Most of the world belongs to a faith
Roughly three people in every four worldwide identify with a religion. By the most widely used recent estimates, about 31 per cent of the world is Christian, about 25 per cent Muslim, about 15 per cent Hindu and about 7 per cent Buddhist, with around 15 per cent saying they have no religious affiliation. Hundreds of millions more follow folk and traditional religions, and smaller faiths like SIKHISM and JUDAISM each have many millions of followers.
The balance is shifting. Christianity's centre of gravity has moved from Europe to Africa and Latin America, and ISLAM is growing fastest, largely because Muslim populations are younger on average. A classroom map of world religions drawn fifty years ago would already be out of date.
Two big families of faith
JUDAISM, Christianity and ISLAM are often called the Abrahamic faiths, because all three trace their story back to Abraham. They share a belief in one God, a line of PROPHET figures, and a scripture — the TORAH, the BIBLE and the QURAN — and they have overlapping stories: Noah, Moses and Mary appear in more than one of them.
HINDUISM, BUDDHISM, SIKHISM and JAINISM all began in India and share a different set of ideas. KARMA, the belief that actions carry consequences into this life and future ones, and DHARMA, meaning duty or the right way to live, run through all four, each in its own way. BUDDHISM speaks of NIRVANA, release from the cycle of rebirth; Sikhism has one God and rejects the caste system. The two families ask different questions, so comparing them point by point often misses what each is about.
Three smaller faiths
JAINISM teaches ahimsa, non-violence towards every living thing, taken so seriously that some Jain monks and nuns sweep the path ahead of them with a soft brush so as not to tread on insects. The BAHAI faith is one of the youngest world religions, founded in Iran in the nineteenth century, and teaches the unity of all religions and of humankind; its terraced gardens in Haifa are among the most visited sites in Israel.
SHINTO, Japan's native tradition, has no founder and no single holy book. It centres on kami, spirits present in nature, places and ancestors, honoured at shrines. Many Japanese families mix it comfortably with Buddhism — a baby may be brought to a Shinto shrine, and a funeral held with Buddhist rites. Our Japanese mythology page covers the stories behind it, and TAOISM has its own page in this section.
What they share
Across very different beliefs, the practical shape of religious life is recognisable. Most faiths have a place for WORSHIP — a CHURCH, MOSQUE, SYNAGOGUE or TEMPLE. Most have a holy day or rhythm to the week, like the Jewish SABBATH. Most have journeys: the PILGRIM travelling to Mecca, to the River Ganges, to Jerusalem or to Amritsar. And most have some form of giving to people in need.
Learning about a FAITH that is not your own is a core part of religious education in UK schools, and the approach is simple: describe what followers believe and do, in their own terms, rather than deciding who is right.