Religion | 1980 | 1990 | 2000 | 2010 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Buddhism | 27.0 | 31.2 | 42.5 | 33.3 |
Christianity | 10.1 | 12.7 | 14.6 | 18.3 |
No religion | 13.0 | 14.1 | 14.8 | 17.0 |
Islam | 15.7 | 15.3 | 14.9 | 14.7 |
Taoism/Chinese traditional beliefs | 30.0 | 22.4 | 8.5 | 10.9 |
Hinduism | 3.6 | 3.7 | 4.0 | 5.1 |
Other religions | 0.5 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.7 |
Singapore generally allows religious freedom, although some religious sects are restricted or banned, such as Jehovah's Witness, due to its opposition of National Service. The majority of Malays are Muslim, the plurality of Chinese practise Buddhism and syncretic Chinese folk traditions. Christianity is growing among the Chinese, having overtaken Taoism as second most important religion among this ethnic group. Indians are mostly Hindus though many others are Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Christians. People who practice no religion form the third largest group in Singapore.
Religions of the main ethnic groups (2000):
Source: Census 2000.
Read more about this topic: Singaporean People
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“Men are like plants; the goodness and flavor of the fruit proceeds from the peculiar soil and exposition in which they grow. We are nothing but what we derive from the air we breathe, the climate we inhabit, the government we obey, the system of religion we profess, and the nature of our employment.”
—Michel Guillaume Jean De Crevecoeur (17351813)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion.”
—Edmund Burke (17291797)