This is pretty nuts. And enlightening.
 

Map shows how religion spread around the world - Business Insider

Crazy!

Interesting. I barely noticed much of Judaism, I thought it was more widespread?

Crazy how Christianity was pretty much imported to north and south America.

I wish I had a time machine and a sniper rifle.

I'm interested to know what's with the hinduism section in South America(Brazil maybe?).

Cool find Chula. Thanks.

It's not that large of a religion relatively speaking.

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

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.

Again, the mind blower for me was how quickly the entire continents of North and South America found Jesus. Equal parts the Spanish Inquisition and the influx of European immigrants.

How different would the world be today if not for that?

^ Yes, also striking is how Christianity only turned up in California and Alaska at the end of the sequence.

^ Well, here in Mexico, our Sundays just wouldn't be the same:-


http://imageweb-cdn.magnoliasoft.net.../pnp344513.jpghttp://www.mexicolore.co.uk/images-aus/aus_65_00_2.jpg

:rofl:

Ok, that's was freaking hilarious.

Thanks, Chula! I wonder what strange Native American ceremonies you' d be up to in California. Probably eating hallucinagenic mushrooms and smoking strange herbs - but wait a minute, you guys do that anyway, right?

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

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.

the jews are like the little engine that could... no matter what history threw at them, be it persian, roman or greek conquest... or medieval antisemitic purges... or a tyrannical dictator that explicitly seeks to exterminate them... they somehow survive

that's why they're in there

judaism > christianity + islam combined imo

^ That seems to bear out what H.G.Wells was saying, but on mature reflection, as they say, I'm more inclined to agree with Janszoon:-

I think H.G.Wells was making a comparison between things like pharaoh worship, which didn't survive outside Egypt and was therefore primitive, and Judaism, which could survive as an intellectual idea anywhere. But it's always risky to make sweeping generalizations about history and I think H.G.Wells was underestimating the significance of early religions. Also, if it comes to cultures surviving without a physical homeland, I suspect that the gypsies moving out of India may predate Judaism.

Thanks for updating the world religion stats:-

What is "Juche", I wonder!?