Talk:List of religious populations/Archive 1

Atheism/Agnosticism/Irreligion a religion?

Regarding the table at the top of the page:

Are these things actually religions? Atheism is the self-avowed belief or philosophy that there are no deities. If Atheism is a religion, then the Irreligious population count cannot, by definition, rightly include Atheist populations. Also, what about Humanism and other philosophies? Are these religions?

It might be better to simply give a separate entry for for Atheism and other beliefs if they are actually religions and forgo the separate entry of irreligious populations and let the religious proportion of the world population add up to whatever it adds up to. If there are many, then a category called Other can be inserted. If Atheism and Humanism and other philosophies are not religions, they should probably not feature on this article at all accept so as help people understand why the religious population is not 100% of the human population if citations are used that show that.

Irreligion itself seems far too vague and diverse to be counted as a religion. Nanib (talk) 01:13, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

"World Christian Encyclopedia"

Can't we find a better name for this section? Is this Wikipedia or the World Christian Encyclopedia??? Any, in the chart listed it shows in the "Afterlife" column, that Christians believe in a temporal Purgatory. Not all Protestants believe in Purgatory, as Purgatory is never mentioned in the Bible, and was a notion created by the Church in the Middle-Ages. Perhaps, this should be mentioned.99.150.204.161 (talk) 16:26, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Adherents.com outdated information

Adherents.com information should not be considered for this page. The information is outdated and the people from that link recognizes that. It has inflated numbers specially for Christians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.87.20.224 (talk) 21:40, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll second that! I haven't looked at the numbers very carefully, but Denmark is listed as having 98% to 60% Christians, despite the fact that it has, as all other Nordic countries aside from Island, an Atheist majority (and no small majority either. It's at least above 80%). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.113.53.4 (talk) 10:13, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

If you find a better source which says that then that other source can be considered. Munci (talk) 20:00, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Sikh demographics

Information on Sikhism is missing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.228.49.250 (talk) 19:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup

Can whoever wrote the sidenotes below each list note that a)that they are mostly unneccessary, b) that full stops and commas require a space after they are made. Also, WTF is v.v. after each statement in brackets? Does this mean etc., because I've never seen it before... Arkyopterix 19:07, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Numbers

total population of just the first 5 religions adds up to more than 9 billion.. problem?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.202.121.197 (talk) 12:47, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Number of Scientologists

500.000 scientologists? this is a travesty and an embarrassment for wikipedia. The most reliable estimates place the number at 40.000 to 50.000 AT MOST, with about 16.000 practicing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HyraxOfWikia (talk • contribs) 09:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Number of muslims

the number of muslims is very but very inflated in fact muslims are not much than 502mln africa=200mln asia=300mln europe=1mln america=1mln

I don't know about that. Everytime I make a trip back to Africa, I see fewer and fewer churches and more and more mosques. I think the 1.3 billion number for Muslims is accurate or even a little low. Theravada1 17:26, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

This statement is absurd. Indonesia alone has over 185 million Muslims(lowest estimate), while India has over a 150 million(lowest estimate by the government). These two countries alone make the number of Musliims in Asia to over 300 million. In France, even the government lists 4.1 million as Muslims, which nullifies the 1 million stated above.

Number of Shinto

51% of Japan is Shintoist, and Japan is 127 million people strong. That makes it about 65 million of Shintoist in Japan alone. I do not know the Shintoist population outside of Japan. I have at least modified the Shinto population count from 4 million to 65 million. (Bozo888 (talk) 20:53, 5 May 2010 (UTC))

Number of Buddhists

Shinto is not the same as Buddhism, and Bhutan has close to 100% Buddhist Population

I seriously doubt there are 9.1 billion muslims as the article would currently lead us to believe.

A lot of people in Japan would see themselves as both Shinto and Buddist, they don't see any conflict between the two.

But I agree these lists seem to be missing a large number of countries, they are a list of countries with % but not all the countries are included

I have changed the figure for Buddhism on the basis of a figure of 30% for China. This is almost certainly far too low. The only available figure for Mainland China from government sources is 11%. This indicates that it is referring to publicly committed Buddhists and is then hardly comparable to figures for self-identified Christians in a Census. The only way I can see to get any kind of figure is to make an estimate in between the percentages for Buddhists in Singapore and Taiwan. SelwynC 22:12, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

What is going on with the number of Buddhists??? It has gone from a CIA estimate of around 400 million to 700 million, to One billion, to 1.2 billion, and recently 1.4 billion. Now it has gone all the way back to lower than the CIA estimate of 350 million. The most credible number was when it was around 1 billion to 1.2 billion. That would be around 30% to 40% of mainland China, which is completely realistic. Who keeps messing up the Buddhist numbers??? Put it at around 1 billion and just leave it! Theravada1 17:06, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

It was mentioned previously that someone wanted sources. Well here are some sources for the number of Buddhists. Gach-Alpha Books, Asian News, buddhistchannel.tv April 2007, U.S. State Dept. report on China, Global Center for the Study of Contemporary China, have found that about 30% to 91% identify with Buddhism as one of their religions. A "realistic" percentage is probably around 40% which would place the number of Buddhists at 1 billion. Theravada1 17:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

April 25, 2007 update: I see someone did change the number back to about 1.4 billion from yesterday's incorrect entry of 350 million. Anywhere from 1 billion to 1.5 billion seems very realistic. Thanks. Theravada1 17:22, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we all avoid using biased sources. True research work should avoid such practice. If we are to use biased reports, we would have 3 billion Christians, 2.2 billion Moslems, 1.8 billion Buddhists, 1.2 billion Hindus, 500 million Atheists, all of which may add up to over 10 billion.

I agree with whoever wrote the parag. above starting with "I suggest . ." On the main page of the article, unbiased sources ARE being used. The totals do not add up to 10 billion. The totals from the major religions, the non-religious, the atheists, and other religions, just adds up to 6.4 billion; about the population of the world. So wikipedia is doing good.  :) Theravada1 22:19, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

The number of Buddhists in India should probably be adjusted upward. There have been many mass conversions of the Indian untouchables (dalits) from Hinduism to Buddhism. In some ceremonies there have been as many as 50,000 converting on one day. See: http://www.daophatngaynay.com/english/world/facts/conversion-manpreet.htm I would suggest raising the percentage for India who are Buddhist to at least 1.5% Theravada1 04:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I see from your cute little name there that you really must like Buddhism. With your editing style though, perhaps "Mahayana" would be a better name though. That aside, have you ever been to China? And aside from the data entry professional above, who on Earth would say this: "The only way I can see to get any kind of figure is to make an estimate in between the percentages for Buddhists in Singapore and Taiwan" with a straight face? I think the government estimate of eleven percent of the country is a good number. It is certainly not a Buddhist country. Along with that, Japan's population is not that Buddhist either. This is fairly common knowledge. 204.210.103.63 (talk) 03:14, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above user. I'll try and fix the number of Buddhists with reliable sources. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 23:54, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Saying, "This is fairly common knowledge" is meaningless. Let's see some sources and some links to factual data. Just saying things like "have you been to China" or "common sense" is pointless and does not add to the discussion. The sources all point to at least one billion Buddhists. China and Japan are Buddhist nations (the majority is at least nominally Buddhist). Yes, I have been there. Vibhajjavada (talk) 20:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Its very hard to gain concrete evidence for figures that the government chooses not to produce or cannot produce for that matter. Its only logical to think that there are somewhere around 1 billion Buddhists in China alone and even though this may be a guess, its the closest anyone is getting to an actual figure. I don't think 300 million Buddhist calculate into anything remotely accurate unless of course everyone decided to adopt a different religion all of a sudden. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RRRAD (talk • contribs) 17:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The number of Buddhists is severely underestimated in Japan. According to various accurate sources, Japan has about 89 million or 91 million Buddhists, though not all are practicing. Yet non practicing Buddhists are cultural or nominal Buddhists. It also must be kept in mind, that 91% of all people in Japan receive a Buddhist funeral. The numbers in this article do not show all these facts. added by User:Shatrunjaymall

Sources

This article has two sources, one of which points to the other source. The only source for this article, then, is the CIA factbook. When I looked at the CIA factbook, a number of these figures aren't actually present. I've added some source requests for a number of claims. -Quasipalm 00:56, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the CIA Factbook and many other sources on the Web are very poor for Buddhism. They assume very low or even zero numbers for Buddhists in such countries as Vietnam and North Korea. This is obviously wrong. More crucially, they use figures from the Chinese government listing only highly committed Buddhists. This is dishonest when figures for nominal believers are used elsewhere. Moreover, it has to be noted that Buddhism is not incompatible with Taoism and Chinese traditional religion for most believers. So as with Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, the majority of the population should be listed under more than one heading. SelwynC

"They assume very low or even zero numbers for Buddhists in such countries as Vietnam and North Korea. This is obviously wrong." What is your authority on these claims? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.98.237.42 (talk • contribs) .

Exactly! Nominally religious (a certain religion based on birth only, not any practice) adherents of Christianity are counted as Christian whereas followers of Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and other non-Christian religions are not counted at all. Not fair! Nthndschmidt 23:40, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Why on earth would you want to use the CIA as a source of religious adherents?? They could not find Osama bin Laden if he walked in their front door! Nthndschmidt 23:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

In the proportion of Buddhists, by country, someone wrote: "Remark: 1. Japan has been known to be largely Atheist. (over 80%) Japanese Buddhists are considered philosophical Buddhists, and in practice do not believe in God."

But what they don't understand is that Buddhism is an atheistic religion. There is no creator-God in Buddhism. The Japanese strong ties to atheism is only fueling an increased interest in Buddhism in that country since Buddhism is basically non-theistic. Theravada1 18:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Atheist / Non Religious - (1,162 million 1994 USCB)

What's 1,162 million? Is that supposed be 1.16 billion? -VJ 18:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

These figures are completely false. All people that have been baptized are considered catholics, which is absolutely wrong. wikiala 18:33, 4 june 2006 (UTC)

There is also no list of countries with the highest population or proportion of Atheists/Irreligious people.

Countries with the greatest proportion of Christians (as of 2002)

This list is hopelessly inadequate. Where are all the other obviously-Christian countries, like Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy, the list goes on ... Have these a lower proportion of Christians than Mali with its 1%? 83.70.78.245 20:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that the list is inadequate. Therefore, I've removed from the list any country which has a lower percentage of Christians than 80%. For some reason, Mali remained on the Christian list since the creation of this article; apparently the anonymous editor who started the article had statistics showing that Mali was 90% Muslim and 1% Christian, so he added Mali to the "highest proportion of Muslims" list at 90% and to the "highest proportion of Christians" list at 1%. Let's focus on the higher-proportion countries for each religion covered before we start listing the lower-proportion ones. --Metropolitan90 06:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Number of Christians in India

A highly Populated country like India also have a high population of Christians,like other minor religion. Christians are estimated at 2.5%- 3% making it around 40 million.It is a big number comparing it even Christian countries in Europe, South Americas & African countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sudpau (talk • contribs) 15:20, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Islam in Somalia

I'd be interested to know where the figure of 100% Muslims in Somalia comes from. I assume it's some sort of "official" figure rather than a reflection of reality, but since there has been no census of any kind in Somalia for well over a decade (and no resident government with authority over the whole country since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991), what source does this figure emanate from? Not the CIA factbook, which simply states: "Religion: Sunni Muslim", without suggesting any numbers. Is this some Wikipedian's dubious interpretation of data? Aridd 17:44, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

This is because in Somalia, in order to be a citizen, you must be a Muslim, but they do not kill you if you are in Somalia and not a muslim...and yes, i agree too that it is impossible to have 100% of the population muslim.

Suggestion to merge Major religious groups into List of religious populations

I oppose the merge. Major religious groups is presented much more professionally, and includes contextual placement, is designed only to include Major groups --Trödel 15:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree; this page is a hodge-podge of different information from different sources and is in no way comprehensive. Maybe once this page is up to snuff, some limited info could be moved, but really the info should be kept in this page. -- Jeff3000 15:33, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the merge too. List of religious populations seems rather incoherent/disorganized and needs a lot of work. In contrast, Major religious groups seems relatively "mature" and should not be destabilized in such a fashion. Merging would also seem likely to result in excessive length. The two pages have not even been previously regarded as sufficiently related to contain links to each other (although perhaps they should). -Wookipedian 17:30, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the merge - the other page is of higher quality and has a less ambiguous title. --The Transhumanist 06:59, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

I oppose the merge. Unlike List of religious populations, Major religious groups is not a competition of which religion has more adherents, and is more useful for research.

WT?

France 90 percent catholic?? Turkey 99.8 percent muslim?? If I hadn't lived for years and years in both of these countries then I might be inclined to say oh, really?? interesting.., but since I did live for years and years in both, I can only say what the ..?.. I mean, have I been living in different countries or what?? :))) At least a third of Turkish wikipedians are atheists right off the bat, that I know.. I am not talking about the number of atheists in France - no need to really, I will just go out the door and ask anyone on the street and boom, got one!! Baristarim 05:52, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree about France stats being totally WRONG: first of all from personal experience I can tell there aren't many christians in France. Second of all I "believe" there are more muslims than indicated as there is quite a lot of immigration from north africa. Third of all, basic maths tell me that if between 20 and 29 percent of french population is christian -which makes sense to me-, there cannot possibly be 56,709,186 christians in France. I suggest using INSEE-if applicable- for more accurate figures. 82.16.205.213 (talk) 17:06, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism says: A November–December 2006 poll published in the Financial Times [...] In France, 32% declared themselves atheists, and an additional 32% declared themselves agnostic. And there are some muslims, about 5%. and judaism is about 1% also. Remaining 30% at most. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hehiheho (talk • contribs) 19:12, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

No Russia on list?

What about no Russia in the largest christian population country list?It has around 141 mil. inhabitants, and about 65% of them are christians.

One should also not neglect to mention China. Even though the proportion of christians is low, even the most conservative estimates put its christian population at 100 million

Actually, most conservative estimates put it below 60 million. 100 million is usually the number of Buddhists. The most conservative estimate that there's been is 1%, while the most liberal is over 8%. I'd say its somewhere in the middle, so 3-4% would make sense. But yeah, it would be added as largest Christian population, not by % though. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 05:18, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

WTF?

There is allot more atheists in the world then that. And why isn't there any list of what country's that have the biggest population of atheists? And the country that have the biggest density of atheists? 85 % of Norway is atheist. And about 25% of USA is atheist.

Wikipedia; come on. You are better then this...

85% of Norwegians are members of the Church of Norway. Some of them by choice, others by tradition, some by less than honest ways of doing statistics. But nothing stops them from leaving the church. So to claim that 85% are atheists is...WRONG! Knut/Norway

According to a few censuses and stuff, Norway is mostly secular. It even has more 30-40% atheists. That fits far outside of 85% Christian. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 05:20, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

"Athiest" Communist Countries vs. Buddhism

This little sentence is at the end of the article. This should be edited to "anti-religious communist countries". Why? Because Buddhists are atheists too (!). Atheism has nothing to do with the religious oppression over there since the religious people oppressed generally follow a religion that has no God...

Well, part true. They can if they want to have no gods. Non-religion is a wider term. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 20:28, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Largest Jewish populations

If you read the section Largest Jewish populations you find:

1. Ukraine, 149,602
2. Ukraine, 94,978

Maybe one of the "2 Ukraines" wants to be another country. But wich? --Mocu 09:37, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you,Mocu.I were mistake.9th is Ukraine and Australia is 10th!

US Census Bureau ??

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/religion.htm

Where are the estimates from the US Government Census bureau ? If you check the link above it simply points to Adherents.com and a 3 Christian biased/based centres. This makes the inclusion if US government estimates on the page pointless. Unless someone can actually show where the estimates are in teh US Census Bureau ( which is primarily for censusing the US ) then I shall remove the US section.Vexorg 21:49, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

As there seems to be no opposition and as it's silly to include figures twice then I have removed the section on US Census bureau as it onyl links to Adherents.com anyway Vexorg 22:35, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Errors in the Maps

I'm sure that there are many errors... just see Bulgaria:

In 2001, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church had 6,552,000 members in Bulgaria (82.6% of the population)... In 2001, there were 967,000 Muslims in Bulgaria, accounting for 12.2% of the total population.

Someone should correct it. Thanks! 195.138.138.123 10:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)yavor

Hi!you can see the Bulgaria (neighbor of Istanbul) again so you can see the Muslim percentage is light orange (10-19%)===>It was right!

Some suggestions!

Hi everyone!

I am managing the articles of Buddhism by country (with User:Bikeable);List of religious populations and a little of Christianity by country (with User:Vexorg) and maybe I hope in near future,I can contribute for projects of another religions as soon as possible!

The first;I think we need to update new census of July 2007 from source from http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/ipc/idbrank.pl which is I think is the most exact!And total population of the World as July 1,2007 is 6,671,226,000.I made it for Buddhism first!

The second;I think we should make the new style for all article of any religious populations by country (Buddhism by country; Islam by country; Hinduism by country) just like Christianity by country did with minimum percentage and maximum percentage from many sources (government,CIA,etc...).But in my mind and mostly people we all know the populations of Christianity, Islam, Judaism or Hinduism could estimate nearly right but with Buddhism,it is very HARD!Some sxample:

1. Christianity in France (51%-85%), Belgium (38-84%),etc...
2. Buddhism in China (21.3%-80%), South Korea (27-48%),etc...

How do you think about my suggestions?

And I want to invite User:Vexorg (Christianity), User:Opticals and User:OsamaKBOT (Islam), I with Clay Collier and User:Bikeable (Buddhism);etc...to found "The Union of Wiki Project Religions".So I want to hear your opinions and replies about that!

Contact me about that on my talk page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Angelo_De_La_Paz#Some_suggestions.21

Thank so much!God bless all of you! Angelo De La Paz 09:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a source for Wikipedia

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. "Articles should rely on sources written by reliable third parties ... Articles and posts on Wikipedia or other open wikis should never be used as third-party sources." Wp:rs#Aspects_of_reliability

Additionally, self-references in the text have to go. WP:ASR Mdbrownmsw 16:49, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

That depends only on whether the other wikipedia page has correct sources or not. If it does, then a wikipedia page can be a reliable source clearly. Since you can go and check the sources, of that page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.133.143 (talk) 00:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

New Era of Technical Accuracy

Greetings.

Following a consensus over at the article Christianity by country where estimates and non sourced figures are being frowned upon i suggest it's about time this was extended to this and the other <religion> by country articles. Personally I woulf rather leave the estimates in as it at least gives the reader some idea, but consensus said otherwise. Thoughts anyone? Vexorg 18:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Jews figures for Russia

Jews figures for Russia are given for ethnic Jews. Most Jews in Russia are not religious.--Dojarca (talk) 08:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you're right but look at USA: 2.5% Jews but only over 1% seen it as religious! Angelo De La Paz (talk) 18:57, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Angelo!

Angelo, you can't just assert things without evidence! Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 02:11, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• If you talking about this articles so remember that I've added WP:OR tag since September, 2007 because I know it contains all estimates with multiple sources from the main articles of Christianity by country, Islam by country, Buddhism by country, Hinduism by country, etc...and this is only a supproting article which has collected all main important articles above, and you can check it for greater detail, not here. And this artcile has declared noted:

-Note that these figures may incorporate populations of secular/nominal adherents as well as syncretist worshipers, although the concept of syncretism is disputed by some.

And I've also added the currently table of Adherents.com for all people to see the different and compare. It's suitable for NPOV

If I am a Buddhist extremist so I will let non-Buddhist numbers down and only added biased-highest estimates in Buddhism by country or any "Religion" sections in Mongolia, Republic of China, Religion in China, etc...but I didn't, I add multiple sources with mixed-estimates because I respect NPOV; not like you Saimdusan because you are always let Buddhist numbers down and you are a strong anti-Buddhism. As I can see that you looks like a kid because your stubborn attitude and insular attitude with hatred for Buddhism. Stop making people know wrong with only your biased thinking because sometimes, in one question could contains many answers; that is why you must show all for the people and they can choose the favorite or what they think which is the righest. I hope you know. Thank you!

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 02:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Angelo, my point was that you can't just assert "North Korea must have 60% of the population as Buddhist!" without evidence. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 03:58, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

• I didn't do that, but as you can see that although North Korean Communist Government is the most anti-religious one and Juche is as a "state religion" but the spiritual influence of Buddhism and Confucianism are still strong here [1][2][3]. But remember that North Korean Communist Government has had no disagreements with traditional Buddhism or Confucianism because that is their national culture and origin, although the relationship between Atheist Government and relgions are not harmony [4][5][6]

I know that you are doing anything and by many ways to let Buddhist numbers as less as possible because you hate Buddhism to your core and your marrow. I believe that you hate Buddhism most from your contributions here (as I can see) and my heart said that is true!

And don't tell me that I am preaching you again because it's enough for me and in my life, I don't like to talking with the dictators like you.

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 04:47, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Angelo, are you insane? I disagree with you on how many Buddhists there are, and then you say that I hate Buddhism? Regarding North Korea, none of your estimates indicate 60% of the population as Buddhist. This is called Original Research. This is not allowed. (Also: it is common knowledge accepted by everyone that North Korea is an oppressive Communist (atheist) dictatorship that doesn't allow religion. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 21:40, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Angelo, will you even respond? It appears that whenever the page gets locked you give it up (like in the Religion in China page). Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 05:01, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I am here!

I am not free like you because I must go to work and share time with my family, I can not give a whole day long with Wikipedia. So you say this survey of Shanghai university professors are Original Research (asked random 300 million people about the religions and they found over 200 million adherents of Buddhism with Chinese religions as one and 40 million Christians[7][8]) and you said that is not allowed.

But look at your contributions in not only article but also with other Buddhist articles, you deleted all that high estimates are "Original Research" and you keep the lowest Buddhist estimates as your favorite estimates; it is violated NPOV. An example: you has always keeping the estimates of Chinese Gov. for the numbers of Buddhists, Muslims but you didn't do it with the numbers of Christians in not only China but also in Europe because you still keep higher estimates for the numbers Christians as 40 - 54 million or 3% - 4% (Hey! It's come from the same survey of Shanghai University which you think that is Original Research because it found over 200 million adherents of Buddhism and Chinese religions). Its proofs:

1. Look at China, Japan and other East Asian countries :

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_religious_populations&diff=193464380&oldid=193449793

1. You has always reverting the numbers of Buddhists, Taoists or Muslims to the estimates of Chinese Gov. but keep partly biased-Christianity and totally pro-Atheism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Religion_in_China&diff=192445401&oldid=192426371

1. Another proofs:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Religion_in_Burma&diff=186362311&oldid=185992977
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demography_of_Vietnam&diff=193002199&oldid=192987415
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Republic_of_China&diff=193459380&oldid=193454904
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demographics_of_Taiwan&diff=prev&oldid=193453922
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_religious_populations&diff=193464380&oldid=193449793
• http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Buddhism_percentage_by_country.png&oldid=193808799

1. And your created map for Major religious groups has banned by its main contributor Jeff3000 because it's not fair, biased, incomplete and confusing. You are still keeping biased opinions for Christians (in the whole Europe and Cuba) or Atheists and let non-Abrahamic religions as Buddhism (East Asia), Hinduism (Suriname) and Chinese religions down. Here are the proofs:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Major_religious_groups#New_Image
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Major_religious_groups#Upload_new_version

1. You keep add "Criticism" section into the main article of Buddhism although that section didn't appear in the main articles of Islam, Christianity, Judaism or Hinduism; although Buddhism is the least criticized one. And mostly its important contributors disagree with you about that section:

• History: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddhism&action=history

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Buddhism#Criticism_article or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Criticism_of_religion#Criticism_of_Buddhism

You could say that Buddhism is not your hateful religion here (on Wikipedia) but in fact, I know that you are extreme hate Buddhism most.

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 18:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I know, but its been quite a while since you responded on Talk:Religion in China. How is that Original Research? Its called a source. Angelo, I haven't seen any source for "the estimates of the Chinese government". I've only found many verifiable sources that contradict you. Saying that North Korea is a Buddhist country is like saying that Britain is a Druid country. With the East Asian countries - I've agreed with you on Vietnam, and with Taiwan I think its a Buddhist country, just that its only 30-something% Buddhist. In Japan all of the actual surveys rather than the numbers based on who is registered at a temple or shrine (or an estimate by actual Japanese people) indicate that 30% of the population identify with anyone religion (although some Dentsu company says 50%). This does not mean 85-91% Buddhist. Angelo, giving my links to discussions I remember isn't "proof". With Suriname, it is mostly Christian. The largest group of Christians in the country is Protestant. That is why it is colored Protestant. I have given Buddhism Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, Burma, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Mongolia and Bhutan, because there are verifiable sources that suggest that. In the case of China and North Korea, there is not. In the case of Japan, the Japanese people themselves contradict these numbers, and say that its based on the temples' numbers.Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 21:24, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Buddhism, Ancestor Worship are as the most common religions in East Asian culture

Once again, as a Chinese mix and an Orientalist, I were not said that all East Asian countries are Buddhist!; it's clear in Buddhism by country, List of religious populations, Religion in China, Republic of China, etc...But everyone know and respect the fact that is:

• The mixture of Mahayana Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism and Ancestor Worship as one and it is the predominantly religion in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, Vietnam and among the Han Chinese or Vietnamese communities in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, USA, Canada, etc

• The mixture of Mahayana Buddhism, Shinto and Ancestor Worship as one and it is the predominantly religion in Japan.

• The mixture of Mahayana Buddhism, Confucianism, Shamanism and Ancestor Worship as one and it is the dominantly religion in Korea.

As you can see that Mahayana Buddhism and Ancestor Worship are appear as two most important common parts in all traditional beliefs of various East Asian traditional belief systems. That is why many people in these countries classify themselves as non-religious, although they visit religious temples several times every year. Their everyday behaviours and attitudes are dictated by the synthesis of philosophies which can be traced from many religions. Those religions have been co-existing in mostly East Asian countries for centuries and mixed perfectly with the East Asian tradition of worshiping their ancestors and national heroes. That special mix explains why the people there find it hard to say exactly which religion they belong to.

And that is why I want to keep multiple sources with various estimates (Government's estimates, exact numbers of true followers with cultural influence of these religions) because it could be important to help people know more exact about East Asian culture and the different between the traditional beliefs from the East to the West

Now do you understand, Saim?

Angelo De La Paz (talk) 07:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

1. Actually, you did say that all East Asian countries are Buddhist. You said that Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are over 90% Buddhist, that China and Japan are over 80% Buddhist, that North Korea is over 60% Buddhist, and that South Korea is over 40% Buddhist. That Christian source and Vipassana Foundation are not verifiable. How is it fair to count someone as some religion even if they themselves do not consider themselves part of it? Why do Asians have to be called "Budhist" for stepping into a pagoda, or burning some incense? I could worship Jesus, and still not be a Christian. Why? Well, maybe I just don't want to be called a "Christian". Then, for all intents and purposes, I'm not a Christian for all statistics. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 20:58, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

• Couldn't you read? If I were a biased Buddhist so I wouldn't not added this requests before (from August 2007):

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Buddhism_by_country#Some_suggestions.21
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_religious_populations#Some_suggestions.21

Not all East Asians are Buddhists but if you look again so you could see that although East Asians are agnostics (they worship the mixture of multiple religions as tradtional beliefs and they don't know what are their favorite religions) and the most common religions are Mahayana Buddhism and Ancestor Worship. Even many Chinese people, Vietnamese people are prefer Buddhism to Taoism and Koreans are prefer Buddhism to Confucianism, etc....that is why I have sent my request to admin soon as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Master_of_Puppets#Little_requests

That is clear. You will never listen anyone and I think that you hasn't read the comments because it is NOTHING with you, a vocal Atheist and anti-religious! Angelo De La Paz (talk) 00:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

1. OK, I'm just saying that you are a bit biased towards Buddhism. You say that 90% of some populations are Buddhist, while you lower the number of Muslims on other pages.

2. That may be so, but that is a far cry from being a Buddhist. Do you understand? Preferring Buddhism over other religions doesn't make you a Buddhist, worshiping a Bodhisattva doesn't make you a Buddhist, burning incense doesn't make you a Buddhist and going into a temple doesn't make you a Buddhist. The only way to be a Buddhist is to call yourself a Buddhist. 3. Angelo, distorting facts does not help my agenda at all. Saying "here look, there are more secular people than Buddhists!" is not a valid argument, and I would never use it. So stop saying that I'm using it. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 06:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Unprotect

Please un-protect this page, Angelo's basically gone. Saimdusan Talk|Contribs 05:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Request for un-protect page

Can the Admins un-protect the page, there is so much wrong information here that I want to edit, please open the doors of the barriers, Thankyou. Moshino31 (talk) 21:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the admins should simply add a factual accuracy dispute tag. Peter jackson (talk) 10:14, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

The fact is that even "experts", let alone religious propagandists, disagree on numbers of adherents of religions. There are 2 main types of reasons for this:

1. disagreements on definitions: this covers quite a variety of things:
   1. how to deal with people "belonging" to more than 1 religion: this has been discussed quite a bit above; the general practice of "experts" (whom WP policy requires us to follow, tho' other points of view should be mentioned) is to count most religious Chinese as belonging to something variously called Chinese (folk/traditional) religion; there may well be other experts who disagree
   2. how to deal with nominal adherents: this can be a serious problem in modern secular societies; if you ask people "What is your religion?" you get one set of statistics; if you ask them "Do you have a religion?" you get quite different figures
   3. how to classify fringe sects/cults: eg the World Christian Encyclopedia (which, despite its name, qualifies as a reliable source by WP definition since it's published by Oxford University Press) counts Falun Gong as Buddhist, but separates Soka Gakkai out into a category called New Religions; [9], on the other hand, counts SG as Buddhist, but Falun Gong as part of Chinese religion
2. disagreements on facts, mainly under Communist oppression, but also regarding claims by Christian churches of the numbers of converts they have made in Muslim countries, in most of which conversion is still a capital offence

The overall result is, as I said, quite a lot of disagreement. This means that any table of adherents giving 1 figure per box is inevitably in violation of NPOV, unless it is accompanied by a variety of similar tables giving other points of view. Alternatively, you could give a variety of figures in one table. In either case this article would have to be many times its present size if it were to satisfy NPOV. Peter jackson (talk) 10:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Number of muslims and christians are very inflated

Humanbyrace (talk) 16:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

The number of muslims can not exceed 1,1 bln with the highest estimation possible.

Here are the correct number of muslims country by country by a neutral and objectif point of view.(I rejected the ghulat of shia,wahabbi sect,folkloric islam,muslims only by culture,atheistic&agnostic etc etc muslims by culture,and muslims by name[especially in the ex communist satates and muslims in europe,australia and america])

DUDE WTF?? ARE U SOME KIND OF TROLL? ALGERIA HAS 35, BANGLADESH HAS 150, SYRIA HAS 20, HECK EVEN BELGIUM HAS 0.4! WHY DONT YOU USE THE CORRECT NUMBERS??? THESE ARE FAR TOO LOW FOR EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY! NIGERIA 25 AND PAKISTAN 100 ARE MAYBE THE MOST RIDICULOUSLY LOW!

South Asia Afghanistan 30

Southern Europe Albania 1

North Africa Algeria 25

Southern Africa Angola 0,1

South America Argentina 0,1

Oceania Australia 0,1

Central Europe Austria 0,1

Caucasus Azerbaijan 2

Middle East Bahrain 0,5

South Asia Bangladesh 100

Western Europe Belgium 0,1

West Africa Benin 1

Balkans Bosnia and Herzegovina 1

Balkans Bulgaria 0,1

West Africa Burkina Faso 5

Central Africa Burundi 0,1

Southeast Asia Cambodia 0,1

West Africa Cameroon 2

North America Canada 0,1

Central Africa 0,1

Central Africa Chad 3

East Asia China 5

East Africa Comoros 0,1

Republic of the Congo 2

West Africa Côte d'Ivoire 5

Middle East Cyprus 0,1

Western Europe Denmark 0,1

East Africa Djibouti 0,5

North Africa Egypt 65

East Africa Eritrea 2

East Africa Ethiopia 20

Western Europe France 3

West Africa Gambia 1

Caucasus Georgia 0,1

Western Europe Germany 2

West Africa Ghana 2

Balkans Greece 0,1

West Africa Guinea 7

West Africa Guinea-Bissau 0,1

South Asia India 120

Southeast Asia Indonesia 150

Middle East Iran 20

Middle East Iraq 15

Middle East Israel 1

Western Europe Italy 0,1

Middle East Jordan 5

Central Asia Kazakhstan 0,1

East Africa Kenya 1

Balkans Kosovo 1

Middle East Kuwait 1

Central Asia Kyrgyzstan 0,1

Middle East Lebanon 1

North Africa Libya 5

Balkans Republic of Macedonia 0,1

Southern Africa Madagascar 0,1

Southern Africa Malawi 0,5

Southeast Asia Malaysia 10

South Asia Maldives 0,1

West Africa Mali 7

North Africa Mauritania 3

Southern Africa Mauritius 0,1

North Africa Morocco 25

Southern Africa Mozambiq 0,5

Southeast Asia Myanmar 0,1

South Asia Nepal 0,1

Western Europe Netherlands 0,1

West Africa Niger 8

West Africa Nigeria 25

Middle East Oman 2

South Asia Pakistan 100

Southeast Asia Philippines 0,5

Middle East Qatar 0,5

Eastern Europe Russia 5

East Africa Rwanda 0,1

Middle East Saudi Arabia 10

West Africa Senegal 3

West Africa Sierra Leone 1

East Africa Somalia 7

South Africa 0,1

Western Europe Spain 0,1

South Asia Sri Lanka 0,1

North Africa Sudan 15

Middle East Syria 10

Central Asia Tajikistan 3

East Africa Tanzania 4

Southeast Asia Thailand 0,5

West Africa Togo 0,5

North Africa Tunisia 8

Middle East Turkey 50

Central Asia Turkmenistan 0,1

East Africa Uganda 1

Eastern Europe Ukraine 0,1

Middle East United Arab Emirates 1

Western Europe United Kingdom 0,5

North America United States 1

Central Asia Uzbekistan 1

Middle East West Bank and Gaza 2

Africa Western Sahara 0,1

Middle East Yemen 15

TOTAL≈1,100,000,000(1,1 billion)

Christians (same method as muslims)

Asia Central Afganistán 0,1

Balcanes Albania 1

Europa Occidental Alemania 20

África Austral Angola 7

Oriente Medio Arabia Saudita 2

América del Sur Argentina 20

Oriente Medio Armenia 2

Oceanía Australia 10

Europa Central Austria 5

Oriente Medio Azerbaiyán 0,1

Europa Oriental Bielorrusia 5

Europa Occidental Bélgica 6

África Occidental Benin 1

América del Sur Bolivia 7

Balcanes Bosnia 2

África Austral Botswana 0,5

América del Sur Brasil 100

Balcanes Bulgaria 4

África Occidental Burkina Faso 1

África Central Burundi 3

África Occidental Camerún 4

América del Norte Canadá 15

África Central Chad 3

América del Sur Chile 10

Lejano Oriente China 20

América del Sur Colombia 30

África Central Congo 30

Lejano Oriente Corea del Sur 10

América Central Costa Rica 3

África Occidental Costa de Marfil 5

Balcanes Croacia 3

Caribe Cuba 5

Mediterráneo Chipre 0,5

Europa Occidental Dinamarca 3

América del Sur Ecuador 10

África del Norte Egipto 8

América Central El Salvador 5

África Oriental Eritrea 2

Europa Central Eslovaquia 2

Europa Central Eslovenia 1

Europa Occidental España 30

América del Norte Estados Unidos 200

Europa Oriental Estonia 0,1

África Oriental Etiopía 40

Oceanía Fiji 0,1

Sureste Asiático Filipinas 70

Europa Occidental Finlandia 3

Europa Occidental Francia 40

Medio Oriente Franja de Gaza 0,1

África Occidental Gabón 1

África Occidental Gambia 0,1

Medio Oriente Georgia 3

África Occidental Ghana 10

Balcanes Grecia 8

América Central Guatemala 10

África Occidental Guinea 0,5

América del Sur Guyana 0,1

Caribe Haití 6

América Central Honduras 5

Europa Central Hungría 7

Subcontinente Indio India 20

Sureste Asiático Indonesia 15

Medio Oriente Irán 0,1

Medio Oriente Iraq 0,5

Europa Occidental Irlanda 3

Medio Oriente Israel 0,1

Europa Occidental Italia 45

Caribe Jamaica 2

Extremo Oriente Japón 0,5

Medio Oriente Jordania 0,5

Asia Central Kazajistán 5

África Oriental Kenia 20

Medio Oriente Kuwait 0,5

Asia Central Kyrgyzstan 1

Europa Oriental Latvia 1

Medio Oriente Líbano 1,5

África Austral Lesotho 1

África Occidental Liberia 1,5

Europa Oriental Lituania 3

Europa Occidental Luxemburgo 0,1

Balcanes Macedonia 1

África Austral Madagascar 6

África Austral Malawi 7

Sureste Asiático Malasia 3

África Occidental Mali 1

África Austral Mauricio 0,5

América del Norte México 80

Europa Oriental Moldavia 3

África Austral Mozambique 7

Sureste Asiático Myanmar 1

África Austral Namibia 1

Subcontinente Indio Nepal 0,5

Oceanía Nueva Zelanda 2

América Central Nicaragua 4

África Occidental Níger 1

África Occidental Nigeria 50

Europa Occidental Noruega 4

Europa Occidental Países Bajos 8

Subcontinente Indio Pakistán 3

América Central Panamá 2

Oceanía Papúa Nueva Guinea 3

América del Sur Paraguay 5

América del Sur Perú 20

Europa Central Polonia 30

Europa Occidental Portugal 8

Caribe Puerto Rico 3

Europa Occidental Reino Unido 40

África Central República Centroafricana 2

Europa Central República Checa 2

Caribe República Dominicana 7

Balcanes Rumanía 20

Europa Oriental Rusia 80

África Oriental Ruanda 7

África Occidental Senegal 1

Balcanes Serbia y Montenegro 7

África Occidental Sierra Leona 1

Sureste Asiático Singapur 0,5

Medio Oriente Siria 2

África Austral Sudáfrica 30

Subcontinente Indio Sri Lanka 1

África del Norte Sudán 5

Europa Occidental Suecia 6

Europa Occidental Suiza 4

América del Sur Surinam 0,5

África Austral Swazilandia 0,5

Sureste Asiático Tailandia 0,5

Extremo Oriente Taiwán 1

Asia Central Tajikistan 0,5

África Oriental Tanzania 10

Sureste Asiático Timor Oriental 1

África Occidental Togo 1

Centroamérica Trinidad y Tobago 0,5

África del Norte Túnez 0,1

Asia Central Turkmenistán 0,5

Medio Oriente Turquía 0,5

África Oriental Uganda 15

Europa Oriental Ucrania 25

América del Sur Uruguay 2

Asia Central Uzbekistán 2

América del Sur Venezuela 20

Sureste Asiático Vietnam 5

África Austral Zambia 7

África Austral Zimbabwe 8

TOTAL≈1,400,000(1,4billion) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Humanbyrace (talk • contribs) 17:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Christianity by country

Next to this list I want to put this template.

==By population==

===Christians===

Largest Christian populations (as of 2007):

1. United States 234,889,159
2. Brazil 169,109,476
3. Mexico 103,265,846
4. Russia 98,964,426
5. Philippines 84,246,490
6. France 56,709,186
7. Germany 56,032,677
8. Nigeria 54,012,466
9. China 52,874,076
10. Italy 50,588,528
11. Ethiopia 47,131,322
12. D.R. Congo 46,026,058
13. United Kingdom 43,515,786
14. Colombia 41,938,720
15. Ukraine 41,669,876
16. Spain 38,021,300
17. Argentina 37,883,811
18. Poland 36,977,511
19. South Africa 35,066,269
20. Kenya 28,792,702

Consensus?--Carlaude (talk) 00:59, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

• • That's totally wrong - there are not that many christians in Ukraine and France. Other numbers are listed without citing reliable source --red_SUN^RISING 10:52, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

• • I don't know for other countries, but the number for France is ridiculous. First, these numbers should be coherent with other articles of wikipedia (especially about atheism -33% in France- and agnosticism). Notice that there are many french (christian, muslim or other), which are 'officially' in a religion, so as to be 'pleasant to the family': officially religious, but actually atheist. But even if you consider official numbers, 83.3% of christian is irrelevant! -- fde. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.254.104.254 (talk) 14:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Jews

You can use any word you want (religious Jews for example), but you should not use ethnic data for this article. The sources give the number of ethnic Jews, and in Russia there two different words for Jew and Judaist (and unlike English, both are widely used). You can check the sources to find out that it is the word for ethnic Jews is used in them.--Dojarca (talk) 07:21, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Chirstian by Country Chart

Why someone UNDOS my modification, on Romania. This country should be on 3rd or second place on the Christians by country chart. Even on the main article with Christians by country shows Romania with 99% christians, but on this article is 97%? Where do you get that? Look on the source before deleting my entry!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tinel (talk • contribs) 19:30, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

No source to such claims

I have to say that is article shows no sign of direct sources of the percentages, and are done among people's original research and unverified claims, which conflicts with Wikipedia's guidelines, very surprised that none of these data have been deleted. Tangomaan (talk) 18:31, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I may agree with you. Calculations often very depending on the source one uses. I think its best to sources that show direct percentages, such as CIA World Factbook. The source is internally consistent as well, and directly gives percentages. I have also not seen anyone dispute its reliability.

In particular, the source entry on Saudi Arabia shows that it is 100% Muslim. I would accept other figures, as long as they are not calculated, and appear directly in a source.VR _talk 06:14, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

'CIA World Factbook [...] I have also not seen anyone dispute its reliability.' Sorry, but I think that the numbers for France are irrelevant (Christian 83.3%, Muslim 10%)... Or these numbers are just based on ethnical facts. It is possible that 83.3% of french peoples originate from christian countries (including France), and 10% of french people originate from Muslim countries; but again, these numbers are not representative of the actual religion of peoples in France. -- fde ; 16 Feb 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.254.104.254 (talk) 14:28, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Population Growth

Shouln't we include a section or even start a new article about religions and thier population growth? 87.101.224.234 (talk) 09:13, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Dude, this is a very important subject, I think Islam will outnumber chirstianity soon 77.31.22.15 (talk) 02:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Lets do something about it 81.22.21.37 (talk) 12:32, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Samoa

According to Religion in Samoa, Samoans are almost 100% Christian, yet it does not rank in the top Christian nations. Why is that? Joshuajohanson (talk) 17:52, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The article requires a clean up & UPDATE!!!

Update the article because it is of great interest to the people of the world. --121.54.68.114 (talk) 13:05, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

i think there should be 2 lists. one of practising religous groups, and one list thats lists people religous culture, even if they are not practising. becuase the current list is inacurate, confusing and dosnt really make any sence. like china who aparently dont have a religion because the government says so, but thats not true every chinese person ive met in china have a taoist or buddhist culture. the same with christianity, alot of christians say they are athiest but they have a christian culture. so i beleivet there should be two different lists, one of religous culture and one list of people who are practising a religion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.129.248 (talk) 04:41, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Grenada

" Grenada 94% (Roman Catholic 53%, Anglican 13.8%, other Protestant 33.2%)"

How does this make sense? 53 + 13.8 + 33.2 = 100... 118.90.41.120 (talk) 09:32, 13 December 2009 (UTC) Whoops, forgot it was relative. 118.90.41.120 (talk) 09:33, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Atheism

Shouldn't atheism replace Hinduism since it is a larger religion?looks like a discrimiation on my point of view —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.232.147.7 (talk) 10:24, 22 April 2010 (UTC) No because atheism is not a religion, even if it is a religious position. Munci (talk) 12:04, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

• "My position on unicorns is that they don't exist." That's not a position. Atheism is not a 'position' on religion. That's erroneous and silly. Atheism should not be mentioned in this list of religious populations. It's like including fans of chocolate on this list of religious populations. It's absurd. ZachsMind (talk) 18:15, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Countries?

Did I miss a news item? When did Falkland Islands gain sovereignty and become a "country"? Macau, Hong Kong, Christmas Island, Réunion, Gibraltar, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Niue are not "countries" either. 208.65.64.18 (talk) 15:32, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Vatican City Catholic, Not Christian

The Vatican City is not a holy city of Christians, it is the holy city of Catholics. This is deeply upsetting for a Protestant such as myself. I don't think it is right to claim the Vatican city as the holy city of all of Christianity. A disclaimer needs to be put under the Vatican city in the chart displaying "Religions or beliefs with over 5 million adherents." 69.209.52.3 (talk) 09:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)SnakPak

      I am Catholic but, the Vatican isn't our Holy City. It should be Jerusalem  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.35.144.135 (talk) 22:45, 21 May 2010 (UTC) 

okay, i will address it. Iwanttoeditthissh (talk) 19:23, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Kim-Zhang-Hong

I noticed your anti-social editing lately and you feel to assume good faith. Some of the estimates are different to give a neutral viewpoint. I noticed you are new here and might be unfamiliar so i reccomend you read Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. It is also against wikipedia rules to edit controversial stats without a consensus. Iwanttoeditthissh (talk) 16:19, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Irreligious and atheist

Japan is listed as being 64-80% Irreligious or Atheist and the reference is to a site which gives no numbers and states that, although most would not commit to having a religion the culture is based on Shinto/Buddhist religion. The citation doesn't support the claim! It does not seem to be a very accurate reference either. The Wikipedia article on Shinto claims "119 million official practitioners of Shinto in Japan" and references the Library of Congress Country Studies, which seems a far more reliable source.

The CIA World Factbook states the religions of Japan as being: Shintoism 83.9%, Buddhism 71.4%, Christianity 2%, other 7.8% note: total adherents exceeds 100% because many people belong to both Shintoism and Buddhism (2005)

I wonder how these lists have been formed and feel that they need to be either cut or re-structured using more reliable or at least respectable resource. Frater SG (talk) 07:00, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, it really depends on how you look at these numbers. An adage about the Japanese people says that they are born Shintoist, marry Christian and die Buddhist - meaning that they many of them baptize their children in a Shintoist ceremony, marry in Christian-looking surroundings (it's a thing of fashion), and are buried in a Buddhist ceremony. So you could conclude that religion plays a big part in their lives, but on the other hand, most Japanese take religion as little more than folklore (the baptizing and burials are mostly done in a Shintoist and Buddhist manner because it's tradition, it's just always been done that way) and would by many be considered thoroughly a-religious, so the numbers really reflect what kind of question would be asked in a survey and how they would be asked. If you went out trying to find as irreligious a people as you could, you could no doubt conclude that 80% of them were. If you wanted to make them a religious people, you end up with a number of adherents that surpasses the 100% mark. This is why it's hard to put down an accurate number for Japan. TomorrowTime (talk) 18:54, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Age of Hinduism

kuzutsu (talk) 06:19, 10 July 2010 (UTC)Debayan Gupta

I have some concerns about the age of the Hindu religion (provided by the World Christian Encyclopaedia).

1. The age of the Hindu religion given here seems to be based on the premise of the Aryan Invasion theory, which is heavily disputed by scholars[10], and recent evidence seems to prove it wrong beyond doubt .[11]

2. Dating the vedas using astronomical events leads to an age of around 6000 BCE [12]

3. The date of the drying up of the Saraswati river, and consequent migration of the Saraswati Valley Civilization to Harappa and Mohenjodaro puts the vedas at an age of at least 3300 - 4000 BCE.[13]

4. Other evidence, such the the ancient flint mines in the Rohri Hills [14], the discoveries made in south eastern Baluchistan [15] also provide dates far older than 1500BCE.

Given the fact the the source (World Christian Encyclopaedia) itself seems to be outdated, should we not put up a separate table with newer estimates, or, at least, a caveat that the value provided may not be correct ?

Buddhist and irreligious percentages

There was no reason given for this change [16]. if there are sources for a percentage and they are accepted for other countries, then they should be used for all. You can't just have one rule for one coutnry and one rule for another. Further changes I made not directly relating to the previous edit: Also, the sources I see for Laos have 67% Buddhist. The source given for Taiwan's Buddhist percentage says 11.2 million religious believers in Taiwan. When it says "75% identifying themselves as Buddhists or Taoists" that could either mean 75% of those religious or 75% of the total population. It certainly couldn't mean 93%. In any case, another page from the same source [17] makes it clearer. And, there was a dubious Christian number of 100 million for China. That's an upper high estimate at best. I replaced with a range of numbers taken from here [18]. Also, I ranked everything by averages only. Munci (talk) 17:20, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Which author are you talking about, Kim? From any of the sources provided? At most, that would mean anyway putting a disclaimer. removing the stats completely gives an even falser impression. Also, the source for Albania is Phil Zuckerman at the article Irreligion by country. Munci (talk) 14:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Phil Zuckerman

I had a disclaimer mentioning Vietnam, North Korea, and China

It doesn't give a falser impression because these stats are unreliable, According to the Gallup poll about the importance of religion, Vietnam was in the "most religious" category. And you think it's 81% atheist? Ridiculous, absolutrely absurb See: http://www.gallup.com/poll/114211/alabamians-iranians-common.aspx

The World Christian Encyclopedia also puts Vietnam at only 7% atheist, 7-81%....see how unreliable these figures are. That's why I removed them

The source of Albania is not Phil Zuckerman, it's just someone with an agenda in wikipedia that keeps changing Albania's status. According to Phil Zuckerman: "According Inglehart et al (2004), 8% of those in Albania do not believe in God. According to O’Brien and Palmer (1993), over 50% of Albanians claim “no religious alliance." Where is the 70% figure? See: http://atheism.110mb.com/

btw the 50% figure doesn't necessarily mean they are irreligious or believe in no religion, according to the pewforum 79.9% of Albania is muslim See: http://pewforum.org/uploadedfiles/Topics/Demographics/Muslimpopulation.pdf Kim-Zhang-Hong (talk) 04:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

First of all, good point on Vietnam. That should be given a wide range now. North Korea is not mentioned so far in list of highest irreligious populations, only South Korea. Vietnam and Albania have had the same high percentages for Zuckerman since their entry in the page Irreligion by country and Vietnam has been the same since it was added to the article Irreligion. However, Albania was different then. And here we have the change: [19]. I think we can fairly say that Albania does not belong that high on this list actually. And I fixed it at irreligion by country as well. Should the Gallup Poll still count though?

On the other hand, I'm not seeing a source for Japan as high as 80%. I say we should put both the lowest and highest figures by any RS and rank them by the averages. No? Munci (talk) 16:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

The Gallup poll indicates that Vietnam is highly religious, thus it cannot be on the top 20 most irreligious countries If religion is very important to you then you obviously have a religion. Though that doesn't necessarily mean that we should add the other countries that had high estimates of people not considering religion to be important because most people still believe in a religion even though it's not important in their everyday life

What's an RS?

"Only one in five Japanese claim a belief in God" http://www.thomsontimes.com/Facts_About_Japan.html Now it's your turn, I don't see a source indicating that Japan is 52% atheist, or a the source of 63% in Albania, or the 35% in Belgium, or 25% in Germany, or 25% in Sweden, do I need to continue? Btw the 93% of Chinese being atheist is definitely incorrect, here's why

You know Japanese? Then explain what's up with the Dentsu research? If it truly cites people who adhere to no religion from different countries then you would conclude several ridiculous conclusions such as:

1) China has more Christians than Buddhists

2) Over 1.7 milliard people don't believe in any religion, this is higher than Islam and it rivals Christianity( note that high populous countries like Brazil weren't included, so who knows what would happen if they included every country)

3) The UK has no atheists(when in reality it should be at bare minimum 20% atheist)

4) Sweden and Denmark don't even make it to the top 20 most irreligious countries(Despite the fact that they top the list in the other 2 researches)

I could go on, and I would check more behind it if I could but reading Japanese is still my weak point. But from what I see this study cites official figures, and if this is correct then it would definitely explain a couple of things like why China tops the list, not many are assigned at Buddhist temples, but over half of China is Buddhist and a third adhere to the Taoic religions. Dr,A,Smith reported that 50-80% of China is Buddhist, according to a 1990 census 91% of China is Buddhist, according to the world Christian encyclopedia only 8% of China is atheist and around 394 million adhere to the taoic religions So right off the bat it's clear the the 93% "no religion" figure for China can't be true. It would also explain why estimates from Sweden and Denmark top the list in Zuckerman's research and the Gallup poll while in the Dentsu research they don't make it to the top 20 and have less than 26% people with "no religion"(most people are assigned at churches merely because their ancestors associated with it, but church attendance is very low)

So if someone has a better explanation, I would like to hear it. What's up with the Dentsu research? Kim-Zhang-Hong (talk) 06:24, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

RS is an abbreviation for Reliable Source.

Re "I don't see a source indicating that Japan is 52% atheist, or a the source of 63% in Albania, or the 35% in Belgium, or 25% in Germany, or 25% in Sweden, do I need to continue?" - all these figures are from Dentsu.

In order to the figures of the Dentsu research at least, it's simply a matter of copypasting the names into the Japanese wikipedia and going to the interwikis or a dictionary or something like that. This shows that the 3rd row down says China 93% irreligious, 2.5% Protestant and 2.1% Buddhist. You are right that these are odd figures and appear to be due to using official figures. What's even odder is why irreligion's at the start and Buddhism near the end. Perhaps it could be better shown by "8% (officially 93%)" or something? It's not that the UK doesn't have any atheists; it's that the UK as a whole was not included in their research.

Re "Over 1.7 milliard people don't believe in any religion" - which countries is this taken from? Where does the other .3-.4 billion come from? There's China, Russia and France already but most of the other countries with high irreligious percentages have such low populations.

Re ""Only one in five Japanese claim a belief in God" http://www.thomsontimes.com/Facts_About_Japan.html" - What you quoted there proofs atheism, not irreligion. There are atheist religions and parts of religions. The source that was used for Japan [20] does not give any percentage for irreligious at all. In any case, the site is just a blog (see the main page "The views and opinions expressed blog entries are personal, that of Peter and Wendi Thomson, and do not necessarily express the view and opinions of Asian Access, its leadership or its partners.", "Powered by WordPress and the EPSILON theme."). So it's not an RS. And already with such statements as "Many cities and towns still have no Christian church.", it's obvious what the site's bias is.

re:(most people are assigned at churches merely because their ancestors associated with it, but church attendance is very low) - If you're going to base religiosity on church attendance, then I doubt there's anywhere in Western Europe where there are more Christians than irreligious. I remember reading reasonable figures of religious attendance in the UK at 10% and in France at 15%. Munci (talk) 23:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

" It's not that the UK doesn't have any atheists; it's that the UK as a whole was not included in their research." Then what part of it did they research? Northern Ireland? That's listed as a seperate country. So what now? The rest of the UK's territories have quite a decent atheist community, again, at bare minimum 20% and possibly as many as 44% according to a survey comissioned by the BBC in the year 2004

" which countries is this taken from?" To show other people just how ridiculous this was I looked up at the cia population figures and used the dentsu research to calculate how many atheists every single country had, this is the figure I got, if you don't trust me calculate it yourself, the Dentsu reserach is pretty useless really. I wish I could read Japanese in times like these

" There's China, Russia and France already but most of the other countries with high irreligious percentages have such low populations." You forgot India, sure it's just 6.6% but India is a HUGE country, that's another 77 million You also forgot South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Philippines(yes Philippines, laugh hard at the 10.9% figure), Germany, Italy and it's endless really

"What you quoted there proofs atheism, not irreligion" It's the same thing unless we're talking about Jainism, Buddhism actually tends to be polytheistic/deistic rather than atheistic

"There are atheist religions and parts of religions" I tried really hard to search for atheist religions, the only one I found were humanist organizations like Ethical Culture and Jainism(which is almost nonexistent in Japan). Confucianism has Shangdi, Taoism has the Jade emperor, Chinese mythology has Pangu, etc etc, do I need to continue with the gods list? Most religions tend to be way too superstitious to be classified as atheist, Buddhism included

"The source that was used for Japan [22] does not give any percentage for irreligious at all" Oh? Then I'll give you something even better "According to Johnstone (1993:323), 84% of the Japanese claim no personal religion, but most follow “the customs of Japanese traditional religion.”" http://atheism.110mb.com/

Atheism and Irreligion tend to be the same really, except for Jainism and some humanist groups which you might or might not classify as a religion

"the site is just a blog (see the main page "The views and opinions expressed blog entries are personal, that of Peter and Wendi Thomson, and do not necessarily express the view and opinions of Asian Access, its leadership or its partners.", "Powered by WordPress and the EPSILON theme.")" Really? Odd, I didn't see that, can you give me a link?

"it's obvious what the site's bias is." Yeah, towards Christianity, look what they wrote: "Today, evangelical growth is slow, but increasing. There is one church for every 16,500 people. Many cities and towns still have no Christian church.

Japanese Christian are waking up to the fact that they must reach out to those around them. In recent years several Japanese-led national prayer movements have begun. Many are also rethinking the methods that they have been using for decades, and asking God to give them the ability to reach all Japanese people for Christ."

"If you're going to base religiosity on church attendance, then I doubt there's anywhere in Western Europe where there are more Christians than irreligious" Who said that? Me? I never said that unless someone was saying that Scandinavia is over 80% Christian and cited organizational reportings as his source Kim-Zhang-Hong (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC).

"Then what part of it did they research? Northern Ireland?" For whatever reason, they only decided to look at that.

"To show other people just how ridiculous this was I looked up at the cia population figures and used the dentsu research to calculate how many atheists every single country had, this is the figure I got, if you don't trust me calculate it yourself, the Dentsu reserach is pretty useless really." - I trust you. I am also surprised by how high the percentage for the Philippines is.

"Really? Odd, I didn't see that, can you give me a link?" - Sure: http://thomsontimes.com/

"Yeah, towards Christianity, look what they wrote:" - Agreed.

"http://atheism.110mb.com/" - That looks a good source now that I look at it. We should use that more regularly.

"Atheism and Irreligion tend to be the same really, except for Jainism and some humanist groups which you might or might not classify as a religion" - Yeah that's more or less true come to think of it. Jainism does have gods in its little way I think though. The only atheist religious group I can think of is advaita Hinduism.

"Who said that? Me? I never said that unless someone was saying that Scandinavia is over 80% Christian and cited organizational reportings as his source" That would've been in reference to "most people are assigned at churches merely because their ancestors associated with it, but church attendance is very low".. Munci (talk) 19:20, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

"For whatever reason, they only decided to look at that" Yes, they put Northern Ireland seperately from the UK, so they're not speaking of Northern Ireland, so what part of the UK could they be referring to? What part of the UK has slim to none atheists aside from Northern Ireland?

Sorry, you were right, I'm not going to mention the ThomsonTimes again

"Jainism does have gods in its little way I think though" Of course it has supernatural beings, otherwise it wouldn't be called a religion, nonetheless the deities in Jainism are very different from the Abrahamic religions. Jainism considers the universe to be eternal so there is no creator god concept, they also believe that all living beings are of equal value so there is nothing that they worship Sounds atheistic enough to me You might also consider Jediism to be an atheistic religion, although you might also just consider it a parody religion

Alright, now that this is over I'm going to continue editing this article, I'll probably add Spiritism and a couple of notes on some religions Been fun talking with you Kim-Zhang-Hong (talk) 12:18, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

"Yes, they put Northern Ireland seperately from the UK, so they're not speaking of Northern Ireland, so what part of the UK could they be referring to? What part of the UK has slim to none atheists aside from Northern Ireland?" - As far as I can tell, Dentsu doesn't cover the UK as a whole, only Northern Ireland. At least, there is no figure available for it at irreligion by country and Finding イギリス on the Dentsu page [21] doesn't get anything the way 北アイルランド does.

As for Jainism, yes the deities are not like Abrahamic one(s) but, correct me if I'm wrong, but neither are the deities in Buddhism, right?

Sorry to continue but the only thing the source atheism.1mb.com says about Vietnam is that is 81% atheist. Why it questions China and North Korea figures but not Vietnam ones I don't know but you would need a separate source for that. Munci (talk) 16:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

英国 means England and again it shows no atheists

"As for Jainism, yes the deities are not like Abrahamic one(s) but, correct me if I'm wrong, but neither are the deities in Buddhism, right?"

Yes, nonetheless Buddhism tends to be more superstitious and it's often mixed with other religions that do comment on gods and our duties to them. Buddhists also doesn't necessarily believe in an eternal universe and can engage in acts of worship because they don't necessarily consider all souls to be equal

"Sorry to continue but the only thing the source atheism.1mb.com says about Vietnam is that is 81% atheist. Why it questions China and North Korea figures but not Vietnam ones I don't know but you would need a separate source for that"

Nah, it's all good. I didn't respond for quite a while yet you didn't engage in edit wars and discussing things with you was fun Again,. read what Zuckerman wrote:

"In a totalitarian country where atheism is promulgated by the government and serious risks are present for citizens viewed as disloyal (e.g., China or North Korea), individuals will be reluctant to admit that they actually do believe in God"

"Nations marked by coercive atheism -- such as China, North Korea, Vietnam"

See what I mean, but wait, maybe that's just my original research? OK, then how about this: http://www.scu.edu/ethics-center/world-affairs/politics/By_Countries_Regions/Vietnam.cfm

"The 1999 Census listed Vietnam as...80.8% none. These figures are problematic, however, since they fail to account for two separate realities. First, the entire culture is traditionally very Confucian, but those values do not appear in the analysis. Second, as a Communist state, there is strong pressure not to list any religious affiliation. Hanson (below) explains the traditional form of Confucian state and Marxist state penetration, regulation, and control of religious organizations. In “moderate” times, religious adherents are faced with the choice of joining a government-approved religious organization or joining an unlawful one and being persecuted. The government recognizes six religions, including the approved Buddhist Church of Vietnam. However, it has outlawed (1981) the United Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), led by Thich Huyen Quang and Thich Quang Do. In radical times, for example, the Cultural Revolution in China, the Confucian-Marxist government hunts all religious believers"

There, is that good enough? Again, remember, the Gallup poll puts Vietnam in the "most religious" category, to say that it has 81% atheists is quite ridiculous, that'll put it on the top three most atheistic countries. Vietnam, the country that usually adheres to more than one religion and actually engages in triple religion Kim-Zhang-Hong (talk) 16:06, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Jews-- Symbolic Hell?

Since when do Jews believe in Hell? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.204.70.13 (talk) 19:43, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Pastafarianism

There are 10 million followers of Pastafari in this world and I believe that we deserve a spot on this list. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Magnus656 (talk • contribs) 01:47, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Religious populations in the UK

Hey there

I think the numbers quoted in this Wiki article may be an inaccurate representation for the UK (where I live).

