I wouldn't dismiss 2500 years of cultural practice, with terms like 'efficiency', or discuss the 'deliverables' of their monastic traditions. Or speculate about what they 'sell'. We can do better than applying western consumerist interpretations of 'quaint oriental beliefs'.
Based on what I observed in SE asia, popular Buddhism primarily exists as a faith there, not unlike Catholicism in Italy. The philosophical traditions seem to be partially different from that and at least as diverse and prone to superstitious branches as Abrahamic ones.
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Christian traditions also produced philosophies that fixed most of the epistemological issues, but they are not very relevant to the Christian laypeople. Do you think that is different for Buddhism?
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I'm from rural Australia; very few talked about christianity, or the bible. No christian friends until university (and then we didn't discuss it). I want to be curious about it, but all evidence suggests that I haven't been. I grew up practically at an 'edge' of western civ.
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Yep. It's very true. It's precarious territory to discuss. I'll offer this opinion: the buddha would probably think such practices could be useful, but not inherantly. He expressed that his teachings should never become dogma. Google this: "Buddha's parable of the raft."
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