An alternative list of the "major religious groups" of the world

I do not claim that the figures given are particularly accurate or up-to-date, or that the groups listed are anything near comprehensive for this range of group size. I (largely) use figures given in Wikipedia, and the point of this list is to demonstrate that Wikipedia's list of "major religious groups by world population" is only one way of presenting the data, irrespective of the quality of that data (which is probably miserable).
Atheists and agnostics are not included because many "non-religious" people in surveys are practitioners of non-institutional traditions.
Polytheistic groups are given in bold type.

Sunni Islam (1.37 billion), internally diverse (from Salafis to Sufis), proselytizing
     Also the framework of "folk" traditions
Roman Catholicism (1.27 billion), proselytizing
     Eastern Rite (70 million)
     Also the framework of "folk" traditions
Chinese polytheism (1.04 billion), internally diverse
     Includes Daoism, Shenism/"Folk religion", Confucianism
Hinduism (966 million), internally highly diverse (partly non-exclusive memberships), some groups proselytizing
     Vaishnavism (640 million), internally diverse
     Shaivism (252 million), internally diverse
     Shaktism (30 million), internally diverse
Protestant Christians (420 million), internally highly diverse (exclusive memberships)
Independent Christians (330 million), internally highly diverse (exclusive memberships)
Orthodox Christians (275 million), internally highly diverse
Mahayana Buddhism (263 million), internally highly diverse (exclusive memberships)
     Also the framework of ethnic polytheistic traditions
Shia Islam (154-200 million), internally highly diverse (exclusive memberships), some groups proselytizing
Theravada Buddhism (177 million), internally diverse
     Also the framework of ethnic polytheistic traditions
Asian polytheisms (147 million), umbrella (!)
     (Includes Vietnamese and Korean polytheism)
     Many Asian polytheisms have overlap in membership with Buddhism
Japanese polytheism (Shinto) (100 million)
African/Afro-American polytheisms (100 million), umbrella (!)
     Yoruba, Fon, Ewe and Bantu religions have ties to various Afro-American religions
     Many of these polytheisms have overlap in membership with Christianity/Islam
Anglican Christians (87 million)
Falun Gong (80-100 million), proselytizing
"New religionists" (63 million)
Vietnamese polytheism (40 million)
"Marginal" Christians (35 million)
Vajrayana Buddhism (28+ million)
     Tibetan Buddhism (28 million), internally diverse (exclusive memberships)
     Shingon Buddhism (?)
     Also the framework of ethnic polytheistic traditions
Sikhism (28 million)
Judaism (17 million), internally highly diverse (exclusive memberships)
Ahmadiyya Islam (10-20 million), proselytizing
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (15 million), proselytizing
Korean polytheism (5-15 million)
     This figure does not include practitioners who are members of institutional religions!
Spiritism (13 million)
Alevites (8-10 million)
Jehovah's Witnesses (8 million), proselytizing
Caodaism (5-9 million), proselytizing
Jainism (4.2 million)
Tenrikyō (4 million), proselytizing



A few things to consider:

The focus on European-Middle Eastern, Indian and Chinese history means that Judaism and Jainism are usually included in lists like these, while the disregard for other countries, and the tendency to treat polytheisms not as religions, but as fuzzy "folk belief", "nature religion", "non-religion", "shamanism", etc. leads to huge traditions like Vietnamese polytheism being ignored.

The focus on founded religions means that Chinese polytheists are broken up into Daoists, Buddhists, Confucians, "folk religionists" (often made invisible and numbered as "non-religious"!), while Christianity is treated as one category.

Christianity, Islam and Buddhism are often the frameworks within which older traditions continue to be practiced, which makes continued veneration/worship of spirits and ancestors under Christianity and Islam invisible, while it makes a mess of categorizing members of Buddhism and ethnic polytheisms.

While Hinduism is somewhat artificially treated as one category, Jainism and Hinduism are equally artificially excluded from what could be termed "Indian polytheism" (Indian devas or gods are widely worshipped in Buddhism outside India): that would make for a category of 1.44 billion members, roughly equalling the membership of Islam. A wider category of polytheisms influenced by Indian and/or Chinese culture could be constructed (is that more artificial than "Abrahamic religions"?), amounting to significantly more members than Christianity.

On the other hand, both Christianity and the Indian and Chinese traditions could be broken up into hundreds of thousands of small communities; without a central authority, the same could be done in treating Sunni Islam, and criteria could be found to differentiate between sub-cultures within Catholicism (e.g., nominal members could be split into "secularists", believers in God but not in the divinity of Christ, Biblical literalists and everything in between, as well as those who continue any of a number of ethnic traditions, believe in the validity of multiple religions, etc).

It would be easy to criticize the methods which I used in this list, but my point is that thebiases that go into the making of lists like this, since they take Christianity, Islam and Judaism to be the standard, will invariably use criteria that privilege them and create the impression that there are only a handful of more or less monolithic "world religions", with an amorphous periphery of negligible "folk" beliefs. The dynamics of local, ethnic and cultural tradition (saint veneration, deity worship) in relation to institutional frameworks (e.g. Catholicism, Buddhism, Confucianism), the pernicious workings of missionary activity, the erasure of minorities and "heterodoxies" by elites, the persecution of "superstition" and "pagan" religions, all equally important to religious life as membership in a large (institutional) group, are made invisible, and the marginalization of religious groups is perpetuated rather than questioned.