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

[David S]

Re:  Buddhism, the second largest religion in the world.
   
   
  I am happy to see my website has stirred some debate and interesting discussions about the number of Buddhists in the world.
   
  I agree with Lance and Joanna that an estimate such as mine is a welcome change from the misrepresentations done in so many sources that claim to give the "correct" number of adherents of Buddhists.
   
  I acknowledge that my number may be off, but to say that over one billion people do not count is a terrible mis-statement of the facts.  This is what many encyclopedias and almanacs do.  They simply ignore over one billion Chinese people, just because the country does not publish religion adherents statistics.
   
  Wikipedia has attempted to at least count about 30% or so as Buddhist, from mainland China.  This is at least an improvement from the zero that was counted before.  The number may be somewhere between 30% to 80%, but with the only survey that I know of showing 91%, I decided to go with that number.
   
  Obviously, the bulk of the number of Buddhists shown on my number of Buddhists page, is then from mainland China.  
   
  http://www.vipassanafoundation.com/Buddhists.html
   
  For the number of Buddhists in the U.S., I have seen estimates from as low as 100,000 to over 10 million.  I have used 2% which is about 6 million.  The sources that used 100,000 only counted those registered by the Buddhist Churches of America, one of the Pure Land sects.  That is a ridiculous source, as we all know that there are many Buddhists in America, especially the convert Buddhists who are not members of that Pure Land sect or any other Pure Land sect.
   
  David Snyder, Ph.D.
   

 
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