Buddhism

[politicus]

Positive. It's still hard to believe that in the early 19th century, it was thought that Buddhism was the world's largest religion. Now there are hardly any Buddhist-majority countries left, except for maybe a few in Southeast Asia.

Sri Lanka
Vietnam
Laos
Cambodia
Burma
Thailand
Bhutan

And its still big in Japan. Wikipedia claims 2/3 of Japans population is affiliated with Buddhism in some way.

[politicus]

Oh come on, that's obviously false. The same wikipedia line says that "70–85% of Japanese profess no religious membership or personal religion."

Didn't say it was the truth, just that Buddhism is still big in Japan. The Japanese relationship to religion is complex and not something you can easily measure. Membership is not a possibility in this context.

Still, Buddhism is the majority religion in three 50 mio.+ countries: Vietnam, Thailand and Burma and it is a cultural factor in countries as important as Japan and China.

Regarding Wiki: Its says surveys show that 18-20% of the Chinese population are Buddhists, that looks legit. Regarding Taiwan it says 90% are Buddhists, so that would add Taiwan to the list, but maybe that's an exaggeration?

Tibet is still majority Tibetan (barely) AFAIK, and it is a country, despite not being an independent one.

[politicus]

What's your point? To refute my line about there hardly being any Buddhist countries left except a few in Southeast Asia? Japan, China, and Taiwan are not Buddhist, they are largely secular. Tibet is not a country. I support Tibetan independence myself, but us saying it's a country doesn't make it one. Vietnam is borderline at best. Only about 8% of Vietnamese are practicing. I don't know why you seem so determined to refute one throwaway line by me. So far you've deliberately twisted a wikipedia quote, and make up a new country to exaggerate Buddhism. What's your motive?

Country do not equal state. Wales, Catalonia, Greenland and Tibet are all countries.

Cultural Buddhism is a factor, just as cultural Christianity is.

I didn't "twist" a Wikipedia quote. I just referred the overall assessment about the prevalence of Buddhism in Japan.

Why are you mad about this? Just saying that Buddhism is still a major religion in some important countries.