The sources I am going to refer to are the official national censuses for the UK. These are freely available online. The last census was taken in 2001 (next one is due 2011) so the numbers are slightly out of date compared to the 2007 sources cited in the article, but the numbers are so radically different that I can't see such a large shift in just 9 years.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/commentaries/ethnicity.asp

http://www.scrol.gov.uk/scrol/warehouse/NewWards_ER_N.jsp

The first link covers England and Wales and the second Scotland (and allegedly Northern Ireland but I couldn't find any numbers for them)

In England/Wales 16.5% (average) said that they had 'no religion'. This strongly conflicts with the 41.5% quoted in the 'irreligious' section of the wiki article. England and Wales account for >85% of the total population of the UK.

In Scotland the number of people claiming 'No religion' is 27.5%. The Scottish website is both a bit rubbish and a bit useful (always the way!) in that it doesn't contain any finalised tables, but it does allow you to download the raw data to do the numbers yourself. Please could someone check my working to make sure I've not made an obvious boo-boo.

Please note that in the UK censuses, the religion question is optional and 7.7% of people in England and Wales, and 5.5% of people in Scotland chose not to answer.

The population of England/Wales is listed as 58,789,194 and of Scotland as 5,062,011. (Again from the above sources)

The overall available numbers for religious diversity in the UK are:

Scotland: Christian - 65.1%, No religion - 27.5%, Other (not very useful!) - 1.9% and Did not answer - 5.5%

England and Wales: Christian - 37.3 million (using the population above this works out as ~63.4%), Did not answer - 7.7%

England Islam - 3.1%, Hindu - 1.1%, Sikh - 0.7%, Jewish - 0.5%, Buddhist - 0.3%

Wales Islam - 0.7%, Hindu - 0.2%, Sikh - 0.1%, Jewish - 0.1%, Buddhist - 0.2%

It should be noticed that at the time of the 2001 census there was an internet campaign to get people to state their religion as 'Jedi' - 0.7% of the population did so, but I don't think this helps the article!

The raw data are probably there on the websites to perform accurate 'total' calculations, I just don't have the time today!

Be happy to hear what you think. Cheers.

Jpking1976 (talk) 15:19, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

i

wuts this 84.13.48.194 (talk) 17:56, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

what you mean by that? 84.13.46.66 (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

3rd holiest city (Christianity)

Santiago de Compostela
- James, one of Christ´s apostels was there.
- This city is pilgrimage route.
- It claims as 3rd most holiest city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctuary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jacob_(disambiguation)
http://www.santiago-compostela.net/

In article headlines (According to ReligionFacts) and (Holiest city).
I suggest to add Santiago de Compostela to holiest cities of Christianity (as noted):

! Religion | Christianity

! Holiest city | Rome / Jerusalem / Santiago de Compostela (Catholicism only)

! Religious text | Bible

--90.182.221.2 (talk) 15:18, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

reverting other wikipedian when was correct? (Islam holy cities)

I just looked to history here
Islam holy places

! Religion | Islam

! Holiest city | Mecca / Medina / Jerusalem

! Religious text | Quran / Bible

--90.182.221.2 (talk) 15:15, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion to include Mormonism

• Mormonism
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
• Latter Day Saint movement

! Religion | Mormonism

! Holiest city | Salt Lake City / Manchester (town), New York / Palmyra (town), New York / Fayette, New York / Sharon, Vermont
(= these cities are not sure)

! Religious text | Book of Mormon / Bible

--90.182.221.2 (talk) 15:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Interesting paper?

This paper may be of interest here. if only as a link for Further reading. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 01:52, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

More on chinas buddhism figure.

1 billion seems an awfully high number for adherents, considering that wikipedias own religion in china page states a quarter of the population is buddhist, and there are no sources cited for this figure. Is this based on self reporting or census? Or is it just based on estimate? I see no reason to overestimate the size of your religion considering a survey carried out in 2007 showed 200 million. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6337627.stm , it just seems a little steep that 80% of the country is buddhist. Why is it so important to seem to have so many members? Kungfukats2 (talk) 15:54, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

3. Religion facts estimates - missing traditional group

The comment after the religion facts table, says this: "Traditional religion includes polytheism, shamanism, pantheism, and animism"

But there is no traditional religion, included in the table, so someone has removed it, but kept the comment relating to it? Why? Where is the traditional religions group?

Someone who edits the page, find it and include it.

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.133.143 (talk) 00:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Section 4.8 Irreligious and athiest - china and north korea missing

The comment after this section says: "Remarks: Ranked by mean estimate which is in brackets. High irreligious estimates for China and North Korea are very likely highly exaggerated.[86]"

China and north korea are not in that list at all. So they have been removed, where are they? If someone doesn't agree with a number, the country can't be removed from the list completely, that is then saying they have no irreligious people at all and so are not in the list. Removing from the list at all, is worse than giving the wrong position in the list.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.133.143 (talk) 00:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Section Four largest religions - I don't see the point, or else it should be more than four, or for example as I will write below, which adds to nearly the whole population of the world.

Christian

Islam

No religion

Hindu

Chinese religion

Buddhism

Animist

African

I have my own numbers for these, but I think if you work them out yourself, you will find that just these 8 categories, add up to most of the world population, such as 6900 million.

So in that case it is a better case to show this many 8 largest religions, instead of 2 largest, or 4 largest, or any other number which is not including nearly all the world in total.

The 8 largest above, are all the religions above the size of sikh, so all the ones above 25 million people. And importantly, the remaining religions not in the list, are only a very small number of the world left out, not over 1500 million people left out, as in the four largest religions example. (1500 million people left out is equal to the size of the second largest category - islam)

To sum up. I think 8 largest categories, or at least more than 4 largest categories. is better than 4. So that it shows almost everyone in the world, instead of only 67% of the world (4650 million people, out of 6900 million).

Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.133.143 (talk) 00:46, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

DISPUTE four largest religions chart

I doubt only 800,000,000 dont believe in any religion. 6.8 billion population with 6 billion religious is VERY inflated. I think the problem lies in the fact that the facts of the chart come from multiple sources, many of which are .com addresses which should not be credible sources for this type of information. Mokaiba11 (talk) 19:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

DISPUTE by proportions

I have issues with the 100% listed in this part as well when the SOURCE cited indicates something completely different. "Federated States of Micronesia ~100%" The United Church of Christ is the main Protestant denomination. On the island of Kosrae, the population is approximately 7,800, 95 percent of whom are Protestants. On Pohnpei, the population of 35,000 is evenly divided between Protestants and Catholics. On Chuuk and Yap, an estimated 60 percent are Catholic and 40 percent Protestant. Smaller religious groups include Baptists, Assemblies of God, Salvation Army, Seventh-day Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons), and the Baha'i Faith. There is a small group of Buddhists on Pohnpei, although no Buddhist monks or clergy live on the island. Mokaiba11 (talk) 19:38, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

DISPUTE Adherents.com

I think this website should be blocked as a source as it is not neutral. They dont list all their sources and the FAQ indicates "The majority of our citations come from books. Over 65% of the citations are not available elsewhere on the web because they come from printed books or periodicals." This means there is no credibility to their claims if we do not have all the original sources. Most of the listed sources are from non-neutral areas, such as the World Christian Encyclopedia. several polls are from .org websites as well. Mokaiba11 (talk) 20:02, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

added website to proposed block list. Mokaiba11 (talk) 20:13, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

credible sources

Credible sources for chart information. http://freebooks.uvu.edu/SOC1010/index.php/ch15-religion.html . Make a note this one is from 1997 http://www.ovc.edu/peppercenter/survey/world_demo.htm . Books that could be checked out at a library then used to update info here.

Nora Gallagher, Things Seen and Unseen New York: Vintage, 1999. ISBN: 0679775498

Michael Molloy, Experiencing the World's Religions

McGraw Hill, 2006. 4th edition.

ISBN: 0073535648

Malise Ruthven, Islam in the World

Oxford University Press, USA, 2006. 3rd edition

ISBN-10: 0195305035 ISBN-13: 978-0195305036 Mokaiba11 (talk) 20:29, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Ive request my library to get the follow book, Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices [Book] by J. Gordon Melton. ( http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=religions+of+the+world+by+location+books&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1366&bih=657&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=9334061008475440194&sa=X&ei=ASgvTo2FDou8sAPP1KCRAg&ved=0CGEQ8wIwAA ). Once that book is in, i will check it out and update the article. Mokaiba11 (talk) 20:53, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Mormons, Christians, Catholics

I've been told that some people consider that Mormons are not Christians, but I don't think that's the main consensus. That said, why would Mormons be treated separately and Roman Catholics —that BTW account for more than half the Christians— not? I guess it's been discussed long ago. IMHO, Catholicism IS a different religion from Protestant denominations. 190.21.115.24 (talk) 12:58, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:List of religious populations/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

The fact stating Algeria is 99% muslim is false, as i have spoken to a few friends of mine from Algeria stating that the majoriy of the population are in fact christians, and a great number of catholics and protestants churches present. This article has to be revised.Ù

Last edited at 08:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 20:51, 3 May 2016 (UTC)