Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Sikhism is the fifth largest organized religion in the world, [20] with approximately 30 million adherents. [21] And one of the most steadily growing. [22] It is a monotheistic religion founded by Guru Nanak Dev in the 1500s. The religion professes its roots in the area of Punjab region, in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent.
The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups, though this is not a uniform practice. This theory began in the 18th century with the goal of recognizing the relative degrees of civility in different societies, [2] but this concept of a ranking order has since fallen into disrepute in many contemporary cultures.
Some academics studying the subject have divided religions into three broad categories: world religions, a term which refers to transcultural, international faiths; Indigenous religions, which refers to smaller, culture-specific or nation-specific religious groups; and new religious movements, which refers to recently developed faiths. [5]
The list of religious populations article provides a comprehensive overview of the distribution and size of religious groups around the world. This article aims to present statistical information on the number of adherents to various religions, including major faiths such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and others, as well as smaller religious communities.
Hinduism originated on the Indian subcontinent and was related to many other religious traditions outside the subcontinent, in places like ancient Central Asia and ancient Iran. It is considered by some to be the world's oldest extant major religion.
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics ...
The largest religions in Asia are Islam and Hinduism, both with approximately 1.1 billion adherents. In 2010, the Pew Research Center found five of the ten most religiously diverse regions in the world to be in Asia. [91] Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated in India, a country of South Asia.
Many world religions are also organized religions, most definitively including the Abrahamic religions Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, while others are arguably less so, in particular folk religions, indigenous religions, and some Eastern religions. A portion of the world's population are members of new religious movements. [12]