The most widespread religion in the world at the beginning of 2021 is Christianity, with over 2.4 billion people around the world professing it. However, over the past many years the leader in the growth of the number of followers among the religions is Islam. Despite of its relative youth (Islam appeared 600 years after Christianity) this religion spreads the most rapidly. Much of this is due to the demographic difference between the practitioners. The number of children in Muslim countries far exceeds the number of babies born to peasant families in the last 100 years. At present the number of Muslims has reached 1.9 billion worldwide.
The number of atheists and agnostics (non-believers) is also considerable-they number about 1.2 billion. The world’s leading religions in terms of prevalence also include Hinduism with about 1.15 billion people and Buddhism with over 520 million people.
Taoism and Confucianism are also very common religions in the world, but there is no official data on the exact number of their followers. According to some estimates, their number ranges from 5 to 10 million believers.
Forecasts for the future of world religions
Despite the fact that today Christianity is considered the most common religion in the world, most experts and researchers predict that by 2100 the dominant religion in the world will be Islam. According to their estimations by 2070 the number of Christians and Muslims will be equal. Territorial features of distribution of religions will also strongly change, so according to modern studies in 2050 approximately 10% of the European population will be practicing Muslims. Exactly the same forecasts are true for the USA and Canada. As for Russia, more than 20 million people today already profess Islam. However the country with the largest number of Muslims by 2100 will be India, which will overtake Indonesia.
There are a number of forecasts for the number of atheists and non-believers, experts assure that their number in the world will gradually decrease, with the exception of the United States and France.
In general, Islam and Christianity will develop and spread the most in the 21st century. In many ways, the growth in the prevalence of these two religions will come at the expense of African countries. The forecasts of rapid population growth in the African region in the current century should be taken into account here. Judaism and Hinduism will also develop in the 21st century. As for Buddhism, the number of its adherents will practically remain the same.