Nonreligious Population Increasing

    The listing below which includes the number of people relating to the many various religions and nonreligions was obtained from a U.K. website.

1.     Christianity (2.1 billion)

2.     Islam (1.3 billion)

3.     Nonreligious (Secular/Agnostic/Atheist) (1.1 billion)

4.     Hinduism (900 million)

5.     Chinese traditional religion (394 million)

6.     Buddhism 376 million

7.     Primal-indigenous (300 million)

8.     African traditional and Diasporic (100 million)

9.     Sikhism (23 million)

10.  Juche (19 million)

11.  Spiritism (15 million)

12.  Judaism (14 million)

13.  Bahai (7 million)

14.  Jainism (4.2 million)

15.  Shinto (4 million)

16.  Cao Dai (4 million)

17.  Zoroastrianism (2.6 million)

18.  Tenrikyo (2 million)

19.  Neo-Paganism (1 million)

20.  Unitarian-Universalism (800,000)

Note: As the above listing is based on dated information the numbers may have changed.

What’s interesting are the top three with their numbers over a billion. What’s even more interesting is that the top two seem to be constantly embroiled with what I would call internal management issues. Whether they are dealing with disgraces or trying to manage those followers with their own interpretation of religious teachings both have their share of troubles which are significantly more than isolated in scope. As the size of #3 continues to grow with each passing year it may be a question of time before it moves to #1 on the list. Perhaps this is a sign that organized religion is losing the appeal it once had. Although freedom of religion continues to be part of individual rights in democratic countries, the growing numbers in the nonreligious group suggests it is time for those same countries to start ensuring its citizens have freedom from religion.