Quote Originally Posted by weirdo79
I see Buddhism as more a of a philosphy (and so apparently did the "buddha") thats probably why it didnt go the same road as others (that were religions).

Great post One ,
I agree. Same goes for Taoism. These two religions/philosophies don't really concern themselves with the supernatural and pretending to know things they could not possibly know. Rather, they concern themselves with life here on Earth and how we can make the world a better place for ourselves and for others. They don't really have anything to "prove" through violence.

But the question is, why did they survive in the face of the warlike religions? Well, if we look at the really successful warlike religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism) we see that they come from places of high civilization, that is, people with the technology to use weapons capable of threatening other peoples into conversion and slaying those who don't comply. However, the places that Taoism and Buddhism have spread (China, Southeast Asia, Korea, Japan) these places were too far away for the warlike religions to invade, and the Chinese, who had effective cultural control of East Asia, were far too advanced to be forcibly converted by other peoples. In India, however, where Buddhism originated but Hinduism was predominant, we see Buddhism has almost completely died out under the influence of Hinduism. When Buddhism spread to East Asia, there was no pre-existing religion per se; just Confucianism, which was again really just a philosophy.

I have optimism in the future of humanity. I think the responsibility of having to maintain a technological society will force people to turn to science and thus to critical thinking as a means of solving problems. In this age of widespread scientific understanding and critical thought, I suspect that religions like Christianity and Islam will surely die out since they make wild claims about the origins of the universe that don't have any evidence for them. But philosophies like Buddhism and Taoism may very well survive, since as general life philosophies they are not the sort of things that will disintegrate when rational thought is applied. When Buddha or Lao Zi says something, he is saying it as a suggestion, not as absolute undeniable fact like Mohammed or Joseph Smith. Buddhism and Taoism are based on real life experiences by people in the physical world, rather than the superstitions of a few "prophets" who claim they have the answers to all the unsolved and unsolvable questions. That may be what ultimately secures their continued survival in the future.