Saturday, February 6, 2010

Statistics-Religion and Non-Religion

After examining several links (in the interest of finding one that is unbiased), I found some interesting statistics here:
Religious Tolerance.org
In addition to showing percentages of people who follow a certain religion, it also shows if that religion's rate is rising or dropping. Please go to the page for the full study.
Here are some basic facts:
Christianity: 32% and dropping
Islam: 19% and growing
Hinduism: 13% and stable
No Religion: 12% and dropping
Atheism: 2% (no comment included)

They also add that the "no religion" category is dropping because even though people are becoming non-religious in many places, the fall of Communism in the USSR is countering that.* I wonder if this means that religion(or its lack) is susceptible to trends and fads.
Many religious people seem to believe that humanity is "hard-wired" to believe in a power greater than itself. These statistics would seem to prove that is possible. If I wanted to look at it another way, I could say that most people are delusional (if I was feeling snarky).
At this point, I'm not sure what to say. Sometimes I feel very confused. I think my ideas closely resemble Taoism although I identify myself as an atheist.
There is definitely a hole in the heart of mankind. Whether it's god-shaped, I don't know.

*There is much more to it of course. I just picked out the bits that interest me.
See the actual site for validation of their sources.

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