Buddhism

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Overall my impression is negative. Now it may be a mistaken impression, but the impression I get of Buddhism is that it subscribes to the Gnostic concept that spirit is good, flesh is bad, and thus we should strive to become as spirit like as possible and strive to escape our fleshy prisons.  That is not a concept I agree with in the least, so for me it outweighs the valuable parts of Buddhism, especially when it appears to me that with Taoism I can get my RDA of Eastern philosophy without the taint of Gnostic disgust with the flesh.

Spirit's not all that great in Buddhism either.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Buddha rejected asceticism, he wanted a middle path between self-denial and self-indulgence.

Yeah. Some of the Zen patriarchs and a few masters of other Buddhist traditions felt the need or ability to lead searingly ascetic lives but they're comparable to the Stylites within Christianity: Not representative or even really exemplary of the religion as a whole (although not deviations from it either, at least not to the point of being troublesome).

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Japan is one of the few countries in the world with very low rates of claimed religious affiliation...but relatively high rates of religious observance and practice. To claim that it's 'a secular country' rather than a Buddhist one is to overlook quite a lot about Japanese family and civic life.