Data source: Gina A. Zurlo, ed., World Religion Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| Aboriginal | Original indigenous inhabitant of country, of primitive culture. |
| adherent | A follower of a particular religion, church or philosophy. As used here, the term adherents refers to followers of all kinds (professing, affiliated, practicing, non-practicing, etc.) who are present-in-area residents: men, women, children, infants, nationals and expatriates, native- and foreign- born, immigrants, armed forces, displaced persons, refugees, nomads, et alii. |
| Adivasis | Aboriginal tribesmen in India. |
| adult | A person who is 15 years old or above. |
| affiliated | Followers of a religion enrolled and known to its leadership, usually with names written on rolls. |
| affiliation, religious | Membership in, or attachment to a particular organized religion. |
| Afro-American spiritists | Followers of Afro-Brazilian, Afro- Cuban and other African religious survivals in the Americas, low spiritists, syncretizing Catholicism with African and Amerindian animistic religions; low spiritists as opposed to high (non-Christian) spiritists; also Afro-American syncretistic cults with Christian elements. All varieties, including specifically Christian bodies, are detailed in G. E. Simpson, Black religions in the New World (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978). |
| agnosticism | The doctrine that the existence or nature of any ultimate reality or God is unknown and unknowable. |
| agnostics | Persons who claim no religion or claim that it is not possible to know if God, gods, or the supernatural exist. |
| agnostics | Persons professing no religion, no interest in religion; secularists, materialists; agnostics, but not militantly antireligious or atheists. (Formerly termed "nonreligious") |
| ahimsa | (Sanskrit). In Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, the doctrine of non-violence, or refraining from harming others including animals and insects. |
| Ahmadis | Followers of the Ahmadiya movement (qv). |
| Ahmadiya | (Ahmadiyah, Ahmadiyya). Ex-Shia Muslim messianic movement, pronounced heretical by Pakistan, following 1889 founder Ghulam Ahmad. |
| Alawites | Followers of Alawiya, a sect of Shia Islam in Latakia province, Syria, Lebanon and Cilicia (Turkey), also called Nusayris. |
| Anglican Communion | A worldwide family of 25 autonomous Churches and 6 other bodies in communion with the See of Canterbury and with each other, all of whom recognize the archbishop of Canterbury as the focus of unity within the Communion. |
| Anglicans | Christians related to the Anglican Communion, tracing their origin back to the ancient British (Celtic) and English churches; including Anglican dissidents or schismatics in the Western world. |
| animism | (animatism). The attribution of consciousness and personality to such natural phenomena as thunder and fire, and to objects such as rocks and trees. |
| animists | Adherents of animism; sometimes termed pagans, fetishists, traditional religionists, tribal religionists (qv). |
| Answer_Choices | Answer choices available for the religion question (sometimes people chose from among a list provided, or they volunteer their own answer). |
| Anthroposophy | A spiritual and mystical doctrine that grew out of Theosophy and derives mainly from the philosophy of Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian social philosopher. |
| anti-religious | Opposed or militantly opposed to all religion; irreligious, hostile to religions and religious persons. |
| anti-religious quasi-religionists | Adherents of anti-religions quasi-religions (atheism, Communism, dialectical materialism, Leninism, Maoism, Marxism, scientific materialism, Stalinism, et alia). |
| architecture, religious | The art or practice of designing and building churches and temples to convey impressions and ideas basic to religion or Christianity. |
| areligious, a-religious | Noncommittal or professedly neutral concerning religious matters. |
| argot, religious | A special vocabulary and idiom used by a religious group as a means of private communication within the group. |
Data on 18 categories of religion, including non-religious, by country, province, and people.
Data on all religions, Christian activities, and trends.
Membership data, year begun, and rates of change.
Population and religion data on all major cities & provinces.
Detailed information covering religion, culture, and geography.
A repository of historical data, including a chronology of Christianity from the 1st to 21st centuries.