These days, there are packs of
young Americans leaving
Christianity, the "evil religion", to experiment with
Eastern religions, mainly
buddhism and
Hindu. To them,
Christianity stands for
oppression,
brainwashing and
violence, while
buddhism, embodied by cute little
Dalai Lama (who doesn't even belong to the
Mahayana sect, instead practicing the
Tibetan perversion), represents
peace,
love and all that.
Ignoring the skeletons in the closet that buddhism has hidden, and believe me, there are plenty of them, you might be interested to know that Christianity was the hottest thing in upper-class China in the 1500's and the 1600's. Jesuit missionaries introduced Christianity to China. Sick of the usual dogma of buddhism, Confucianism and ancestor worship, the Chinese scholars, including the Emperor Kangxi, delved into the Christian faith. Buddhism has been perverted so much there that it didn't stand for anything the Buddha said any more, and Confucianism was the tool of oppression. Christianity was fresh, new and gave hope to the despairing scholars, who realized the problems plaguing the Qing Dynasty but were helpless to do anything about it.
Later, when Kangxi died, the dowager empress, realizing that Christianity was a threat to the dynastic imperial system, kicked all the Jesuits out and persecuted all the Christians, just like Japan did. By doing so, China lost any hope of catching up in the technological race and was humiliated continuously for the next 300 years. Christianity, if it was allowed to take control in China, would have rid China of much of the Confucian dogma that has been controlling it for 2000 years.
One stupid faith in exchange for another you say? Christianity for buddhism? Well, maybe now you understand why I look down so much on the hordes of pseudo-buddhist Free Tibet kiddies. Buddhism is so incredibly vague that it is much more easily abused than Christianity.