| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
|
 Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 8:17 am Post subject: American Buddhism on the rise |
 |
|
American Buddhism on the rise
| Quote: |
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. - That genial face has become familiar across the globe - almost as recognizable when it comes to religious leaders, perhaps, as Pope John Paul II. When in America, the Dalai Lama is a sought-after speaker, sharing his compassionate message and engaging aura well beyond the Buddhist community.
After inaugurating a new Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education in Vancouver, B.C., the Tibetan leader this week begins a visit to several US cities for public talks, sessions with young peacemakers, scientists, university faculty, corporate executives, and a California women's conference. But he'll also sit down for teach-ins among the burgeoning American faithful.
Buddhism is growing apace in the United States, and an identifiably American Buddhism is emerging. Teaching centers and sanghas (communities of people who practice together) are spreading here as American-born leaders reframe ancient principles in contemporary Western terms.
Though the religion born in India has been in the US since the 19th century, the number of adherents rose by 170 percent between 1990 and 2000, according to the American Religious Identity Survey. An ARIS estimate puts the total in 2004 at 1.5 million, while others have estimated twice that. "The 1.5 million is a low reasonable number," says Richard Seager, author of "Buddhism in America."
That makes Buddhism the country's fourth-largest religion, after Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Immigrants from Asia probably account for two-thirds of the total, and converts about one-third, says Dr. Seager, a professor of religious studies at Hamilton College, in Clinton, N.Y. |
Figures I've seen support the 3 million estimate. We're tearing it up.
My prediction: no monotheists left in 3 years. Than we ignore the precepts for 30 minutes and off all the Hare Krishnas...what a wondeful world it will be. |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
kato
Joined: 28 Aug 2006
Location: Tejas
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 11:59 am Post subject: |
|
|
there is hope afterall...
2016 first buddhist US president is elected? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
seoulshock
Joined: 12 Jul 2005
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| What about an atheist President? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Alias
Joined: 24 Jan 2003
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Atheists are still villified in America. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
gang ah jee
Joined: 14 Jan 2003
Location: city of paper
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
VS.
Is this thing played out yet? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jaganath69
Joined: 17 Jul 2003
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 1:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Don't tell fiveeagles or Rteacher, the former will be in to tell us how it's all a satanic plot and the latter will simply palm it off as another manifestation of Krishna's omnipresence.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 2:33 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| seoulshock wrote: |
| What about an atheist President? |
Buddhists are atheists. Win-win. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 2:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| flotsam wrote: |
| seoulshock wrote: |
| What about an atheist President? |
Buddhists are atheists. Win-win. |
I just don't see why Jessica Alba can't be president. It would probably convert all those anti-Western Muslim nation's leaders real quick  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 2:45 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| flotsam wrote: |
| seoulshock wrote: |
| What about an atheist President? |
Buddhists are atheists. Win-win. |
I just don't see why Jessica Alba can't be president. It would probably convert all those anti-Western Muslim nation's leaders real quick |
I'd pass on the whole Buddhism thing for that. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
otis
Joined: 02 Jun 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 2:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| flotsam wrote: |
| seoulshock wrote: |
| What about an atheist President? |
Buddhists are atheists. Win-win. |
They aren't atheists. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 3:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| otis wrote: |
| flotsam wrote: |
| seoulshock wrote: |
| What about an atheist President? |
Buddhists are atheists. Win-win. |
They aren't atheists. |
Riiiiiiight otis. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Troll_Bait
Joined: 04 Jan 2006
Location: [T]eaching experience doesn't matter much. -Lee Young-chan (pictured)
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 5:08 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| flotsam wrote: |
| seoulshock wrote: |
| What about an atheist President? |
Buddhists are atheists. Win-win. |
I'm sorry, dude, but I have to voice my disagreement here.
Buddhist don't believe in a personal God, one who listens to and answers prayers, a kind of "cosmic Santa Claus," if you will.
However, I wouldn't say that they don't believe in God. I think that most of them do, but it's more of, to paraphrase Billybrobby, a sentient universe that doesn't care if you win the lottery or are annihilated by an asteroid. There's A Big Plan, but it's bigger than any individual or even any species.
"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description .. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism."
"I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." (1954)
"I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings."
"Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being." (1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray)
"I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves." (The World as I See It)
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
"The idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I am unable to take seriously." (Letter to Hoffman and Dukas, 1946)
"Though I have asserted above that in truth a legitimate conflict between religion and science cannot exist, I must nevertheless qualify this assertion once again on an essential point, with reference to the actual content of historical religions. This qualification has to do with the concept of God. During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution human fantasy created gods in man's own image, who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate to influence, the phenomenal world. Man sought to alter the disposition of these gods in his own favour by means of magic and prayer. The idea of God in the religions taught at present is a sublimation of that old concept of the gods. Its anthropomorphic character is shown, for instance, by the fact that men appeal to the Divine Being in prayers and plead for the fulfillment of their wishes."(1941) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
flotsam
Joined: 28 Mar 2006
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 5:34 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Sorry, Sir. You are redefining god. Thus making it easy to describe Buddhists as non-atheists. However, at its essence, Buddhism does not distinguish between universe and self and therefore there can be no distinct entity of god. What is, is sacred, holy or divine if you need to describe it in such a way, but what is most important to a Buddhist is to see it as what is, with no clouding of what it..er..is.
Shame on you.
P.S. Einstein's understanding of Buddhism was shaky at best, self-serving and self-consoling at worst. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
RACETRAITOR
Joined: 24 Oct 2005
Location: Seoul, South Korea
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| So Americans are becoming Buddhist and Koreans are becoming Christian. It's like musical chairs with superstitious belief systems. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Tiger Beer
Joined: 07 Feb 2003
|
| Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2006 6:40 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| RACETRAITOR wrote: |
| So Americans are becoming Buddhist and Koreans are becoming Christian. It's like musical chairs with superstitious belief systems. |
I've often seen that play itself out in the hogwan system.
Some eager brand new hogwan teacher arrives in Korea.. hopeful to learn the fascinating peaceful ways of Buddhism.. only to realize that few if any of his/her students will know much about it, let alone able to share about it in English.
On the other hand.. eager Korean christians are knocking door-to-door.. even on foreigner's doors.. eager to share.. let alone all the christian street singing.. and the eager korean who assumes 'i'm christian' told to you will mean something to a foreigner, when it generally doesn't. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
