intelligent less likely to believe in god, page-235

V,

The point I was making was not that the various religions do nor have some useful to great insights into human nature and how to live a fulfilled life but rather that the problem is not with the religious doctrines per se but with us flawed imperfect humans who are not able to live up to our highest ideals. And the course of human history, I suggest, is witness to that fact.

As far as Buddhism goes one could wonder whether it is a bona fide religion at all but instead a philosophy for self-improvement. However if you read the history of the Tibetan monastic system you will find that that variation of Buddhism led, amongst other abuses, to the systematic enslavement and sexual exploitation of young boys "confiscated" from families that lived in virtual serfdom to the Lamas. Myanmar surely indicates that even in an 85% Buddhist country that "religion" has done nothing, by way of influence to prevent the abuses of human rights that are occurring even to the present day in that country.

My proposition is not that Buddhism is any worse than other religions or philosophies, like atheism, in building better human societies but like the rest has been hamstrung by the one really important factor. viz the imperfection of the material society is built upon.

I think it is possible to mount, for example, an argument that the enlightenment has led to the universal human rights values, which we currently enjoy. Though the enlightenment was in many ways the challenge of rationality versus faith, the reality is that it arose in the matrix of Christianity and not Buddhism or Islam or any other religious system. That is interesting in that those nations that have the greatest freedoms today, like our own, had strong Christian influences in their formation but that, as noted above, is not the point I was making.