CafePress.com is a wonderfully diverse marketplace. Which led me to wonder how diverse it really is. Therefore, I decided to run an experiment called "The Great Faith Race." I took a sampling of major religions or religious figures and searched in the CafePress marketplace to see how many designs came up. Then I just sorted the results and am sharing them below. I ran this list the first time on April 30, 2007 and the second time on May 15, 2007 and the third time on June 10, 2007 and a forth time on July 8, 2007 and then again today, so I'll also include comparison data.
COMPARISON DATA: The comparison data is for data on 8/11/07 compared to 7/08/07.
NEWLY ADDED: Flying Spaghetti Monster (so keep the suggestions/comments coming!).
NEWLY DELETED: Voodou (added last time at the suggestion of a reader, but there is still only one design), and Jedi (two rounds in a row with zero designs, possibly due to copyright, therefore we will cease the reporting on this key word).
OBSERVATIONS: The only term to change positions this round was Vishnu and Dagon, with Vishnu as the new lead. All other positions may have stabilized. Does this mean less religious strife and conflict in the World? Probably not. And therefore we may opt to run a Round Six sometime in the future. There were three entrants that had declines this round: Satan, Voodoo and Dagon. Better luck next round you three. The three big movers-and-shakers for this round, in order of magnitude are: Vishnu, Muhammad and Hindu.
DISCLAIMERS: Although this appears to be very scientific in nature, this assumption should not be made. In other words, this is an unscientific study. Use this information, if at all, at your own risk. We make absolutely no warranties, expressed or implied, as to ... well ... anything. You get the drift.
Feel free to add your comments or observations. If I ever feel compelled to run "The Great Faith Race" again, did I miss any of your favorite religions or religious icons? Let us know!
4 comments:
bahai - 57
baha'i - 130
zoroastrianism - 37
Zoroaster - 9
Shinto - 284
amish - 412
mennonite - 45
sikhism - 345
sikh - 548
jainism - 48
unitarian - 898
unitarianism - 898
universalism - 77400 (but I suspect a quirk in the search algorithm is matching it with "universal")
juche - 3
spiritism - 20300 (another suspect result, given the presence of cheerleading designs.)
cao dai - 6
neo-paganism - 6
neopaganism - 170
neopagan - 170
rastafarianism - 670
rastafari - 1140
rasta - 2060
rastafarian - 670
Mostly gleaned from http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html
I also tried searching "beatles" to see if they really were bigger than jesus, but for obvious reasons there were no results.
Animism - 338000 (yet another suspect result, given all the animal designs.)
Those are all great additions! Thanks for the comments. You look vaguely familiar, but I can't quite figure if I've met you before. You almost look like my friend, John.
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