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Major religions have been distinguished from minor religions using a variety of methods, though any such division naturally reflects a particular bias, since adherents of many religions are likely to consider their own faith "major". Two methods are mentioned in this article: number of adherents and the definitions used by classical scholars of religions.
Another inherent difficulty in making a list of major religions is the problem of what to consider as a distinct religion versus what to consider as minor variants within the same basic religion. For example, Christianity and Islam are ordinarily considered separate religions, but they have much in common, historically and doctrinally; one could conceivably view them as two branches of the same religion. Additionally, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism are commonly considered variants of Christianity, although they have been at odds historically and doctrinally. The exercise of some degree of judgment is therefore necessary to be able to make any list of major religions. This article relies on a few key references for making such judgments. For a more comprehensive list of religions and an outline of some of their basic relationships, please see the article list of religions.
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Defined by population
One way to define a major religion is by the number of current adherents. Population numbers by religion are computed by combination of census reports and population surveys (in countries where religion data is not collected in census, for example USA or France), but results can vary widely depending on the way questions are phrased, the definitions of religion used, and the bias of the agencies or organizations conducting the survey. Informal or unorganized religions are especially difficult to count.
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Largest religions or belief systems by number of adherents
This listing includes both organized religions, which have unified belief codes and religious hierarchies, and informal religions, such as Chinese folk religions. For completeness, it also contains a category for the non-religious, although their views would not ordinarily be considered a religion.
Category includes a wide range of beliefs, without specifically adhering to a religion. The category also includes humanism, deism, pantheism, freethought, and Juche. For more information, see the Adherents.com discussion of this category and the note below.
Not a single organized religion, includes elements of Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and traditional nonscriptural religious observance (also called "Chinese traditional religion").
Not a single organized religion, includes a wide range of traditional or tribal religions, including animism, shamanism and paganism. Since African traditional and diasporic religions are counted separately in this list, most of the remaining people counted in this group are in Asia.
African traditional and diasporic: 100 million
Not a single organized religion, this includes several traditional African beliefs and philosophies such as those of the Yoruba, Ewe (vodun) and the Bakongo. These three religious traditions (especially that of the Yoruba) have been very influential to the diasporic beliefs of the Americas such as condomble, santeria and voodoo. The religious capital of the Yoruba religion is at Ile Ife.
Sikhism: 23 million (Began: 1500s AD/CE)
Spiritism: 15 million (Began: mid-19th century AD/CE)
Not a single organized religion, includes a variety of beliefs including some forms of Umbanda.
Unaffiliated and Secular: 4.5 million
This number states the number of actual self-identifying practicing primary followers of Shinto; if everyone were included who is considered Shinto by some people due to ethnic or historical categorizations, the number would be considerably higher — as high as 100 million.
Cao Dai: 4 million (Began: 1926 AD/CE)
Not necessarily considered a religion by adherents or outside observers. No membership or rosters, thus the actual figure of practitioners is impossible to confirm.
Rastafari: 600,000 (Began: early 1930s AD/CE)
Source of statistics for all religions but Falun Gong: Adherents.com, updated 2005. These statistics are reportedly based on analysis of a range of sources on religious populations, for more on the methodology, please see Adherents.com's explanation.
The Falun Gong estimate is that of the People's Republic of China in 1999; the Falun Gong leadership claimed 100 million in 2004.
Unlike the source site adherents.com, this list classifies Juche under the secular/non-religious category, since it does not fit most definitions of religion and is considered secular by its followers.
Ahmadiyya consider themselves Muslim, but are not considered Muslim by the mainstream. Adherents.com includes Druze as Muslim, but they are usually considered a distinct religious community based mostly in the Middle East who are an offshoot of Islam.
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Organized religions by population ranking
The Christian Science Monitor used a separate standard, examining only organized religions. The newspaper listed the following in 1998 as the "Top 10 Organized Religions in the World" based on descending numbers of adherents:
Number of Adherents is from Adherents.com*, updated 2005.
Only the left-most two columns of the above table come from the Christian Science Monitor article. The others have been added as supplemental information for this article.
Although no estimate for the number of adherents of Confucianism was provided by the adherents.com source, this religion is a subset of the above-listed category of Chinese folk religion, which has an estimated 394 million adherents.
Geographic information comes from an Encyclopædia Britannica table regarding Worldwide Adherents of All Religions by Six Continental Areas, Mid-2002
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Major groups of religions
The major religions of the world can be considered to fall into logical groupings, as can be be found in various articles here and elsewhere.
Abrahamic religions are by far the biggest group, and these consist primarily of the Bahá'í Faith, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism religions. All the religions in this group are related by their belief in Abraham and their strict belief in a monotheistic divine entity. Today, around 3.4 billion people are followers of Abrahamic religions and are spread widely around the world apart from the regions around South-East Asia and China.
Dharmic religions are a family of religions having a theology and philosophy centered on the concept of Dharma. All Dharmic religions have their roots in India, and they are of the most influence across the Indian subcontinent, East Asia and South East Asia. The main Dharmic religions are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, and there is a close interrelationship among them.
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Table of major groups of religions
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Historic "classic" view
Major religions have also been identified based on their perceived importance, whether theological or temporal. This sorting has been generally been the preserve of Western, Christian scholars, so lists of classic major religions portray this bias. Early Christian scholars, the earliest known classifiers of major religions, recognized only three religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Paganism (which they considered to encompass every other religion). Views evolved during the Enlightenment, however, and, by the nineteenth century, Western scholars considered the five major religions to be Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. As the exposure of Westerners to other religions increased, six other religions were added to the original five: Confucianism, Taoism, Jainism, Shinto, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. Later, the Bahá'í Faith was added to this list, resulting in twelve classic religions *
Modern Western definitions of major religion come from the classical definition, often expanding on "Christianity," and omitting Jainism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism. An example is this list found in the New York Public Library Student Reference:
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Further Reading
Tomoko Masuzawa, The invention of world religions, or, How European universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism, Chicago University Press 2005
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See also
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