The basic Amerindian spiritual belief was animistic, which means that all objects and even the universe itself possessed personalities, souls or spirits. Some objects harbored GOOD spirits, while others possessed EVIL spirits. The world crowded with spirits was terrifying to the Amerindians.

about 11,000 years ago

This same Oxford Dictionary says online that the word Amerindian has been in use since the late 1800s. The fact remains that the word ‘Indigenous’ is also of European origin, as the word ‘indigenous’ derives from the late Latin word ‘Indigenus’ and Indigena’ (native).

Major religious groups

• Christianity (31.2%)
• Islam (24.1%)
• No religion (16%)
• Hinduism (15.1%)
• Buddhism (6.9%)
• Folk religions (5.7%)
• Sikhism (0.3%)
• Judaism (0.2%)

Roughly 48.9% of Americans are Protestants, 23.0% are Catholics, 1.8% are Mormons (members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Christianity was introduced during the period of European colonization. The United States has the world’s largest Christian population.

Christian

Christianity has been estimated to be growing rapidly in South America, Africa, and Asia. In Africa, for instance, in 1900, there were only 8.7 million adherents of Christianity; now there are 390 million, and it is expected that by 2025 there will be 600 million Christians in Africa.

Christianity Christianity is the largest religion in the world, with roughly 2.4 billion adherents, or 33% of the total population. Christianity has seen countless reformation movements, which spawned innumerable sects and offshoot denominations.

According to a study from 2015, Christians hold the largest amount of wealth (55% of the total world wealth), followed by Muslims (5.8%), Hindus (3.3%), and Jews (1.1%).