Islam surpasses Roman Catholicism as world's largest religion

[dead0man]

A religoius argument turning into a semantics argument?  NEVER!

A libertarian laughing at the silly religious animals? NEVER!

Touché!

[Verily]

Yeah, you can't compare the Catholic Church to the Religion of Islam.  They are totally different levels. Catholicism is a denomination while Islam is a religion. Then again, one could argue that the biggest religion is the religion of Jehovah, which has 3.4 billion (50% of the population world-wide). The next biggest would probably be Confucianism, followed by Buddhism and Hinduism. With Judaism, that's 5.815 billion people. That leaves the next billion as Seculars and Pegans, which probably are about 500 million a peice. 

Better numbers:



Which breaks down to:

Abrahamic: 53.5%
Vedic: 19.7%
Irreligious: 14.3%
Far Eastern: 6.5%
Tribal religions/Animists: 4.0%
New religious movements: 2.0%

[Gustaf]

What religions are included as Vedic here? I thought the Vedic stuff were Hindu but I'm guessing Buddhism is thrown in too in this case?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Abrahamic: 53.5%

You neglected to include the Bahá'í, so make that 53.6%.

[Verily]

What religions are included as Vedic here? I thought the Vedic stuff were Hindu but I'm guessing Buddhism is thrown in too in this case?

I included Buddhists in Vedic because much of Buddhist thought is derived from ideas originally found in the Vedas and Hinduism, and the two are as similar as Christianity or Islam is to Judaism. Jains are also included in Vedic, as are Sikhs. The latter is controversial; they could go as well into Abrahamic and fit poorly in either.

[The Mikado]

So Sunnis, Shi'ites, Sufis, and (I'd assume) splinter groups like the Druze or even the Bahai are all lumped together for this?  All compared against Roman Catholicism alone?  And Catholicism is still competitive?  Phil, your people have nothing to complain about!

[The Mikado]

Yeah, you can't compare the Catholic Church to the Religion of Islam.  They are totally different levels. Catholicism is a denomination while Islam is a religion. Then again, one could argue that the biggest religion is the religion of Jehovah, which has 3.4 billion (50% of the population world-wide). The next biggest would probably be Confucianism, followed by Buddhism and Hinduism. With Judaism, that's 5.815 billion people. That leaves the next billion as Seculars and Pegans, which probably are about 500 million a peice. 

After the century of KMT and CCP rule, especially after the Glorious Revolution, Confucius has been pretty throughly stamped out in China...There hasn't been a Son of Heaven for a century!

Besides...Confucius' teachings barely qualify as a religion anyway.  Now, Laotsu definitely does, but it doesn't look like Taoism survived any better than Confucius.