Home›Freethought, Secularism & Religious Debate›TraditionBrowse ByTraditionThis page groups historical figures by the religious tradition they belonged to or helped shape, connecting a person to the belief system that claims them. Wikipedia describes a tradition as "a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past." Browsing this way lets a visitor read every founder, reformer or teacher from one tradition together, rather than finding them scattered by century.FactsTraditionSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsDirectoryCategoryWell-attestedHistorical Figures 1TraditionFilter Results5 entriesAdherents TodayAllDeism is a philosophical position rather than an affiliation based religion with membership rolls, held informally by an unknown number of people who may or may not use the label themselves. No reliable count of any kind was found for this record, historically or today. (1)People who call themselves humanists are estimated at between four and five million worldwide across thirty one countries, a figure the Wikipedia article on secular humanism flags as uncertain given the lack of a universal census definition. Norway offers the clearest national count: the Norwegian Humanist Association reported over 86,000 members as of 2013, about two percent of that country's population. No comparable membership figure exists for the United States, where secular humanists are folded into the much larger "no religion" census category rather than counted on their own. (1)Pew Research Center's Religious Composition of the World, 2010-2020 report puts the global Christian population at 2.3 billion as of 2020, about 28.8 percent of the world's population, up 122 million from 2010 even as its share of world population fell. (1)Adherents Today MaximumAll2,300,000,000 (1)Adherents Today MinimumAll2,300,000,000 (1)Also Known AsAllAgnosticism is sometimes distinguished into weak agnosticism, which holds that God's existence is presently unknown, and strong agnosticism, which holds that the question is permanently unknowable in principle. (1)Basis of the Membership FigureAllIndependent Survey (2)Scholarly or Demographic Estimate (1)Current StatusAllOrganisations such as the American Humanist Association and Humanists International continue to issue and update humanist statements of principle, most recently Humanism and Its Aspirations in 2003. (1)Surveys continue to record a wide range of self identified atheists across the world, with organised atheist and secularist associations most visible in parts of Europe and North America. (1)Establishment StatusAllVaries by Province (1)Form of the ConfessionAllSecular humanism affirms human reason, ethics and scientific inquiry as sufficient guides for a good life, explicitly rejecting reliance on the supernatural or divine revelation. (1)The Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed are the two most widely shared credal statements across the branches of Christianity. (1)FounderAllJesus of Nazareth; the movement was organised by his followers after his death (1)None single (1)None; T. H. Huxley coined the term in 1869 (1)The 1933 Humanist Manifesto was drafted by Roy Wood Sellars and Raymond Bragg (1)How the Expectation Is EnforcedAllCustomary Norm (1)Membership Figure As OfAll1990-01-01 (1)2001-01-01 (1)2010-01-01 (1)2011-12-19 (1)2020-01-01 (1)Membership Over TimeAllBy 2001 the American Religious Identification Survey found the number of self-identifying Deists had grown to about 49,000 American adults, still only about 0.02 percent of the United States population, in the survey's own published report as relayed by Wikipedia. As with the 1990 figure, this counts self-identification in a national survey rather than membership in any organized Deist body. (1)By 2020, the same Pew study found the global Christian population had risen by 122 million to 2.3 billion, even as its share of world population fell from 31 percent to 28.8 percent, as Sub-Saharan Africa overtook Europe as home to the largest share of the world's Christians. (1)In its December 19, 2011 Global Christianity report, Pew Research Center estimated 2.18 billion Christians worldwide as of 2010, nearly a third of the estimated 6.9 billion global population, compiled from a country-by-country analysis of about 2,400 sources including censuses and nationally representative surveys. (1)Pew's June 2025 update to its global religion modeling revised its own 2010 Christian estimate down slightly to 2.1 billion (31 percent of world population), a mild revision of the 2011 report's 2.18 billion figure for the same year, both recorded here side by side rather than one replacing the other. (1)The 1990 wave of what became the American Religious Identification Survey found about 6,000 American adults self-identifying as Deists, a bare fraction of the adult population, in the survey's own later published comparison as relayed by Wikipedia. Deism has no central congregation or membership roll; this counts self-identification in a national survey, not membership in any organized body. (1)Origin AccountAllChristianity traces its origin to the life, teaching, crucifixion and, in the faith of its adherents, resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in Roman Judea in the first century. (1)Deism, prominent among Enlightenment thinkers particularly in England, held that God could be known through reason and the observation of nature alone, without reliance on scripture, revelation or organised religious institutions. (1)Organised atheism, as opposed to simple private disbelief, gained visible institutional form in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries through freethought and secularist societies before broadening into contemporary new atheist and humanist movements. (1)The Humanist Manifesto, first published in 1933 and revised in 1973 and 2003, has served as a repeatedly updated statement of the principles of the movement. (1)Origin PeriodAllAtheism as an organised, self-identified position is a European development from the 18th century (1)Origin Period End YearAll50 (1)1800 (2)1869 (1)1933 (1)Origin Period Start YearAll500 BCE (1)30 (1)1620 (1)1869 (1)1933 (1)Place of OriginAllAncient Greece and India; the organised movement in western Europe (1)England (1)England and France (1)Roman Judaea and Galilee, spreading through the eastern Mediterranean (1)The United States and western Europe (1)Position on SexualityAllThe body holds no single settled position; the question is actively and openly contested within it (1)Practice StatusAllLiving, and practised in varied local forms (1)Sexuality Position DetailAllChristianity is governed by no single worldwide teaching authority, and its major bodies read at every point on this question today. The Roman Catholic Church's Catechism of the Catholic Church holds that homosexual acts are contrary to natural law while insisting that persons with homosexual tendencies must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity, and reserves marriage to a man and a woman. The Russian Orthodox Church's Basis of the Social Concept, adopted at its Jubilee Bishops Council in August 2000, names homosexuality a sinful distortion of human nature and bars anyone who promotes it as a norm from work with children or youth or from military or reformatory positions, reaching beyond ordination. The United Methodist Church, one of the tradition's largest global bodies, ended its forty-year ban on LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage at its 2024 General Conference. The Anglican Communion, in its own 2022 Lambeth Conference Call on Human Dignity, states that its forty-two member provinces hold differing convictions and pastoral practices on this question, some blessing same-sex unions and others continuing to hold that marriage is exclusively the lifelong union of a man and a woman. No statement speaks for Christianity as a whole. (1)Standing Giving ExpectationAllSecular humanism is explicitly a non-theistic philosophy rather than a congregational religion, holding that people are capable of being ethical without religion or belief in a deity, and it carries no doctrine of tithing or fixed giving. Its own organisations, coordinated internationally through bodies such as Humanists International, are voluntary nonprofit associations funded through ordinary membership dues set by each organisation's own board rather than through anything framed as a religious obligation on a member's income. No shared rate exists because no single body across secular humanism has the standing, or the doctrinal basis, to set one. (1)Status TodayAllLiving tradition, practised today (4)Supreme BeingAllThe triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one being in three persons. (1)TheologyAllAgnostic: the question held unresolved (1)Atheistic: no god (1)Deistic: a creator who does not intervene (1)Monotheistic: one God (1)Non-theistic: no creator god is central (1)Transgression CategoryAllSin, understood as thought, word, deed or omission contrary to the will of God, ranging in Catholic moral theology from venial to mortal sin. (1)BrowseCompareAgnosticismTradition4 entriesAtheismTradition1 entryChristianityTradition1 entryDeismTradition1 entrySecular HumanismTradition1 entrySources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 1Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. 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