its not the religion of the highest percentage of followers for all of the people that have ever lived, its about what one was the most followed throughout the last 5000 years.
For example, the most followed one would be the one that had the highest percentage of the world population for the most number of years.
They don't necessarily have to worship Buddha. While Buddhism does not deny the existence of supernatural beings (indeed, many are discussed in Buddhist scripture), it does not ascribe power for creation, salvation or judgement to them. Like humans, they are regarded as having the power to affect worldly events, and so some Buddhist schools associate with them via ritual. Basically they are a religion.
"its not the religion of the highest percentage of followers for all of the people that have ever lived, its about what one was the most followed throughout the last 5000 years."
It would still make it Christianity and Islam at the top, even though they have only really existed for the last 2000 or so years, in those years they have had more followers then any other religion ever had, even the societies that lasted thousands of years.
Christianity is the biggest religion in the world, with 1.9 billion members (33% of the world population).
Islam is second with little over a billion.
All other religions for the most part don't even begin to reflect such numbers!
Please note: Christians believe in the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible is the King of religious books, with just under 25,000 ORIGINAL manuscripts to compare with today's translations. They have proven to be between 98 and 99 percent accurate. Homer's Liad comes in second place with 600 ORIGINAL manuscripts, and other religious books don't even have originals any longer.
And no other religious books contain prophecy proved by secular history like the Holy Bible!
yea i wonder why so many people insist on saying catholics are not christians. They belive in christ and they depend on him as the cornerstone of their faith, what else would define a "christ"ian. Yes they have certain dogmas that are different than other christian sects but that does not exclude them from being belivers in jesus.
To answer the question, I believe it started with the Sumerian's that changed to the Babylonians as the years went on this start reached into many of the religions mentioned. A book called "Two Babylons" traced it well even to the Catholic and Protestant churches with some of the same traditions and beliefs. The God of the Bibles following started off small compared to the rest, and a small group of Christians are actually following the teaching of the Bible instead of their pastor