Data source: Gina A. Zurlo, ed., World Religion Database (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2024).
| Glossary item | Definition |
|---|---|
| Ashkenazis | The larger of the 2 great divisions of Jews comprising the eastern European Yiddish-speaking Jews, arising in the Rhineland in the 10th century, 5.7 million exterminated by Nazis, still 84% of all world’s Jews today. |
| ashram, asrama | (Sanskrit). A religious retreat center for a colony of disciples, mainly in India. |
| astrology | A pseudo-science claiming to foretell the future by studying supposed influence of moon, planets, and stars on human affairs. |
| atheism | Disbelief in the existence of God or any other deity, the doctrine that there is no God; godlessness. |
| atheism, study of | A number of universities and research centers in the Communist world profess to study atheism; what in practice they study is religion, the survival of religion, and methods of eradicating it. |
| atheistic freedom | Freedom not to believe, and freedom to oppose religion. |
| atheists | Persons who deny the existence of God, gods, or the supernatural. |
| atheists | Militantly anti-religious or anti-Christian agnostics, secularists, or marxists. |
| autoglossonym | Name for a people’s own language as used by the people themselves in their own language; often with prefix or suffix meaning ‘the language of’. |
| autonym | Indigenous or own name for a language; autoglossonym. |
| Available_Translations | Languages in which documentation of the survey questionnaire are available. |
| awqaf | (Arabic: plural of waqf). Muslim trusts or foundations. |
| ayatollah | (Persian). Shia Muslim leader or cleric of great personal accomplishment, holiness, and renown. |
| Baha’i | The doctrine and practice of a sect founded in Iran in the 19th century that emphasizes the spiritual unity of mankind and advocates peace and universal education. |
| Baha'is | Followers of the Baha’i World Faith, founded in 1844 by Baha’u’llah in what is now Iran. |
| belief | Statistics of personal belief have been widely investigated in public-opinion polls and surveys. Typical questions, with nation-wide adult percentage of ‘Yes’ responses: ‘Do you believe in a God? (1948) Brazil 96%, Australia 95%, Canada 95%, USA 94%, Norway 84%, UK 84%, Finland 83%, Netherlands 80%, Sweden 80%, Denmark 80%, France 66%; (1968) UK 74%; (1970) Netherlands 81%; (1973) Canada 67%, UK 77%; (1975) UK 72%; (1979) UK 73%. ‘Do you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God?’ (1957) USA 90%, UK 71% , (1975) Spain 61%. ‘Do you believe that Jesus Christ will ever return to earth?’ (1960) USA 55%. ‘Can a person be a Christian if he does not go to church?’ (1957) UK 85%, USA 78%. ‘Have you been born again through committing yourself to Christ?’ (1976) USA 34%. |
| believer | One who believes or professes a religious faith; often used only of Christians, but sometimes of all religions. |
| bilinguals | Persons speaking or understanding a second language in addition to their own mother tongue. |
| billion | 1,000 millions (American usage; British, French, and German usage is a million millions). |
| Bohras | Mustali Ismailis. |
| Bon | The pre-Buddhist animistic religion of Tibet. |
| Botika | Digambara (qv). |
| Buddhists | Followers of the Buddha, mostly across Asia, including three main traditions: (a) Mahayana (Greater Vehicle); (b) Theravada (Teaching of the Elders); (c) Tibetan (Lamaists); plus (d) traditional Buddhist sects, but excluding neo-Buddhist new religions or religious movements. |
| cargo cults | Religious movements in Oceania based on prophecies that if appropriate religious rites are performed, God will send ships and aircraft filled with cargo and goods. |
| caste | A social or socio-religious stratum or stratification, any hereditary and exclusive class based on socio-religious beliefs, in India, one of the 30,000 groupings, classified under 4 hereditary classes, into which society is divided in accordance with a system of rank and status fundamental to Hinduism. |
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.