A couple Google search trends on religion and spirituality

Just putzing around with the Google trends tool and wanted to share a few charts.

So in the US, people search for the word “God” quite a bit more than soul, religion, and faith. Interestingly it’s also the only word growing in search popularity.

“Islam” is leading in search popularity in the US, by a wide-ish margin. Then Christianity, then Buddhism, then a virtual tie between Hinduism and Judaism.

Worldwide, it’s not even close. “Islam” wins by a huge margin. There are many caveats here, starting with the fact that these are results for English language searches only. The caveats become obvious in the next chart:

Because “Jesus” is the clear leader. I tried different spellings of Muhammad as well. What caused that spike for “Muhammad” (red line) in mid-2016?

And finally, worldwide, “yoga” is growing by leaps. Meditation and prayer comparatively steady.