5 Religions With The Most Followers

Religions have shaped much of world history and thought, from philosophy to law, from music to architecture, from wars to peace. Much of the world's religions can be traced back to two sources: Abrahamic religions or India.
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Religions have shaped much of world history and thought, from philosophy to law, from music to architecture, from wars to peace.

Much of the world's religions can be traced back to two sources: Abrahamic religions or India. The Abrahamic religions includes Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bahá'í Faith, Samaritanism, Druze and the Rastafari movement. Indian subcontinent was the source of major religions including Hinduism, Jainism Buddhism and Sikhism.

We have listed below the religions with the most followers in order:
(1) Christianity: About 2.3 billion followers. About 50% of Christians are Roman Catholics.
(2) Muslim: About 1.5 billion followers. About 80-90% of Muslims are Sunni and 10-20% are Shia. The Shia-Sunni split in the Muslim religion occurred due to the dispute over the succession after the prophet Muhammad died in 632.
(3) Non-religious or atheist: About 1 billion people
(4) Hindu: About 900 million followers with the vast majority living in India.
(5) Buddhist: About 400 million followers. Based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, the vast majority of Buddhists live in Asia.

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Note: Other sources such as http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html list slightly different estimates though they are all generally within 10% of each other. For purposes of counting adherents, we have grouped atheists (people who do not believe in deities) and non-religious people together.

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