10 replies to this topic

[Ives]

I've been emailing back and foward somebody who claims that "Hinduism is the largest religion." The stubborn fool has been copping out of his claims, and I need to find a little more credibility on the fact Christianity is the largest religion. When I gave him statistics, he called them of a child (even though he's a 26 year old who didn't even GO to college.) I need some more credibility. If anybody has another professor, source, whatever, then let me know. I need to be as accurate as possible to prove my point to this person.

BTW, whomever said 1/3rd the world is Christian, thats incorrect. Hindu is the largest religion so far. The most populated countries in the world have a 70% or higher Hindu religion base. Give Christianity 100 more years and it will take over the world. Christianity in Japan was the third largest about 50 years ago. Shinto, Taoism and Christianity. Now I believe its #2...

My response:

Your statistics are distorted, unless you're referring to religion and population density by country (Mind you, I study this stuff .) Or you're just confused, because Catholicism does count as a sect of Christianity, not a religion like The Church of Latter Day Saints on its own. You're also forgetting Islam. Though one might say wikipedia isn't credible, there are plenty more sources which justify my list:

1. Christianity: 2,100,000,000 (-)
2. Islam: 1,300,000,000 (+)
3. Secular / Unaffiliated: 1,100,000,000 (+)
4. Hinduism: 900,000,000 (-)
5. Chinese Folk Religions: 400,000,000 ()
6. Buddhism: 375,000,000 ()
7. Asian Folk Religions: 300,000,000 (-)
8. African Tribal Religions: 100,000,000 (-)
9. Sikhism: 23,000,000 (+)
10. Juche: 19,000,000 (-)
11. Spiritism: 15,000,000 (+)
12. Judaism: 14,000,000 ()
13. Bahá'í Faith: 7,000,000 ()
14. Jainism: 4,000,000 ()
15. Shinto: 4,000,000 (-)

Though you might find those statistics to be "off," they are accurate. The low count of Shintoists is due to the fact that Shinto has been at a recent decline, and because most of Japanese society is secular or buddhist. Wink

Note: (-) indicates religion is at a decrease, (+) indicates religion is at an increase, and () indicates religion size has not changed enough to determine the decrease or increase.

His Cop-Out, and response:

The problem with those figures is children dont fill out census sheets.

Being born into a religion and being of that religion are two different things.

It's the same thing with the number of human being son Earth. 30,000 people die per day in India/Bangladesh. Someone is murdered every 9 seconds. Tobacco cigarettes kill someone every 10. YET a baby is born every 27 seconds.

Statistics like that....we would be extinct by now.

2.1 million Chrisitians? I can go be baptised tomorrow and be Christian. I wouldnt believe but official, Id be Christian. Same thing with Jews. Circumsize me, gimme that bath and give me a Jewish name...BOOM Im Jewish!

I want this to be my next response, but await any build up or modifications:

For one, I am not a child, and for two, these statistics are not "child made." I have notes from not only many major websites, but my professor as well.

You argue that your statistics are correct, based on the innacuracy of American statistics? We will NEVER find for sure about whos what, but we can find close to what it is. Unlike bullshit American studies, the studies I have presented have tons of credibility, and are much more accurate than your exaggerated studies you are suggesting.

If you are suggesting the number of religious people who strongly study their religion and have much more knowledge on what they believe in than just an Average joe who has Faith, then you are somewhat right (Islam is number one, without a doubt.) But if you are talking about the number of people who have faith, those numbers are stil accurate, just reduced by about 20%, which are the number of undetermined.

Yes, the totals do round up than more than 100% of the people who actually have faith, not lying, and are not undetermined. But these statistics you present are still not accurate.

Nice Cop-Out.

Before I post that, could somebody help me? =P

Edited by Athean, 25 August 2006 - 06:33 PM.

[Tim]

I don't think he was calling you a child. I think he meant something along the line of this; a lot of children have religions that are different from their parents, but their parents are filling out the census sheets. Their religion won't be counted because their parents said they were all a certain religion.

