posted
I saw a map at my kids school at open house yesterday that mapped world religions.
The ones listed were: Christianity Islam Hinduism Buddhism Judaism Indigenous/Folk
My question is: Why is Judaism considered a major world religion?
The population of each relgion listed above is: Christianity - 2.1 billion Islam - 1.5 billion Hinduism - 0.9 billion Buddhism - 0.4 billion Judaism - 0.014 billion Indigenous/Folk - really a hodge-podge of groups.
The numbers are similar to various christian sects like Jehova Witness, LDS, and 7th day which some treat as cults. Why does the Jewish faith get such esteem?
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posted
It's probably considered a major world religion because of its large modern and historical relevance.
Posts: 1327 | Registered: Aug 2007
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posted
Don't you think LDS and Jehovah's Witnesses were counted in the "Christianity" bullet? No need to feel slighted.
And yeah, what Threads said. It's been around a LONG time, produced over half of the book the 2.1 bln group use as their Bible, and it has Mel Brooks. How could it not be mentioned?
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I think it's considered a major world religion between both Christianity and Islam derived from it to one extent or another. That's 3.6 billion that'd be some other religion had it not been for Judaism.
posted
<nod> We can do well without people who are only practicing Judaism on the basis of a Pascal's wager.
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posted
My grandfather is fully convinced that Judaism owns show business, so perhaps that's a factor?
(Funnily enough, I've never been able to get out of him if he thinks it's a good thing or a bad thing.)
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quote:The nice thing about Judaism is that I'm not going to an eternal hell if it's correct.
Hah, that's almost an argument to be a member of a different religion. Better odds in the afterlife.
I like Dawkin's argument better, your better off picking no god than the wrong one.
But I teach world religions in my social studies class, and am rather dissappointed by how the textbook really does not connect Judaism to Islam or Christianity.
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posted
The obvious answer that came to me is that this was on a map, and they needed to give Israel a color.
I'm curious what this map looked like though. Did it just color in each nation (region?) with the dominant religion?
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It just put colored blobs over the world. I have done some searching on the internet and there are ones that are way better. It didn't separate Suni/Shia or Catholic/Protestant etc. Big sections of Africa and Asia put in the Indigenous/Tribal (not Folk as I listed above - sorry!). I guess I just never realized that there are so few Jews...considering all the press.
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quote:Why is Judaism considered a major world religion?
Technically, there are 7 major world religions, considered so not because of number of followers but because of mainstream infiltration and knowledge of said religion:
Confucianism Taoism Buddhism Hinduism Christianity Judaism Islam
Judaism is a major world religion because of it's impact on history (unfortunately, the reason that their are so few Jews is because of WWII), it's impact on what are considered the monotheistic western religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam form a trinity--per se), and it's impact on western thought within the mainstream.
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posted
"unfortunately, the reason that their are so few Jews is because of WWII"
About 6 million Jews were killed during WWII, more than ten times that amount of other people (and thus other religions) were also killed. This doesn't explain why Judaism is not a popular religion. The culture of persecution, of course, had an effect.
I wonder if it is just too hard of a religion to live for most people...
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posted
There's a good summary with pretty good notes at adherents.com, if you take the six largest to match the OP you get:
quote: # Christianity: 2.1 billion # Islam: 1.5 billion # Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion # Hinduism: 900 million # Chinese traditional religion: 394 million # Buddhism: 376 million
There is also a good summary of the deal with what they call Chinese traditional religion and why we usually just mash at least Confucianism, Taoism, and other traditions together:
quote: Chinese traditional religion: In older world religion books the estimates of the total number of adherents of Confucianism range up to 350 million. Other books, including older versions of the Encyclopedia Britannica, have listed Chinese religionists under "Taoism," with adherent estimates up to about 200 million. But these figures are all based on counts of the same segment of Chinese people throughout the world -- people practicing what is, sociologically, more accurately called Chinese traditional religion, and often called Chinese folk religion. The word "traditional" is preferable to "folk" because "folk" might imply only the local, tribal customs and beliefs such as ancestor worship and nature beliefs. But "Chinese traditional religion" is meant to categorize the common religion of the majority Chinese culture: a combination of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, as well as the traditional non-scriptural/local practices and beliefs. For most religious Chinese who do not explicitly follow a different religion such as Islam or Christianity, these different ancient Chinese philosophies and traditions form a single, seamless composite religious culture and worldview. ... In comparative religion texts Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism are sometimes addressed in three separate chapters, and sometimes treated in one chapter as "Chinese religion." Even today there are very valid reasons for distinguishing Taoism from Confucianism, and distinguishing both from Chinese Buddhism and non-scriptural Chinese folk religion. For religious, philosophical, historical and scriptural purposes, distinguishing between these separate traditions is quite manageable. ... Fifty years ago religious Taoism was one of the largest, strongest institutions in China. Since the Cultural Revolution and the government's campaign to destroy non-Communist religion, Taoism lost, for the most part, the main mechanism through which it remained distinct from the larger Chinese religious environment: its large numbers of temples and Taoist clergy. Although Islam, Buddhism and Christianity have bounced back and even surpassed pre-Communist levels in China, Taoism has not. Today, despite the existence of some self-identified Taoists and pure Taoists in the West, Taoism is difficult to isolate as a large, independent religion from a statistical and sociological perspective. Hence, in this list, which is explicitly statistical and sociological in perspective, Taoism should be thought of as a major branch of Chinese traditional religion.
