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Religion 101

In my previous two posts, I presented a global religious pie chart, graphically displaying and comparing the relative sizes of the major religions of the world, based upon their own total global populations. Now, I’d like to present a similar sort of religious pie chart, but one based instead upon the relative population sizes of…

Out of a total world population currently close to seven billion people, the global religious “pie” slices up roughly as follows: The above raw data calls for at least a little bit of additional explanation and commentary. The clear winner, in terms of sheer size, is Christianity, coming in with nearly one-third of the world’s…

People engaged in a personal spiritual search, or on a private religious quest, often conduct it in a limited fashion, largely unaware of the immense variety of living religions and spiritual pathways that actually exist out there, in the wider world. Students entering world religions courses, on the first day of a new semester, often…

In a previous blog, I asked the rhetorical question, “Can religions exist without scriptures?” (Answer: Yes. Religions can and do exist that lack any written scriptures. Many indigenous religions, for instance, are associated with non-literate cultures. They do just fine passing down their religious beliefs and traditional ways without benefit of the written word.) Here’s…

Question: What do Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Amish, Mennonites, Quakers, Pentecostals, charismatics, evangelicals, fundamentalists and “non-denominationals” all have in common? Answer: they’re all “Christians.” Christianity is the largest religion in the world. Christians account for about 32% of the total global population, and about…

Concluding my five-part overview of ten striking similarities and prominent parallels between Judaism and Islam, which some who are unfamiliar with either faith might find rather surprising: 9.  Jews and Muslims both observe religiously mandated dietary rules and regulations.   Most people who know anything at all about Judaism have at least heard about the…

As mentioned in my previous blog entry, a recent Pew Forum survey finds that 78.4% of the U.S. population self-identifies as Christian — clearly an overwhelming majority. By contrast, Jews account for only 1.7% and Muslims a mere 0.6% of the U.S. population. (From a planetary perspective, things look very different. The Pew Forum also…

According to a recent Pew Forum survey, 78.4% of the U.S. population self-identifies as Christian — clearly an overwhelming majority. By contrast, Jews account for only 1.7% and Muslims a mere 0.6% of the population. Overwhelming majorities (of whatever sort) sometimes pay little attention to, and may actually know very little about, the tiny minorities…

The U.S. population is overwhelmingly a Christian population (78% according to a recent Pew Forum survey), which of course means that all other religions also present within the U.S. are, by definition, “minority religions” (no matter how large they might be on the wider, global scene). Perhaps unsurprisingly, many average Americans’ familiarity with these other…

In my previous blog entries, I addressed poll results indicating that a surprisingly large percentage of Americans are unaware of the fact that Judaism is older than both Christianity and Islam, and are also unable to identify which Islamic countries actually have the world’s largest Muslim populations (to the surprise of many Americans, they’re not…
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