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

[Richard Hayes]

On Monday 05 March 2007 17:03, David Snyder, Ph.D, wrote:

>   I am happy to see you liked my little quiz so much that  you gave it to
> your class. 

The class in question is a first-year class in which 90% of the students do 
95% of their research using Google. Every now and then I show them how much 
misinformation is available on the web. After giving the students your 
questions, we had a class discussion about how well your questions reflect 
the teachings of Buddhism as we have seen those teachings reflected in the 
canonical sources we have been studying. It was a useful exercise in critical 
thinking. Thanks for giving us something to talk about.

> In one of your earlier posts you said
> that you could not score high on this quiz.

That was mostly because so many of the questions were poorly worded and could 
not be answered with a yes or no. I think I found only two or three that I 
could answer at all.

> Perhaps that is why you are so 
> quick to find fault, because you felt "left out" in not being counted as
> Buddhist.

For better or worse, I have never managed to learn to put much value on 
whether other people think I am successfully practicing Buddhism. The only 
guideline I have learned to follow is how much avoidable dukkha I have 
allowed to arise in my consciousness continuum. 

> Don't take the quiz so seriously, it is just a fun game that one 
> can choose to participate in or not.

Yes, that much I was able to figure out right away. It is fun in a very silly 
way. As you will learn by a careful study of the buddha-l archives, many of 
us like taking silly tests on the Internet and then talking about the 
results. Don't take our banter too seriously. We sure as hell don't.  

>   I am not sure why you chose the example of a Buddhist not scoring high on
> it and sarcastically suggesting that he need more brainwashing at the
> "laundromat." 

Where else can one get a good brainwashing? You don't expect us to go to an 
expensive dry cleaning establishment just for a brainwash, do you?

> The racist slur aside

How you were able to find any kind of slur in my little joke is beyond my 
comprehension. And why you think the alleged slur is racist in nature is even 
more puzzling. Are you assuming the Buddhist students who did not score high 
belonged to some race that I would deem slurworthy? Not a bad assumption, 
actually. The students did indeed belong to the human race. One was 
Norwegian, the other Swedish. Now that you mention it, your test probably was 
beyond the level of sophistication that a Scandanavian can stoop to.

>   The current number of Buddhists is therefore, nearly 1.7 billion which
> places it nearly equal with each of the two largest religions of
> Christianity and Islam.

I don't think you have been paying attention. That is precisely the claim that 
has come under critical examination. The sociologists and other responsibly 
numerate people on this list have pointed out that there is no reliable way 
to arrive at the number of adherents of religions in the most populous parts 
of the earth. So the claim on your web site is, like your questionnaire, 
lacking in any scientific merit. It is, however, amusing to speculate on what 
would motivate a person to think it important to claim that the number of 
Buddhists is enough to place Buddhism among the three most popular religions 
in the world.  

> It is important to know the true number to provide 
> an accurate history and to know that we are not “alone” in our thinking and
> our practice.

If it really is important to arrive at the correct number, then we're all in 
deep trouble, because we have no way of arriving at the truth of this 
particular matter. Fortunately, I have claimed, it really is not at all 
important to know how many Buddhists there are in the world. Even if we were 
alone in our thinking and our practice, the practice would still be valuable 
to us in our loneliness. And, speaking only for myself, my practice never 
gets either easier or more difficult as a result of others doing it (or 
claiming to do it or having someone else claim that they are doing it). The 
fact is, our world is so overwhelmed with greed, hatred and delusion that 
there might as well be no one at all practicing Buddhism, for all the good 
their practice is doing for the world as a whole.

> What we really strive for is not more Buddhists, but more 
> “buddhas” (enlightened ones) so that we can have true peace inside and for
> the world.

Haven't you heard the news? There is only one buddha in the world-system at 
any one time, and ours died a few years back. While peace would be nice, I 
don't think we are in for much of it any time soon.

Anyway, welcome to buddha-l. I hope you'll stick around even after we stop 
talking about all the silly things on your website. (Some people drop in 
mostly to talk about themselves and their Bodhidharma complexes. They don't 
last long.)

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico