[Buddha-l] Charles Prebish Interview

[Richard Hayes]

On Tuesday 20 March 2007 17:16, Bernie Simon wrote:

> Folks may be interested in the interview with Charles Prebish, now at
> the University of Utah.

It's good to see Chuck coming to Utah, the most beautiful state in the USA, 
inhabited by the most bizarre human beings on the planet earth.

I can't help wondering, in passing, how accurate the following claim, made in 
the Prebish article, is: 

"Although about 80 percent of the estimated six million Buddhists in the 
United States have Asian-American ancestry, the rest are often people...who 
converted to Buddhism as adults, moved by its teachings."

Obvious false dichotomy aside (for surely some Americans with Asian ancestry 
have converted to Buddhism as adults, and quite a few European Americans are 
now born into families in which the parents converted to Buddhism forty-some 
years ago), I wonder if there is any accurate way to determine 1) how many 
Americans are Buddhist, and 2) of what ethnic ancestry America's Buddhists 
are. My guess is that we are once again in the realm of barely educated 
guesswork with a low degree of accuracy. (The key words are "about" 
and "estimated", both of which invite caution.)   

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico