What is a religion?
Religion is defined as the following:
- The belief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe.
- A personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship.
Some theists claim that Atheism is just another religion, but based on this definition, Atheism is simply the lack of a belief or reverence for a supernatural power or powers. As such Atheism does not qualify to be referred to as a religion.
What is the largest religion in the world?
According to the World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions , Christianity is the largest religion in the world with 33% (2.1 billion followers) of the world’s population expressing a minimal level of self-identification adherents of Christianity.
Islam is the 2nd largest religion with 21% (1.3 billion followers), followed by Secular/Non-Religious/Atheist/Agnostic people making up 16% (1.1 billion) of the world’s population.
The other classical religions follow with Hinduism having 14% (900 million), traditional Chinese religions having 6% (394 million) and Buddhism having 6% (376 million) followers respectively.
What is the fastest growing religion?
Of all the major religions, Islam is by far the fastest growing religion, however this is purely due to the rate of population growth in the Muslim world compared with the decrease of population growth in the West.
Samuel Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilizations and the remaking of world order,” states the following:
“The percentage of Christians in the world peaked at about 30 % in the 1980s, levelled off, is now declining, and will probably approximate to about 25% of the world’s population by 2025. As a result of their extremely high rates of population growth, the proportion of Muslims in the world will continue to increase dramatically, amounting to 20 percent of the world’s population about the turn of the century, surpassing the number of Christians some years later, and probably accounting for about 30 percent of the world’s population by 2025.”
There have been suggestions by Christians that Christianity is growing at a faster rate, however this is not backed up by any data and it seems to be more related to Christians migrating from one denomination to another. For instance Christians who have traditionally worshiped in more formal denominations such as the Roman Catholic or Anglican churches have migrated to more informal Evangelical churches. From the studies that have been conducted, the vast majority of new members amongst Evangelical churches have moved there from other Christian denominations.
What is monotheism?
Monotheism is the doctrine or belief that there is only one God.
The earliest forms of monotheism can be found in the Middle East under Zoroastrianism, the cult of Aten in Egypt and early Hinduism in India.
Zoroastrianism was based in Persia and originated around 1500 BCE. It was founded by the prophet Zarathushtra and was strictly monotheistic in their worship of Ahura Mazda. Zoroastrianism also gave birth to the doctrines of Satan, sin, angels and demons and heaven and hell.
The cult of Aten prospered in Egypt during the 12th Dynasty around 1900 BCE. They believed in the destruction of all other idols whom they recognized as valid deities but enemies of their preferred deity.
Hinduism developed around 2000 BCE in India and worshiped Brahman which they called “”One Being” or “One Truth”. This led to a variety of different interpretations as some Hindus saw all their gods forming “One Being” or “One Truth”. This is an example of very early monotheistic thought even though they are more polytheistic in the strictest form of the word.
What is polytheism?
Polytheism is the belief in more than one god.
It is worth noting that polytheism is the oldest form of religion and the vast majority of religions are polytheistic in nature. It has been argued that Christianity itself could be classed as polytheistic in nature as Christians belief in the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, however Christians view these as one God.
Islam is strictly monotheistic (the belief in a single god), whilst Judaism is traditionally monotheistic with period of polytheism in its’ past. Both Archaeology and even the Bible itself supports the idea that the Jewish god was worshipped alongside other gods such as Asherah for instance during certain periods in the past.