Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
Yes, that's very interesting, Chula - a lot of information to take in. I didn't notice anything for atheism in Soviet Russia, so I think I might watch it one more time.
Here are some stats about world religions, a bit old but I don't suppose the proportions have changed much:-
Christianity: 954 million
Islam : 538 million
Hinduism: 524 million
Buddhism: 249 million
Judaism: 14 million
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This is the breakdown from Wikipedia:
Christianity: 2.2 billion
Islam: 1.6 billion
Nonreligious/Unaffiliated : 1.1 billion
Hinduism: 1 billion
Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
Buddhism: 376 million
Ethnic religions: 300 million
African traditional religions: 100 million
Sikhism: 23 million
Juche: 19 million
Spiritism: 15 million
Judaism: 14 million
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisnaholic
So Janszoon is right, statistically Judaism is really small. None the less, as H.G.Wells pointed out, it's very significant in terms of human evolution. According to him it was the first time in world history that a big cultural group were held together, not by the territory they owned, but by an idea. Their god didn't conquer countries, but he was there, in a book and in their heads. Maybe that' s why it's still counted as one of the big five today.
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I think Wells is way off base with that claim. It's not like Judaism was the first religion. It wasn't even the first monotheistic religion. I think more likely the reason for its significance in the modern world is that it birthed the two largest religions on the planet.