Religion in Korea

My mom asked me to write about this for a long time so now I'm finally going to.  Keep in mind, I am not an expert on any religion including my own.  I can only talk about what I see around me in one part of Korea and what I have experienced with the Korean people that I personally know and have met.  So take everything with a grain of salt basically.

The most popular religion in Korea is Christianity.  Something like 29% of Koreans claim to be Christian with 11% being Catholic and the rest being various forms of Protestants.  I'm not sure exactly what all kinds of Protestants there are in Korea but I know there are Methodists and Jehovah's Witnesses and the people who hand out Gideon Bibles for sure because I've encountered all of those.  There are of course other kinds of Christian Protestants, I just don't know exactly which ones.  And Korean people don't usually know the word in English for whatever their specific religion is so I never know.

The next most popular religion is Buddhism.  About 23% of Koreans are actively Buddhist but about 100% of Koreans are influenced by Buddhism.  It's a really important part of their history and even Christians do things like visit temples or wear Buddhist bracelets or wear traditional Buddhist clothing.  I don't know a lot about Buddhist obviously but it is very visibly present in Korea.  Both Buddhism and Christianity appear to me to live peacefully together with one another.

I once visited a Buddhist temple and never felt pressure to convert or anything.  They also didn't ask me about my religion.  And at the church I attend they know that I have been to Buddhist temples many times and express nothing but positive reactions over the fact that I am visiting Korean sites.  So no hate happening that I can see.

I lied a little bit earlier when I said that Christianity is the most popular religion in Korea.  It's actual....nothing.  No religion.  A whopping 46.5% of Koreans claim to have no religion at all.  This doesn't necessarily mean that they don't believe in God or are atheists or something.  It just means they don't regularly practice anything.  Some people might go to temple sometimes or church sometimes but for the most part they are just doing what they feel.  The large majority of Korean people I know fall into this category.  And so does Korean society.  For example, rather than the 6 month long Christmas prep and celebration that we have in America, Koreans just get Christmas Day off.  So that means I work Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas.  Koreans also get Buddha's Birthday off of work so it's not like things are unfair.  They just aren't massive celebrations.  The big Korean holidays are Lunar New Year and Chuseok aka Korean Thanksgiving, but I will write more about those another time.

I feel like maybe I haven't answered any and every question people have about religion in Korea so please leave me more questions in the comments and I will do my best to answer them.

Note:  The stats I used here are all from this Wikipedia page.  You didn't actually think I just knew this stuff did you?  And no, I will not go find a more legitimate source.  This is good enough for a hobby blog that's read by like 17 people total.