Washington, USA - North Korea's "juche" (self-reliance) ideology ranks 10th in the world's major religions in terms of the number of believers, American religion website adherents.com said Monday.
The website collected information and statistics on major religions around the globe and says juche is the 10th largest in the world.
"Juche is the only government-authorized ideology in North Korea, to the point of excluding all other religions," the website says. By counting North Korea's total post-famine population, the website says the ideology has 19 million followers.
Christianity is cited as having the largest number of believers at 2.1 billion. Islam claims 1.3 billion and Hinduism claims 900 million. The site says non-religious people, including agnostics, atheists and secular humanists, number 1.1 billion.
"Its promoters describe juche as simply a secular, ethical philosophy and not a religion," the website says. "But, from a sociological viewpoint juche is clearly a religion, and in many ways is even more overtly religious than Soviet-era Communism or Chinese Maoism.”
According to Thomas J. Belke who wrote a book on the North Korean ideology, its sacred grounds, rituals, and belief structures meet the conditions of a religion.
"Some other religions which exist substantially only within a single country have been excluded from this list," the website says. "But [juche] has so many adherents, is so influential in their lives, and is so different from any other religious system, that including it on this list may be necessary in order to accurately reflect the total world religious economy."
With its 19 million followers, juche outnumbers Spiritism (15 million), Judaism (14 million), and Shinto (4 million). The website said it compiled the list using statistics from various countries and advice from professors of comparative religion.