Religion Analysis

[Clidia Panahon]

Thegeographic distribution of religious groups varies considerably. Several religious groups are heavily concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, including the vast majority of Hindus (99%), Buddhists (99%), adherents of folk or traditional religions (90%) and members of other world religions (89%).

Three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated (76%) also live in the massive and populous Asia- Pacific region. Indeed, the number of religiously unaffiliated people in China alone (about 700 million) is more than twice the total population of the United States.

Though by smaller margins, most Muslims (73%) and religiously unaffiliated people (71%) also live in countries in which they are the predominant religious group. Muslims are a majority in 49 countries, including 19 of the 20 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The religiously unaffiliated make up a majority of the population in six countries, of which China is by far the largest. (The others are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hong Kong, Japan and North Korea.)

Most members of the other major religious groups live in countries in which they are in the minority. Seven-in-ten Buddhists (72%), for example, live as religious minorities. Just three-in-ten (28%) live in the seven countries where Buddhists are in the majority: Bhutan, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Some religions have much younger populations, on average, than others. In part, the age differences reflect the geographic distribution of religious groups. Those with a large share of adherents in fast-growing, developing countries tend to have younger populations. Those concentrated in China and in advanced industrial countries, where population growth is slower, tend to be older.

These are among the key findings of a new study of the global religious landscape conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life as part of the Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures project, which analyzes religious change and its impact on societies around the world.

For estimates of the religious composition of individual countries, see Religious Composition by Country table. For details on the methodology used to produce estimates of religious populations in 232 countries and territories, see Appendix A. For a list of data sources by country, see Appendix B.

There are some minor differences between the estimates presented in this study and previous Pew Forum estimates of Christian and Muslim populations around the world. These differences reflect the availability of new data sources, such as recently released censuses in a few countries, and the use of population growth projections to update estimates in countries with older primary sources. (For more details, see the Methodology.)

This study is based on self-identification. It seeks to estimate the number of people around the world who view themselves as belonging to various religious groups. It does not attempt to measure the degree to which members of these groups actively practice their faiths or how religious they are.

Folk religions are closely tied to a particular people, ethnicity or tribe. In some cases, elements of other world religions are blended with local beliefs and customs. These faiths often have no formal creeds or sacred texts. Examples of folk religions include African traditional religions, Chinese folk religions, Native American religions and Australian aboriginal religions.

The religiously unaffiliated population includes atheists, agnostics and people who do not identify with any particular religion in surveys. However, many of the religiously unaffiliated do hold religious or spiritual beliefs. For example, various surveys have found that belief in God or a higher power is shared by 7% of unaffiliated Chinese adults, 30% of unaffiliated French adults and 68% of unaffiliated U.S. adults.6

To discuss the geographic distribution of religious groups, this report divides the world into six major regions: Asia and the Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, North America and sub-Saharan Africa. For a list of countries in each region, see the Methodology.

The site is secure.

The ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Although religion/spirituality (R/S) is important in its own right for many cancer patients, a large body of research has examined whether R/S is also associated with better physical health outcomes. This literature has been characterized by heterogeneity in sample composition, measures of R/S, and measures of physical health. In an effort to synthesize previous findings, a meta-analysis of the relation between R/S and patient-reported physical health in cancer patients was performed. A search of PubMed, PsycINFO, the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and the Cochrane Library yielded 2073 abstracts, which were independently evaluated by pairs of raters. The meta-analysis was conducted for 497 effect sizes from 101 unique samples encompassing more than 32,000 adult cancer patients. R/S measures were categorized into affective, behavioral, cognitive, and 'other' dimensions. Physical health measures were categorized into physical well-being, functional well-being, and physical symptoms. Average estimated correlations (Fisher z scores) were calculated with generalized estimating equations with robust variance estimation. Overall R/S was associated with overall physical health (z = 0.153, P With 84 percent of people worldwide identifying as religious, religious dimensions influence local, national and international peace and conflict. Across the globe, violent conflict often is couched in religious terms and religious discrimination is on the rise. At the same time, people of faith and religious organizations frequently are on the front lines of peace efforts, assisting communities affected by violence. Although religious considerations have been marginal to peace efforts historically, governments and peacebuilding organizations increasingly recognize the importance of religion.

Provides an overview of the religious peacebuilding field, the role religion plays in driving both conflict and peace, examples of how religious actors and institutions have contributed to the prevention and resolution of conflict and considerations for how best to engage the religious sector in peacebuilding.

The purpose of this course, inspired by and based on an approach developed by Search for Common Ground, is to provide training and serve as a resource for those working in peacebuilding who may be unfamiliar with (or even wary of!) religious engagement, or who are looking to gain greater confidence in working with religious actors and institutions. This course is also available in French and Arabic.

This online course uses the peer-to-peer learning methodology of the #Faith4Rights Toolkit for religious and faith-based actors, policymakers, and practitioners to explore these links. This serves as a practical guide for protecting and promoting human rights to prevent, manage, and resolve violent conflict.

Women, Religion, and Peacebuilding: Illuminating the Unseen examines the obstacles and opportunities that women religious peacebuilders face as they navigate both the complex conflicts they are seeking to resolve and the power dynamics in the institutions they must deal with in order to accomplish their goals.

Suicide is a major public health concern and a leading cause of death around the world. How religion influences the risk of completed suicide in different settings across the world requires clarification in order to best inform suicide prevention strategies.

Religion plays a protective role against suicide in a majority of settings where suicide research is conducted. However, this effect varies based on the cultural and religious context. Therefore, public health professionals need to strongly consider the current social and religious atmosphere of a given population when designing suicide prevention strategies.

Copyright: 2015 Wu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Taken together, in light of recent evidence that suggests a positive relationship between religion and suicide as well as the urgent need to implement suicide prevention strategies, this meta-analysis attempts to clarify the relationship between religion and completed suicides among a variety of populations.

The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) for Assessing the Quality of Nonrandomized Studies in Meta-Analysis was utilized to quantitatively evaluate the quality of the studies [38]. All studies were scored individually according to each item and then totaled.

Searches on Pubmed and Web of Science using the key word searches aforementioned generated 3089 articles, and 4 additional articles were provided by an expert in the field. After eliminating duplicates, 1,774 articles remained. The PRISMA flow diagram for this process can be seen in Fig 1. Ultimately, we found nine potential articles after removing studies according to our criteria.

3a8082e126