And since Manhattan and Chronos just had a heart attack they will be happy to discover that this isn’t a thread about religious dogma. Whew.
I was wondering what all the recognized religions are worldwide. I can name a fair number and did a little search but it proved to be less than satisfactory. Let’s assume that each denomination of Christianity is a different religion. As I said earlier, I only want recognized religions such as those that the government of whatever country would support or at least not try to disband. Another example, I don’t care or want to know of the Tokyo Subway Bombers or Heaven’s Gate unless they are recognized by the government as being a religion.
You recognize the difficulty in answering your own question, I think. Defining a recognized religion is a pretty tough nut to crack. Nice big simple ones like Roman Catholicism are easy, there’s one for the list. After that it gets fuzzy. There are at least three kinds of Lutherans that I know of. Get out of the mainstream and it’s tough. Does having a tax exempt status make one’s diety or theology valid?
Tax exempt, sure. That means the government recognizes it. I knew it would be tough to answer and I have seen some lists that tend to have around 300 or so religions on it but even those have eluded my searches.
Probably what you’re looking for here is not so much religions as sects of major religions. For example, within Christianity you’ve got Roman catholicism, Greek Orthodox, Lutheranism, Protestantism, Baptists (to avoid using the word Baptism), Presbyterianism, Fundamentalism, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons, JC latter-day saints, Church of Zion, Church of Christ, Church of God, etc.
Within Judaism you’ve got a few major denominations, none of which I can name as I’m not familiar with them.
Then you’ve got the Muslims, under which fall (I believe) shi’ite and something else. And there are probably other/smaller sects in there (not that difficult to tell what my religious upbringing was, is it?:)).
And you’ve got Buddhism and zoroastrianism and Wicca and . . . criminy, just a whole helluva lot right there.
So your short answer: a helluva lot.
Your longer answer: see above, but the list is really a lot longer than that.
Not all governments around the world recognise religions (strictly speaking, religious organisations) as being tax exempt. Definitions will vary between each country. Some will grant tax exemption to religious organisations because they fall within a broader category, such as charitable organisations, without keeping separate statistics. Many won’t bother keeping records. A few don’t even allow religions of any sort within their boundaries, never mind grant them tax exemption. I suspect that you’re only going to get a sensible answer to your question if you restrict it to the United States.
Don’t forget the Free Spirits. They are always tax exempt since they don’t believe in money, but you won’t see them on many lists. Even religioustolerance.org lists them just as “etc. – churches eliminated by genocide in 14th century Europe.” Not quite!
Their listing is estimated to include 98% of the world’s population, and if you scroll dwon the page they list fairly extensively the different sects/branches of each of the major religions. They also list another set of religions that are often recognized but don’t meet the criteria this particular site has established (the criteria are explained on the site as well).
They list 22 major religions (ranked by size):
1.Christianity: 2 billion
2.Islam: 1.3 billion
3.Hinduism: 900 million
4.Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 900 million
5.Buddhism: 350 million
6.Chinese traditional religion: 225 million
7.primal-indigenous: 190 million
8.Yoruba religion: 20 million
9.Juche: 19 million
10.Sikhism: 18 million
11.Spiritism: 14 million
12.Judaism: 13 million
13.Babi & Baha’i faiths: 6 million
14.Jainism: 4 million
15.Shinto: 4 million
16.Cao Dai: 3 million
17.Tenrikyo: 2.4 million
18.Neo-Paganism: 1 million
19.Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
20.Scientology: 750 thousand
21.Rastafarianism: 700 thousand
22.Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand
I’ve no idea which of these have tax exempt status–but it’s somewhere to start. For example-you may or may not want to include atheism/agnosticism as a religion, or as the same religion.
In which case I think I got me a Mormon church near my house. BTW, pepper, I was just tryin’ to think up lots of religious denominations. Naturally, as I’m catholic, that comes to mind first:)
Four at least. Only the ELCA is in communion with the Episcopalians. We share liturgy, sacriments and mission but keep our identity. The Missouri and Wisconsin synod Lutherans are a whole different beed of cat, much more conservative than the ELCA.
In response to Sqrl’s OP I feel that goverment recognition of a religion is the least legitimate kind. Sqrl and I might agree that suicide cults like Heaven’s Gate and the Japanese subway gassers are as a rule a bad thing but I could step over an awfully fine line by saying the pagans and wiccans on this board don’t have a legitimate religion because it doesn’t square with mine.
I read a great quote here or at religioustolerance.org that said Christianity is not a bunch of a bunch of religions but each person’s relationship to Christ. By that token you maybe shouldn’t count the denominations but the Christians.
SqrlCub: Aum Shinrikyo, the Tokyo nerve-gas boys, were in fact recognized by the Japanese government as a real, honest-to-whatever religion. They lost that status a couple of years ago, so I guess they no longer count.
Incidentally, “Tokyo Subway Bombers” is the name of the Japan Rail softball team, and they object strenuously to the callous insensitivity you’ve shown toward their fine sporting organization.
huh… I used to be in a band called the Tokyo Subway Bombers… after five minutes, we changed our name to Nideo Homo, and adopted a baseball-cum-sanfransisco leatherdaddy gimmick. in another half hour, we broke up, without practicing once. I shit you not.
Well, if we just count the main religion and not the subgroups what do you guys think it will break down to? I agree that it doesn’t have to be recognized by the government to be an official religion. I just want to know what all of the religions that are recognized are. Is there a way to do that for just the US?
For some people, being called a Mormon is tantamount to calling a homosexual a “faggot”. This is because many people use the word “Mormon” in a very derogatory way. Obviously, I have no such problem, as I refer to myself as a Mormon. But since you never know who you are talking to, or who will hear/read what you are saying, stick with LDS (Latter-Day Saints). As in “I know a great girl on the SDMB who is LDS” or “I have never met anybody from the LDS Church”
The world’s inventory of Unitarian-Universalists barely outnumbers the Scientologists? Yeesh! As a UU I find that deeply depressing. The world would be so much nicer if everyone was a UU! Still, UUs being UUs, I don’t expect a jihad anytime soon.
SqrlCub, maybe if you told us all why you’re asking this question, we could form better criteria for answering it. I agree with others in this thread that toting them up according to government recognition is probably not the best path.
Five, I am simply curious about it. I would settle to know which religions in the United States are officially recognized through tax exemption or anything else. I know that some military bases are now sanctioning Wicca so some religions that are newer are even being recognized. Just curious.