Here is another good kick at ranking at the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
quote: Christianity 2,039 million 32% (dropping) Islam 1,226 million 19% (growing) Hinduism 828 million 13% (stable) No religion 775 million 12% (dropping) Chinese folk rel. 390 million 6% Buddhism 364 million 6% (stable)
quote:Originally posted by String: Is it even possible accurately survey religion in china. Doesn't the state their ban religious practice of any kind?
If I'm wrong, please forgive my ignorance
Mmmmm... it's not completely banned. There are still many MANY Buddhist and Taoist shrines that people are permitted to make pilgrimages to. Monks maintain the shrines. Foreigners are permitted to have church in a person's home. There is even a Chinese Catholic church with quite a few members, the only difference being they are not permitted to pledge allegiance to the church in Rome. Muslims in North West China can practice to some extent, I'm not sure if they are allowed to make the Hajj. Religions not recognized by the government CAN'T proselyte however.
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posted
I wouldn't say that's the only difference, re: the Chinese Catholic church (and the Roman Catholic church is pretty adamant on some important differences, notably that they don't like the Chinese gov't appointing the clergy).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
BlackBlade is essentially correct, in fact the government has noticeably been supporting the majority religions in certain ways, tourism, culture, appeasing people's desire to be religious, and perhaps as a compromise in places like Hong Kong.
(As an aside, Jews have an interesting history in China, Ehud Olmert's father and grandfather lived in Harbin)
I think a much bigger problem for estimates of religion in China is not state interference. The much bigger problem (which is evident by simply comparing the various sources) is the problem of classification, which is why you see the statistics vary so wildly from source to source. Unlike Western religions which are usually mutually exclusive (if not violently so) and thus easily to classify, you're allowed to mix and match making self-identification of religion tricky. Also non-religious beliefs like ancestor worship, feng shui, and so forth are often not clearly separated in practise from religions such as Taoism or Bhuddism. Stuff in between like Confucianism makes the distinction even more murky,
The related questions of how you draw lines between religions and how you get people to self-identify probably throws much more error into the statistics than state policy.
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posted
Oh, and one thing about the small number in the Judaism camp--they don't seek new members.
Unlike Islam, Christianity or any of the other big 5, or most of the smaller groups as well, there is no desire for Jewish faithful to convert others.
Their are very few Jewish converts, since by its nature Judaism is a tribal religion. So while the followers of Buddha traveled east, and the followers of Jesus traveled West, and the followers of Mohammed traveled south, then they all got into big fights when they bumped into each other, the Jews only traveled to avoid those demanding conversion via sword point. (ok, that was the most simplistic version of 2500 years of history I've ever spewed forth. Sorry).
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quote:Judaism teaches that you do not have to become Jewish to go to heaven. The righteous of all nations merit a share in the eternal World to Come. The basics of it involve keeping the Seven Laws of the Children of Noah.
posted
Very interesting, thank you BlackBlade, that clears things up for me.
quote:Originally posted by Darth_Mauve:
Their are very few Jewish converts, since by its nature Judaism is a tribal religion. So while the followers of Buddha traveled east, and the followers of Jesus traveled West, and the followers of Mohammed traveled south, then they all got into big fights when they bumped into each other, the Jews only traveled to avoid those demanding conversion via sword point. (ok, that was the most simplistic version of 2500 years of history I've ever spewed forth. Sorry).
I read that whole thing in Woody Allen's voice, and it was a good time.
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