What is a universalizing religion and what are the major and some minor universalizing religions in the world?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Answer: A universalizing religion is any religion that attempts to be global, to appeal to all people wherever they may live in the world. Experts recognize three universalizing religions with the largest number of adherents. These are Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism, each with a different distribution.

Christianity has over 2 billion adherents, and is the predominant religion in North America, South America, Europe, and Australia. Within Europe, Roman Catholicism is the dominant Christian branch in the southwest and east, Protestants dominate in the northwest, and Eastern Orthodoxy is in the east and southeast. In the Western Hemisphere, Roman Catholicism predominates in Latin America and Protestantism in North America.

Islam is a religion with about 1.3 billion people. It is the predominant religion of the Middle East from North Africa to Central Asia. The adherents of the faith are called Muslims. It is estimated that one out of every two muslims live outside the Middle East, mainly in Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India. The Sunni branch of the religion comprises 83 percent of Muslims and is the largest branch in most Muslim countries. The Shiite branch is clustered in Iran, Pakistan, and Iraq.

Buddhism has nearly 400 million adherents, who live mainly in China and Southeast Asia.
About 56 percent of Buddhists practice Mahayana Buddhism, primarily in China, Japan, and Korea. About 38 percent of Buddhists practice Theraveda Buddhism, especially in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The remaining 6 percent are Tantrayanists, found primarily in Tibet and Mongolia.

Other minor universalizing religions in terms of size are Sikhism and Baha'i. All but 3 million of the world's 25 million Sikhs are clustered in the Punjab region of India. The 8 million Baha'is are dispersed among many countries, primarily in Africa and Asia.