I was a little surprised too. The North Eastern states of India have a large Christian population, majority in Manipur and Nagaland. I guess it just goes to show how big the other parts of the country are!
I wouldn't have guessed China if I hadn't seen those numbers - that could only have been China or India. I would guess the reason India isn't on here is because it's almost entirely Hindu with a fair number of Muslim regions as well (I don't know if Buddhism, Sikhism, or Jainism are still common in India but they used to be).
Never knew that about "enormity". I think we can let Freestatebear off this time since the debate is up in the air a bit but your nitpicking has enlightened me. (For anyone else wanting to be enlightened, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enormity#usage-1).
It's not a misuse of the word. Enormity can simply mean "the great or extreme scale", which the population of China certainly is. It doesn't necessarily mean anything wicked.
joeythelemur. Dude! You can’t just cherrypick a dependent clause out of a sentence and decide that’s the entire definition! Reread: “the great or extreme scale, seriousness, or extent of something perceived as bad or morally wrong.” In case you seriously weren’t trying to pull the wool over our eyes and instead just got tired of reading the whole definition so called it a day after the first five words, here is what and only what the definition of enormity you partially quoted is saying it means:
the great or extreme scale of something perceived as bad or morally wrong; or
the seriousness of something perceived as bad or morally wrong; or
the extent of something perceived as bad or morally wrong.
In the future, if you’re going to argue something we can all easily look up, you might want to read your supporting sources past the first five words.
From Wiktionary:
Enormity as a synonym for enormousness is sometimes considered an error, though other usage guides hold that there is little basis for the distinction. Both words ultimately go back to the same Latin source word ēnōrmis meaning “deviating from the norm, abnormal”.
So the meaning of "enormity" is closer to original than "enormous".
Many estimates believe China to be at far higher rates, with some even going as high as 100 million. Also, many famous Chinese figures, like Yao Ming, Sun Yat-Sun, Emperors Hongwu and Kangxi, Jay Chou, and later-year Chiang Kai-Shek were/are known to be devout Christians. The Christian mentality and ethic fits very well with Chinese culture.
India, indonesia, peru, canada and venezuela miss out being in the 20 millions. Ukraine has unstable data from what I can see. Bummed cause i guseed all of them ://
I don't understand, 90% of Russian population is indicated as Christians, in fact Orthodox Christians, and how come Ukraine, which is mostly Orthodox Christians, is not included in the list? Was there an official census about belonging to a specific religion in Russia, or any other so-called Christian nations?
btw the numbers here do not match up with the quiz "5 countries with most christians by continent." For one example, Poland is included on that quiz while the UK is not, but here the UK is shown as having more Christians than Poland. There are others.
It's kinda surprising to read, that 63% of german People are supposed to be christians... I met exactly two People in my life considering themselves Christian... I feel like almost nobody here really believes in god. Germans are just saying they are christians because of traditional reasons ore something.
Your point is valid, this quiz says UK at 59% but in the latest British Social Attitudes survey, only 38% of their sample of 3,900 people self-identified as Christian and 52% identified as not believing in any religion. How are the two numbers so different? I tend to believe people when you ask them what they are.
Quizmaster always cites (and usually conveniently links) his sources, making it easy for us to look up data collecting and/or measurement methodologies, thus definitely answering questions like this and avoiding the need for speculation – and the arguments that sometimes go along with it! In this case, the number of people were counted as Christians:
is based on the number of the population in each country who are members of a Christian denomination or who identify themselves as Christian, plus their children. It says nothing about the number of who actually believe in God and are regularly in the church.
Was really expecting to see South Korea here as they've gone apes4!7 crazy on Christianity and you can even see the phenomenon in most of their recent films (Kollywood for Korea or Sollywood?) Also, India and Indonesia were missing. All of these around 30 million or so.
You see Christian influence in a lot of Japanese shows and movies but it's not because there are a lot of Christians in Japan. They view it more as some kind of crazy weird exotic cult, maybe the same way Americans see Shinto or Japanese animism, or maybe the way Egyptian mythology is presented in films like The Mummy or Norse mythology as in Marvel's The Avengers.
South Korea is a bit of a different story. There actually are a lot of believing Christians in South Korea. About 30% of the total population is Christian, making them the 5th most Christian country in Asia as a percentage (after East Timor, Cyprus, Georgia, and the Philippines), and 6th in Asia in terms of total number (after Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, and India), but 34th worldwide.
Very surprised by France, given that it's known for not being religious. I'm sure I've read somewhere that the number of actually practising Christians is extremely low, people just report themselves as Catholic/Christian presumably by default.
Enormity as a synonym for enormousness is sometimes considered an error, though other usage guides hold that there is little basis for the distinction. Both words ultimately go back to the same Latin source word ēnōrmis meaning “deviating from the norm, abnormal”.
So the meaning of "enormity" is closer to original than "enormous".
South Korea is a bit of a different story. There actually are a lot of believing Christians in South Korea. About 30% of the total population is Christian, making them the 5th most Christian country in Asia as a percentage (after East Timor, Cyprus, Georgia, and the Philippines), and 6th in Asia in terms of total number (after Russia, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, and India), but 34th worldwide.