Religion has always had an important role to play in human history over the ages. Whether it was the Pagan gods of the old, or modern gods that millions worship today, religion has led to peace as well as violence and affects the human race in a way that few other things ever can.
Religion today is ubiquitous and a huge chunk of the human population prays to one god or another. While billions follow Islam, Hinduism or Buddhism, there are hundreds of millions who follow Christianity. There are dozens of less popular religions as well, such as Zoroastrianism and Jainism.

Let’s take a look at some interesting things about these religions!

1. Christianity is the most widespread religion in the world with almost 2.1 billion Christian followers in the world, while the Bible is the most selling book in the world with almost 50 million Bibles sold every week.
2. Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world and its history can be traced way back to the 5000-10,000 BC. It is also the third most practiced religion in the world with more than 1 billion followers.
3. Koine Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic are the three languages in which the Bible was written.
4. Zoroastrianism was formed by Iranian prophet, Zoroaster in the 6th Century BC. It is an ancient pre-Islamic religion that flourished from Persia, which is now known as Iran, whereas the followers of the religion are known as Parsees and in India this religion is known as Parsism.
5. Jesus Christ is considered to be one of the great prophets in Islam, but not as the son of God as the Christian followers believe.
6. Islam is the second most practiced religion in the world and is considered to be followed by almost 1.3 billion people and its followers are called as Muslims.
7. The holy Bible consists of 66 small books, among which 39 belong to the Old Testament, which were written before the birth of Jesus Christ, while there are 27 books in the New Testament which cover that life history and teaching of Jesus Christ.
8. Different doctrines of Hindu religion state that everything in the universe has its own soul and this soul cannot be destroyed or killed but it can take different external forms.
9. The Qur’an is the holy book of Islam religion, which consists of 30 parts and 114 series. Bismillah Al-Rahman Al-Raheem is said 114 times in the Qur’an.
10. 85% of the world’s population who follows Hindu religion are from India.
11. People greet each other by joining their palms in Hinduism religion, which is termed as Namaskar. The main reason behind this is that the Hindu people believe that joining both the palms means respect.
12. Zoroastrians do not burn or bury the body of their dead, they leave it open to decay naturally.
13. The Bhagavad Gita is the holy book of Hinduism. It is divided into 3 sections and each section consists of 6 chapters.
14. Lord Krishna narrated the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna during the Battle of Kurukshetra in 3137 BC.
15. There is no single authority for Jews, all the Jews are considered to be spiritually equal i.e. there is no pope in Judaism.
16. According to the Jainism religion, there is no creator God, they say the Universe is endless and eternal and it was not created.
17. First bird to be mentioned in the Bible is a raven, and it is mentioned in Genesis 8:7.
18. In 987, Vladimir the Great nearly chose the Islam as the national religion of Russia, but after knowing the fact that Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol, he picked Orthodox Christianity.