How many separate religions are there in the world, a religion being
defined as a belief system involving an unprovable supernatural
element in which belief in that religion is inconsistant with belief
in all others.  To be a religion there must be a group of believers
who meet or worship in some communal way and have a name for their
system of belief.

Hello.

According to David B. Barrett, the researcher who compiles religious
population estimates for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and World
Almanac, there are about 10,000 distinct religions in the world today.

See this article:
"Researcher tabulates world's believers" by Richard N. Ostling, Associated Press,
http://www.adherents.com/misc/WCE.html

'The 2001 edition, successor to his 1983 first edition, which took a
decade to compile, identifies 10,000 distinct religions, of which 150
have 1 million or more followers. Within Christianity, he counts
33,830 denominations.
  Barrett also calculates religious populations for the Encyclopedia
Britannica Book of the Year, standard estimates that are used in turn
by the World Almanac and innumerable journalists.
  Such numbers are always debatable, but they're the best available.
"We don't really have any rivals," Barrett says..."
On the web site of adherents.com:
http://www.adherents.com/misc/WCE.html

Barrett's book, "World Christian Encyclopedia : A Comparative Survey
of Churches and Religions in the Modern World" is available for online
browsing using the "search inside" feature on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0195079639/

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search strategy:
"religions worldwide"
"distinct religions", barrett

I hope this this helps.