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

[L.S. Cousins]

Joanna,

Of course, what I meant to write was:

There we constantly see figures for nominal adherents to Christianity 
and Islam set against figures for committed adherents to other world 
religions.

>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.

On one level, of course, it doesn't really matter. I just feel that 
if it is going to be done (and it is), it should be done properly.

>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

I don't think I offered any definition of 'highly committed' but I 
suppose in the context what is perhaps meant is 'visibly committed'. 
In a way, that is reasonable in that it offers something you could in 
theory measure. But it is open to all sorts of objections, including 
the one you offer. So I would prefer to use Census figures which 
generally constitute the individual's own assessment. Where that is 
not available you just have to make an honest estimate that is 
broadly comparable.

But, personally,  I am not much in favour of judging others as 
hypocrites. Probably only the person themselves can know if they are 
a hypocrite. Or, perhaps even they will not know until they are on 
their death bed. Too often the accusation of 'hypocrisy' is used by 
one type of religion to attack another without any real attempt to 
understand.

Lance Cousins