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Samaritanism has about nine hundred adherents. Christianity has about two point three billion. The atlas describes both with exactly the same set of fields, because a schema that only worked at large scale would have no way to hold the small one at all.

Nine Hundred to Two Point Three Billion

For Samaritanism the recorded minimum and maximum are the same number: nine hundred, a population small and countable enough that there is no range to give. Christianity's minimum and maximum are both two point three billion, a number too large to differ meaningfully from itself at the precision anyone tracks it. The ratio between the two is about two and a half million to one, and both rows use the identical two fields.

Applied to the twentieth century's new religious movements, the same field reads differently. Peoples Temple: nine hundred. Branch Davidians: one hundred thirty. Order of the Solar Temple: seventy four. Heaven's Gate: thirty nine. These are not estimates of a following that persists. For each of these groups the recorded number sits close to the count of people who died with the movement, so the field that elsewhere measures a living religion's reach here measures the end of one.

Why the Room Gets Used

By the atlas's own dates so far, the twentieth century still edges out every other single century for religions and denominations founded, though the lead has narrowed as older traditions have been filled in behind it, and just over four in ten of everything dated now originates after 1800. Some of that is a real historical fact: organised new religion did accelerate after 1800. Some of it is simply where the cataloguing has reached, since a recent movement's founding date is usually easier to pin down than an ancient one's. Either way, a schema built only for old, large, well attested traditions would have nowhere to put Samaritanism, Peoples Temple, or any of the movements the twentieth century actually produced.

Where To Read More

• SamaritanismAbrahamic (Monotheistic)Nine hundred adherents, minimum equal to maximum
• ChristianityAbrahamic (Monotheistic)Two point three billion adherents, the same two fields
• Peoples TempleChristian MovementsNine hundred adherents recorded, a number that is also a death toll
• Branch DavidiansChristian MovementsOne hundred thirty adherents recorded
• Order of the Solar TempleEsoteric MovementsSeventy four adherents recorded
• Heaven's GateUFO MovementsThirty nine adherents recorded, the smallest of the four