A Year in 12 Posts

While I have my doubts and myths, as everyone (was the world created by playing dice?), they are private questions. Politically, I'm an atheist and laic. Yet I think that Pope Francis made a great debut. His positions on homosexuality, abortion, contraception, his openness to atheists, Muslims and Jews are to be praised.

If only the great leaders of this world could use their power to nurture tolerance and peace...

Maps of the religions of the world:

• a comprehensive version
• a simplified version

Age and number of followers, by order of appearance:

• Hinduism           4000      800 million
• Judaism             4000     14 million
• Taoism, etc        2600     800 million
• Zoroastrism       2600     <1 million
• Shintoism           2600     3 millions
• Buddhism           2500     400 million
• Christianity         2014      2 billion
• Islam                  1392      1.2 billion

(Sure, Zoroastrism is not a major religion in terms of adherents. But it intrigued me since I saw "2001: a Space Odyssey" and heard Richard Strauss' "Also sprach Zarathustra". I had to know who that was!)

It's interesting to see that all major religions were born in Asia. And how their histories and inspirations and so often closely related.