Religion
According to the IBGE census: 74% are Roman Catholics (about 130 million); 15.4% are Protestants (about 28 million); 7.4% consider themselves agnostics, atheists or without a religion (about 12 million); 1.3% are followers of Spiritism (about 2.2 million); 0.3% are followers of African traditional religions such as Candomblé and Umbanda; 1.7% are members of other religions. Some of these are Jehovah's Witnesses (1,100,000), Latter-day Saints (200,000), Buddhism (215,000), Judaism (86,000), and Islam (27,000) and some practice a mixture of different religions, such as Catholicism, Candomblé, and indigenous American religions.
Brazil has the largest Roman Catholic population in the world.
Followers of Protestantism are rising in number. Until 1970, the majority of Brazilian Protestants were adherents of "traditional churches", mostly Lutherans, Presbyterians and Baptists. Since then, numbers of Pentecostal and Neopentecostal adherents have increased significantly.
Islam in Brazil was first practiced by African slaves. Today, the Muslim population in Brazil is made up mostly of Arab immigrants. The US Department of State claims there is a recent trend of increased conversions to Islam among non-Arab citizens.
The largest population of Buddhists in Latin America lives in Brazil. This is mostly because Brazil has the largest Japanese population outside Japan.
About 8% of Brazilians declared themselves to be non-religious (with 2% declaring themselves atheists) and 58% of Catholics considered themselves "not very practicing" or "not at all practicing".
According to IBGE 2000 Census, the following are the largest religious denominations in Brazil, with those with more than a half million members only shown.
Rank | Group | Members | Other information |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Roman Catholic Church | 135 million |
|
2 | Non-religious | 12.5 million |
|
3 | Assemblies of God (Assembléias de Deus) |
8.4 million |
|
4 | Baptist | 3.1 million |
|
5 | Christian Congregation of Brazil | 2.4 million | |
6 | Spiritist | 2.2 million |
|
7 | Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus) |
2.1 million |
|
8 | Foursquare Gospel Church | 1.3 million |
|
9 | Adventists | 1.2 million |
|
10 | Jehovah's Witnesses | 1.1 million | |
11 | Lutherans | 1 million |
|
12 | Calvinists | 981,000 |
|
13 | God is Love Pentecostal Church | 774,000 |
|
14 | Afro-Brazilian | 525,000 |
|
15 | Brazilian Catholics | 500,000 | |
– | Others and no religion declared | 3.5 million |
Read more about this topic: Brazilian Society
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“If ... we admit a divinity, why not divine worship? and if worship, why not religion to teach this worship? and if a religion, why not the Christian, if a better cannot be assigned, and it be already established by the laws of our country, and handed down to us from our forefathers?”
—George Berkeley (16851753)
“The Civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext, be infringed.”
—James Madison (17511836)
“Whitman is like a human document, or a wonderful treatise in human self revelation. It is neither art nor religion nor truth: Just a self revelation of a man who could not live, and so had to write himself.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)