That's what I got out of it. I honestly don't know how census' work, so I may be completely wrong.

[Sean]

I don't think he was calling you a child. I think he meant something along the line of this; a lot of children have religions that are different from their parents, but their parents are filling out the census sheets. Their religion won't be counted because their parents said they were all a certain religion.

That's what I got out of it. I honestly don't know how census' work, so I may be completely wrong.

What I got out of it:
Children aren't counted in the census sheets, as they dont' fill them out, so there may be millions of children that are of a certain religion but aren't counted.

Edit: Actually, I just read it again and I think that you pretty much got it right Tim.

Edited by Sean, 25 August 2006 - 07:08 PM.

[Ives]

Bruce, this is the one time you're ever gonna hear me say this, but...

Wikipedia is full of it on this one. There's no way there's 1.1 billion secular/agnostic/atheist people out there. Certainly, there's 1.1 billion people who don't care, but that doesn't make them agnostic.

Look at their references for those stats. Not very reliable.

But otherwise, yes. Christianity, Islam and Hindu is the order things go in. That's common knowledge, I would think. Hindu is all located in one place, basically. There's no way there's more than a billion - it's just not that widespread - it's all in India (whose population IS about one billion) with minor communities - but not large communities - spread out over the world.

Now what I don't understand is why the stats on the Chinese traditional religions and/or Buddhism aren't larger...perhaps that's where they're getting their 1.1 billion secular figure - they're counting a large portion of China as secular...which, despite what their government claims, I find hard to believe.

That is true, they probably based the statistics off of old records that China released, which unfortunately accounts for about a sixth of the world.

[Hydrogen]

All of India is not Hindu as well. A good portion, i would say 15 to 20 percent is Muslim. I am an Indian Muslim . But Casilla is correct. Hinduism is mostly based in India. In fact, a lot of its practices and beliefs are only doable in India which may be the reason why it has stayed so confined.

[Cataliste]

Athean. I just have to tell you, stop arguing with iruleatants. He will never give in. He will never accept anything you give him, and will always disagree with it. Just block him.

[Hydrogen]

According to the 2001 census, India is 80.5% Hindu, 13.4% Muslim, 2.3% Christian, 1.9% Sikh, and 1.8% other. Unspecified remains at 0.1%

Source: https://www.cia.gov/...ok/geos/in.html

[Ives]

Alright Matt, I did look into this. The "Secular / Non religious" statistics are full of it, because the non religious statistics probably came from China, which has corrupted statistics. However, it is generally accpeted knowledge in every country (besides corrupt ones, ) that it's Christianity, Islam, than Hinduism. You don't even MENTION Islam in your demographics, when it's the most accurate of them all (when you grow up in a totalitarian Muslim country, theres virtually no way to become any other religion, no confirmations about it.) Also, most Hindus are confined to India, mainly because quite a few practices are only do-able in India. Even then, India has many minorities; including Muslims, Christians, and Bahá'ís. Yes, I'm sure you could count out a good percentage of each religion for the unconfirmed, but the statistics are still the same in the top five, with Christianity at first, Islam at second, Hinduism at third, Chinese Folk religions at fourth, and Buddhism at fifth. I've looked at this plenty of times, and I cannot say that ANYONE I have talked to (including people who study these things for a living) believes that Hinduism is the top in religion. Though somebody did mention that, by percentage of people who actually know what their faith is and has a great understanding of it, that Islam is the first with about 90% devouts out of the 1+ billion Muslims, followed by Hinduism, with about 80% devouts out of the 900 million Hindus.

Athean. I just have to tell you, stop arguing with iruleatants. He will never give in. He will never accept anything you give him, and will always disagree with it. Just block him.

I'm not debating with iruleatants.

[Cataliste]

It was a joke man. I am just saying he has that attitude too.

[Ives]

It was a joke man. I am just saying he has that attitude too.

Oh, my bad. LOL.