Exam 7: Languages and Religion

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An ethnic religion is a religion that appeals primarily to one group of people living in one place. Ethnic religions differ from universalizing religions in their understanding of relationships between human beings and nature. A variety of events in the physical environment are more likely to be incorporated into the principles of an ethnic religion.
Of all the ethnic religions, Hinduism is the largest. Hindus account for more than 80 percent of the population of India and Nepal. All but 3 percent of the world's Hindus are concentrated in India, and most of the remainder in India's neighbor, Nepal.
Judaism is classified as an ethnic, rather than a universalizing, religion in part because its major holidays are based on events in the agricultural calendar of the religion's homeland in present day Israel.
Other well-known ethnic religions include Confucianism, Daoism and Shintoism. Several hundred million people practice ethnic religions in East Asia, especially Confucianism and Daoism in China and Shintoism in Japan. Approximately 100 million Africans 12 percent of the continent's population, follow traditional ethnic religions, sometimes called animism. Judaism has about 6 million adherents in the United States, 5 million in Israel, 2 million in Europe, and 1 million each in Asia and Latin America