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Washington's Blog reports
The Pew Research Center on Religion & Public Life is reporting, in their poll of 35,000 Americans, that during the seven years from 2007 to 2014, the numbers of religiously "Unaffiliated" were soaring, the numbers of Christians were plunging, and the numbers of adherents to non-Christian faiths were rising substantially but not nearly as much as were the numbers of "Unaffiliated".
This report, issued on May 12th, is headlined, "America's Changing Religious Landscape: Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow".
It shows that: the percentage of Americans who are unaffiliated rose from 16.1% in 2007 up to 22.8% today.
[...][The USA] is becoming a less [religious], and a more religiously diverse, country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2015, @05:09AM
Uh cos I've been in buddhist temples around the world and they all have people praying in front of a big golden idol of him? You can deny it all you want but he's your GOD :O
(Score: 1) by deroby on Monday May 18 2015, @10:15AM
I'm still not sure that makes him a god. Maybe we have a different concept of the word/concept of 'god'. To you it seems to be more akin to 'someone idolized', for me a god is more 'some being with super-powers', where super-powers are well above what should be physically possible (e.g. instantly turn people into salt-pillars)
In other words, it's not because a lot of people pray to the statue of a guy on a cross that this makes him a god; it's because they believe there is a god who spent a crucial part of his career on a cross that they direct their prayers to a representation of it. Likewise, it's not because people worship the statue of a guy who died about 2300 years ago that this makes him a god; it's because those people consider the teachings of this guy of such importance that they are spending time and resources into whatever it is they built to honour him.
For a more 'objective' take on it, according to wikipedia:
The concept of God as described by theologians commonly includes the attributes of omniscience (infinite knowledge), omnipotence (unlimited power), omnipresence (present everywhere), omnibenevolence (perfect goodness), divine simplicity, and eternal and necessary existence.
Now I'm not an expert on buddhism but AFAIK that Siddharta guy was considered "a wise teacher", I doubt he had 'infinite knowledge' although I'm willing to consider it a grey zone. As for 'unlimited power': he was just a guy walking the land, I've yet to hear the first miracle he performed. There may be statues of him all around the world, but that's where his 'omnipresence' ends I'm afraid. Omnibenevolence ... well, in a 'do-no-harm-to-others' you could say he had this one down quite well... as do quite some othermore contemporary people I can think of and who'll nobody confuse for a god. "Divine simplicity" goes beyond my understanding so can't say, but "eternal and necessary existence" are surely off the book, the guy may have lived a long life, he died just like all the rest of us (will).
All in all I it seems to me like he "fails" the test on several points.
my 2 cents.