The beliefs of a people are a fundamental part of their culture. In times of globalization, faith no longer finds geographical barriers and, like languages, religions have gained the world. In big cities, you can easily find places of worship of many different beliefs.
But when you talk about the world's major religions, you're referring to the religions with the highest numbers of declared believers. Even with globalization, this number is mainly influenced by the size of the population of the countries where they are most practiced.
See below which are the 12 largest religions in the world according to the main religious statistical center, Adherents:
12. Judaism
Practitioners: 14 million
Main countries: Israel, Palestine, Monaco and USA
The first of the monotheistic religions, those that believe in the existence of a single God. Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God and continue to await the coming of God's envoy.
11. Spiritism
Practitioners: 15 million
Main countries: Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil and Suriname
Very present in Brazil, spiritism is a relatively recent religion created in the mid-nineteenth century. His belief is based on the existence of reincarnations as a form of continuous evolution of the human spirit.
10. Juche
Practitioners: 19 million
Main countries: North Korea
The subject of great controversy, North Korea's official religion revolves around the worship of its current and past rulers. The word Juche can be translated from Korean as “self-reliance” and the religion bears many similarities to Christianity.
9. Sikhism
Practitioners: 23 million
Main countries: India, UK and Canada
Sikhism comes from the Sanskrit "sisya" which means disciple. Resulting from a combination of Islam and Hinduism, Sikhs believe in the influence of karma from previous lives on your current life.
8. Traditional African Religions
Practitioners: 100 million
Main continent: Africa
There are several traditions and religious practices of tribal origin that are still maintained today, without major influences from other religions. For the Adherents, despite being different religions, they were organized as “one big religious group”.
7. Primal Indigenous Religions
Practitioners: 300 million
Main countries: Haiti, Guinea-Bissau and Cameroon
Despite being cataloged as a religion, the Primal Indigenous Religion is more a way of life than a religious practice. It is mainly due to the relationship between man and nature in a spiritualized way.
6. Buddhism
Practitioners: 376 million
Main countries: Cambodia, Tibet and Thailand
Originally from India, Buddhism can be considered both a religion and a philosophy, being mainly identified by not involving the worship of one or more gods. For Buddhists, everything that happens is governed by the force of the universe and reincarnation is a form of human evolution.
5. Traditional Chinese Religion
Practitioners: 394 million
Main countries: China
Composed of a set of ethnic and religious traditions of China. Traditional Chinese Religion has two strands, one based on ying and yang and the other based on the cult of shens, different deities that can be natural, demigods or ancestors.
4. Hinduism
Practitioners: 900 million
Main countries: nepal and india
With around 330 gods, Hinduism preaches that we can all reach enlightenment if we work to escape the ignorance and illusion of the earthly world. It is considered the oldest living tradition, and it does not have a declared founder.
3. Atheism / Agnostic
Practitioners: 1.1 billion
Main countries: Czech Republic, Japan, Estonia and Denmark
During the surveys carried out by Adherents, a large number of people who identified as non-religious were identified. Therefore, they were cataloged in the Atheism/Agnostic group. Atheism is a line of thought that does not believe in the existence of any god or life after death. For atheists, all “miracles” have a scientific explanation.
2. Islam
Practitioners: 1.5 billion
Main countries: Maldives, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Turkey
Monotheistic religion founded by the prophet Muhammad. Muslims believe that the purpose of existence is to serve God. They do this through the five pillars of Islam: faith, prayer, almsgiving, pilgrimage and fasting.
1. Christianity
Practitioners: 2.1 bilhões
Main countries: Vatican, Romania, Samoa
Christianity is based on the belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God. There are different aspects of Christianity, but Catholicism is the most adherent and commonly related to the doctrine conducted by the Vatican.
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