Simon Cowell was born in Lambeth, London, England, and was raised about 15 miles away from Central London in Elstree, Hertfordshire. Most Londoners belong to the Church of England, which is an Anglican church. What religion is Simon Cowell?
Simon Cowell doesn’t appear to be very religious, though claims Christianity. He is part of 16% of the world’s population who do not have a set religion. This does not make him secular, which is the absence of religion, it’s just that he doesn’t choose one religion over the other.
Simon’s father is from a mostly Jewish family, but he never spoke about it and it wasn’t until an article was published about him that he learned of his father’s ancestry. He is happy to know about his Jewish ancestry and welcomes it along with his Christianity. At one point there were rumors that he was going to convert to Islam to marry a now ex-girlfriend, but that was never confirmed nor was it carried out.
Religious Definition
According to Merriam-Webster, leaders in definitions since 1828, religious is defined as “relating to or manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity”. For Jewish and Christians that is God, for Muslims it is Muhammad.
Still, others may feel that, to them, religion is something different altogether. Not all belief systems revolve around a deity, for some, it is just enough to have faith in faith itself, while not looking too deeply into the origin of that faith.
Many people who are not very religious state that they are spiritual, which is a category referred to as Irreligion.
Irreligion
Irreligion is the “active rejection of either religion in general or any of its more specific organized forms.” There are about twelve types of Irreligion:
- Secular humanism
- Freethought
- “Spiritual but not religious”
- Theological noncognitivism
- Naturalism
- Secularism
- Antireligion
- Atheism
- Agnosticism
- Agnostic atheism
- Apatheism
- Deism
The Czech Republic is the country with the highest population of people who are non-religious. About 53% of Cowell’s homeland of Britain reports being non-religious.
Spirituality
Many people claim to be spiritual, but not religious. What does that mean exactly? One definition of spirituality is “The quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.”
Both Religion and Spirituality can mean different things to different people. And, you can be one and not the other, or you can be both or neither. It’s a complex world when you get right down to it.
In a broader sense of meaning, Religion is often thought of as outward and worldly, while Spirituality is more inward and self-focused, without necessarily holding a deity on high.
Christianity and Judaism
Christianity is a religion that derived from the teachings of Christ, and who believe that he was the Messiah referred to in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ was Jewish, and did not intend to start a new religion, merely amend his religion.
Christianity is currently the number one practiced religion, with 29% of the global population recognizing it as their belief system. In second place is Islam with 24% of the world’s population, or 1.9 billion people.
Irreligion, encompassing all twelve types, comes in at number 4 with just over 14% claiming it. Judaism comes further down the list at number 11 with only 0.18% of the population, or 14 million people claiming to practice the religion.
Judaism is unique in that it is not only just a religion, but it also encompasses the ethnic backgrounds, beliefs, and legal traditions of Jewish people. It is hard to get an accurate number on the amount of Jewish people in the world due to issues with defining what it means to be Jewish.
Some believe that anyone born to a Jewish mother, or raised in the faith is Jewish. While others believe that if you have one parent, mother, or father, who is Jewish then you are too. These are just two of the contradictions in the community and there are several others as well.
Simon Cowell may not be very religious but he does embrace both ethnic ancestries of his parents.