What are the Major religious groups?

1 ANSWERS

1. GiGi
   

   The world's principal religions and spiritual traditions may be classified into a small number of major groups or world religions. According to the 2005 survey of Encyclopædia Britannica, the vast majority of religious and spiritual adherents follow Christianity (33% of world population), Islam (20%), Hinduism (13%), Chinese folk religion (6.3%) or Buddhism (5.9%). The irreligious and atheists make up about 14%, and about 4% follow indigenous tribal religions. A number of classical "world religions" (including Sikhism, Judaism, Bahá'í, Jainism, Shinto and others) are each followed by under 0.5% of the world's population; they are sometimes considered world religions in terms of cultural significance and historic recognition, but are not deemed to be "major religious groups" due to their size.
   
   These spiritual traditions may be either combined into larger super-groups, or separated into smaller sub-denominations. Christianity, Islam and Judaism (and sometimes the Bahá'í Faith) are summarized as Abrahamic religions. Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism are classified as Indian religions (or Dharmic religions). Chinese folk religion, Confucianism, Taoism and Shinto are classified as East Asian religions (or Far Eastern, Chinese, or Taoic religions).
   
   Conversely, many major spiritual traditions may be parsed into denominations:
   
   1) Christianity into Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Oriental Orthodoxy, and Nestorianism.
   2) Islam into Sunni, s**+'a, Sufism, and Kharijites.
   3) Hinduism into Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Shaktism, Smartism, and others.
   4) Buddhism into Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana.
   5) Judaism into Hasidic, Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform.

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