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Someone (I can't remember who) was busy adding names of various founders of religions to the Muhammad page, and I decided that it made more sense to just link to one page. I'm not sure that this is a good idea (what's major?) but hey, if it unclutters one page ...
Should I include Scientology or shouldn't I? If we start to get into what might be called recently founded religions (sects, cults), we could end up with a list of hundreds of names, many of whom are the fearless leader of only a handful of people. Zora 14:20, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- If was me - and adding three names to each of Muhammad, Jesus, Buddha and Abraham didn't take much time really:) I just thought it was a useful link as readers of Muhammad may have an interest in founders of all major religions rather than just an interest in articles on Islam.
- We can define 'major' in terms of how many current adherents there are for a particular religion. That would stop arguments over who to add (it would also mean bye bye Mani (prophet)).
- I've taken the opportunity to link this list in to a number of pages (see 'What links here') jguk 18:56, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- While it should be based on adherent numbers we should also include those that did have massive numbers at one time. Zoroastrians and Manicheanans were very importants groups in their days. How about any group that has or once had more than 500 thousand adherents? How about a million? --[[User:Sunborn|]] 19:00, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Do you know where we'd find a list of numbers of adherents to religions? It would allow us to determine a sensisble cut off. Also, are there even figures for the greatest number of living Zoroastrians or Manicheanans at any one time? I'm just trying to see if your proposed cut-off would work in practice. jguk 19:39, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Adherents.com (http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html) Has the most referenced list on the internet. Their numbers are a bit high but are equally high across the board. As for the other two religions their numbers were probably quite huge at times.
I have no problem accepting 150,000 as the cut off (having looked at the adherents.com website) - but I would like to keep the definition of 'major' specific. Saying the other two religions probably had quite huge followings isn't enough. I shan't remove them for now, but will await your comments.OK, this is the list on adherents.com - which says it takes its figures from what the respective religions claim.
- Christianity: 2 billion (included in our list)
- Islam: 1.3 billion (included)
- Hinduism: 900 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 850 million (nothing to add!)
- Buddhism: 360 million (included)
- Chinese traditional religion: 225 million (we have Confucianism, is this enough?)
- primal-indigenous: 150 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- African Traditional & Diasporic: 95 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Sikhism: 23 million (included)
- Juche: 19 million (I don't really like calling this a religion - it's a political idea!)
- Spiritism: 14 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Judaism: 14 million (included)
- Baha'i: 6 million (included)
- Jainism: 4 million (included)
- Shinto: 4 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Cao Dai: 3 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Tenrikyo: 2.4 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Neo-Paganism: 1 million (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand (not included - but is there a specific founder to name?)
- Rastafarianism: 700 thousand (not included - should we add Haile Selassie? Was he really a 'founder'?)
- Scientology: 600 thousand (I suppose we should include L Ron Hubbard, unless we think the figure is grossly grossly exaggerated)
- Zoroastrianism: 150 thousand (included)
jguk 22:54, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I've got an idea -- there is already a List of religions on which many electrons have been spilled. Link that to the list of founders page, with a note to the effect that many religions have no non-mythical founders. Zora 00:17, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Removed Joseph Smith
Someone from an anonymous IP added Joseph Smith (Mormonism). I removed this as a difficult and unclassifiable case. First of all, Mormon is a nickname -- the official name is Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. If Mormons want to refer to their church in shorthand, they'll say LDS, usually. Second, Mormons would insist that they are Christians and that their religion was founded by Jesus. They give a special status to Joseph Smith, but I'm not sure that they would call him the founder of a major religion. They would probably say that he RESTORED a corrupted Christianity -- in which case he'd have the same status as Luther or Calvin. We aren't putting founders of sects in the list, so I think it would be better to avoid Joseph Smith. Zora 02:04, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
An important philosopher yes, but founder, no
Dear anon, I deleted your addition of Adi Shankara. I agree that he's an extremely important person, but he really can't be called the founder of Hinduism if he started just one school of thought inside an existing tradition. Zora 04:30, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
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