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Christianity And Its Popularity

Christianity and Its Popularity

What is it about religion that draws people? Robert Hume states that "Religion is the

chief differentiating characteristic of man" (1). If as Mr. Hume says religion is what

differentiates us lets go a step further and ask why is it that Christianity is the most popular

religion practiced today?

As we begin to answer this question lets put the worlds major religions into perspective. Below

is a time line of the worlds major religions and information about each according to research

done for Mr. Hume.

Name Founder Deity Location Date started Number in millions*

Hinduism None Brahma India 1500 B.C. 322

Judaism Moses Jehovah Scattered 1200 B.C. 12

Shinto None Nature-gods Japan 660 B.C. 79

Taoism Lao-tze The Tao China 604 B.C. 50

Buddhism Buddha None, then The East 560 B.C. 150-275
Founder

Confucianism Confucius Heaven, or China 551 B.C. 300
Founder

Christianity Jesus Christ Father-God World 4 (?) B.C. 835

Islam Mohammed Allah Muslim 570 A.D. 420
Countries

* These are only rough estimates in most cases (graph is from resource 1)

McConnell 2

Upon looking at the chart of the worlds major religions two things are immediately

noticeable, 1. Christianity has nearly double the number of practitioners as the next closest

religion, and 2. It is practiced world wide. Is would be reasonable to assume that maybe it is so

large because of the fact that it is practiced world wide, but there must be more to it or the other

major religions, especially those that are much older, would have equal or greater numbers in

terms of those people practicing them.

Christianity has its roots in Judaism. Judaism is for those that practice it the old

testament laws, for those who practice Christianity it is the meeting of the old testament with the

new testament. The core belief within Christianity is...