[Buddha-l] Speaking of statistics

[Richard Hayes]

A while back we had fun speculating about what percentage of the population of 
the PRC would identify themselves as Buddhist. In the same vein of 
recreational pseudo-demographics, I offer the following link:

http://www.uua.org/news/011205.html

For those lacking the time to read the whole article, it says that more than 
16% of Unitarians identify themselves as Buddhist, compared to the 13% of 
Unitarians who identify themselves as Christian. The survey of Unitarians 
offered them twenty labels; respondents could apply as many as they fit their 
beliefs and practices. when Unitarians were asked only one of the labels, 
9.5% chose Christian, and a smaller percentage chose Buddhist as a unique 
label. 

I wonder what percentage of Buddhists, given a list of 20 labels and asked to 
choose only one to describe themselves, would choose the Buddhist label. My 
completely unscientific guess is that the percentage would be very low, 
perhaps barely above zero.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico