[Buddha-l] Buddhism, the second largest religion in the world

[jkirk]

Lance wrote:
> In fact, Richard, I think this is a welcome corrective to the wildly 
> inaccurate figures now frequently circulated by US government sources. 
> There we constantly see figures for nominal adherents to Christianity and 
> Islam set against figures for nominal adherents to other world religions. 
> This nicely polarizes the situation but is surely incorrect.
================
I'm glad you came forth with those figures, Lance, because I was also 
skeptical of the US government's estimates as to numbers of Buddhists but 
had no data. However, I wouldn't agree to use the term "highly committed" 
for people who belong to sanghas, or churches, temples, mosques etc as 
opposed to the large numbers of folks who practice their paths without 
belonging to any membership organization. There is no way to demonstrate 
that they are not committed, while there is much evidence that many who 
belong to religious organizations are the world's best hypocrites.
Cheers, Joanna