>But the real difference is, again, the idea of exclusionary, prophetic religions vs philosophies that do not feel a need to convert or compel. With Christianity and Islam you are on the bus or you're off the bus, you're saved or you're damned and it hinges on your acceptance of a set of doctrines and dogmas. Whether it is the shahādatān or the Apostles' Creed it is required and it is what separates the chosen from the infidel.

You've touched my two (among other dozen) complaints against such religions: the sin of hubris ("we are right and everybody else is wrong"), and the will to expand. Communists also started with the idea of making people happy, and we saw where it got them.

So in some way, Buddhism doesn't rank that bad on my bad religions list, nearly to the point that it may not even count as a religion. But it does, because of those monks.

>And, of course, for all the People of the Book there is a great anthropomorphic God, who seems to resemble an ancient Babylonian despot more than a cosmic force or a Great Ground of Being. And this God is vengeful and angry and jealous and requires a lot of ego-stroking.

Can't remember who said "Books are not dangerous. One book is. Beware of people with one book."