views, right attitude, etc, lose desires) and little else. It's closer to a philosophy than our understanding of a religion.

At the same time, I'd ask what exactly a religion is. Theravada still had political, social and economic influences when it was popular in india, created a larger community, and had missionaries and such to spread their way to others. Most importantly, it attempted to expound and spread spiritual truths. The most unusual thing about it is that it's "nontheist" (that is, in its most basic form it ignores the question of god), but that's just unusual, not necessarily a reason to say it isn't a religion.

[balon!]

I always think of a religion as worshiping a higher power than humanity. If you have a "religion" that just offers a thinking then it's really more like a way of life.

As for me? I try not think about it too much.

[Avatar]

An interesting side-line to this of course is the question of why people are convinced that "faith is dying"?

Sure, I'll agree that there are more people than ever before who feel, or admit to feeling, disassociated from the tenets and dogmas of faith, but is that growth in faithlessness matched by a decline in faith?

An interesting distinction Holsety draws between different Buddhist disciplines too I think. I tend to think of it more as a philosophy, but as he rightly points out, that is simply one school of thought. *shrug*

Personally, I can't feel in any way lessened by a growth in "faithlessness." Quite the opposite really, I'm encouraged by it, but then, that is just my own atheistic bias coming out.

I think the less people depend on god to fix things, the more chance there is of us actually getting together and fixing them ourselves. *shrug*

Why should man seek justice in a universe which is manifestly unjust? Are we so insignificant and vain that we cannot look upon the raw, naked face of randomness without praying it will smile upon us merely because we have been righteous and good?

--A

[Prebe]

I think the less people depend on god to fix things, the more chance there is of us actually getting together and fixing them ourselves.

I'm not quite sure I agree with you. Not unless the lack of faith is balanced by increased knowledge. Presence of faith can make people bond to achieve many positive things, because (luckily) many religious ideas are conceived to work for the benefit of man.

Good deeds done for the fear of god/hope of reward rather than for more rational reasons, remain good deeds none the less. Of course, as an atheist, I would prefer that the actions were taken on a more rational basis, but what are you gonna do?

[Avatar]

True enough that good deeds remain good deeds, regardless of motivation.

Perhaps it's simply the continual conflict that seems to surround these issues that makes me feel that way, or perhaps it's the idea that god disposes, that makes me sceptical of it.

As for them working for the benefit of man though, I fear that the problem lies in the apparent feeling that they are to work for the benefit of some particular people only, rather than all of mankind.

--A

[Prebe]

...the apparent feeling that they are to work for the benefit of some particular people only, rather than all of mankind.

Absolutely agree. But this becomes extreme when you have atheishm in a non-enlightened population where whatever done is done only for the benefit of one, namely the individual.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, that in a transitional fase an intellectually underdeveloped country/region/population will be better served by the cohesion religion creates than by complete lack of faith.

The ultimate result one would hope for, was to acheive the enlightenment of secular humanism: the point where you realise that there is a very real benefit to you and your loved ones by helping your fellow man.

[Avatar]

Sure. But there must be a transitional phase as you said. And at some point that phase will be between the faith-based initiative and the secular humanism that we'd like.

We're not going to switch from one to the other instantly.

--A

[Tjol]

I don't think faith is dying, so much as being forgotten. People are not turning away from faith, but rather, are letting faith slide down the priorities list. When priorities change, there may be only figments left in many people's memories, and they'll have to go back to rediscovering all the knowledge that once was commonplace. But I think it's more a matter of priorities than it is a matter of people trading metaphysical faith for secular humanism. People polled would be just as disinterested in the term secular humanism as they would be about faith.

[Avatar]

I don't think there's that much difference between the two terms. It's become less of a necessity in life these days I think, as it almost inevitably must as we progress.

--A

[Tjol]

I don't think there's that much difference between the two terms. It's become less of a necessity in life these days I think, as it almost inevitably must as we progress.

--A

There are a great many ways in which we can't claim to, as a society, be any more philosophically and intellectually advanced than 2400 years ago. We have better technology, and we are more interdependent with each other, such that larger populations can be supported in the modern day than back then. But I think it's is contemporary arrogance (held over from the modernists, post modernists, etc.) that our thinking is really so advanced. What we presently call philosophical advancement, in my opinion, is simply that we have accumulated more ways of examining things over time. We're still asking the same questions, we still lack the same answers.

I think modernity is a little bit of an illusion outside of technology and social structures. So anything that the human race does in the present, should not, in my opinion, be assumed as progression or regression. At best it's adaption to whatever the present social context is.

[variol son]

You also have to look at who is saying that the world is becoming secularized. One of the papers I am doing this semster is entitled The Modernity of Religion. It looks at the various ways in which various religions have reacted or responded to modernism.

The very first lecture looked at the "myth of secularization", noting that many European sociologists believe that religion is dying and the world is becoming more secular because that is what appears tobe happening in Europe (with a few exceptions that they have explanations for). American sociologists tend to disagree, because they do not believe that the United States is becoming significantly less religious.

Also, it matters which religions we are talking about, and also which branches of those religions. It is true that some branches of Christianity are suffering drastically reduced church-attendence and church-membership, whilst others are growing at a steady rate. Similarly, a Shinto resurgence in Japan and a similar growth in India of Sikh may cost Hinduism and Buddhism some followers.

[Avatar]

Interesting posts folks.

Tjol, I think my point was more along the lines that, while we are still asking the same questions, we now have other avenues of searching for answers. And that we require better, more supportable answers than "God did it."

And important point about the perspective Vs.

--A

[Cybrweez]

Tjol, I agree that we're not any smarter than man was 2,400 years ago. In fact, when I'm on the road and see so many idiot drivers, I think we're actually dumber.

And the underground Christian church in China is flourishing. It'd be hard for any sociologists to know this b/c of the persecution in that country.