Cape Town Daily Photo

Religion in South Africa

I can't work out if this is a Buddhist or Hindu statue. I've seen similar statues referred to as Thai Angles and others as Buddhist goddesses. Do you perhaps know anything about this statue - if so, please leave a message below. :)

According to the latest census information that I'm able to find, South Africans are divided into the following religious camps: Christian 79.8%, No Religion 15.1%, Undetermined 15,1%, Islam 1.5%, Hinduism 1,2%, Other 0.6%, African Traditional Religion 0.3%, and Judaism 0.2%. What you may find interesting about these stats is that Traditional African Religion makes up such a tiny percentage of the spread in an overwhelmingly black African country.

The reality about these stats are that within the Christian belief category you’ll find a huge diversity in what people actually believe. You may expect all people who say that they’re Christian to be Catholic, or protestant – but that’s not quite as clear-cut as that. Many people will call themselves Christian because they we’re once Christened, and many others (specifically black South Africans, I guess) may have the core Christian belief, but still participate in traditional tribal religious ritual that the traditional Baptists or Catholics among us may find highly questionable.