[edblarney]

I can't speak for his source.

But I have encountered this: I dated a bunch of girls from OKC a couple of years ago. Many of them claimed they were 'Buddhist' on their profiles.

I'm very interested in religion, and thought it was odd so many claimed to be this, when clearly it was not of their 'ethnic origin'.

When I talked to them about it, none of them knew anything about Buddhism beyond 'The Dalai Lama' and a few platitudes. They had never read a full book. Knew next to nothing of Buddhist theology. Never been to a Temple. Had no practices, holidays, knew nothing of the various forms of Buddhism (some of them are pretty hard-core and not what we think of in the West) etc.. So in reality, they 'thought positively of the pop-culture Buddhist image' and what that image meant for themselves, and how it projected onto others. And that's about it - but they were not remotely 'Buddhist' in any tangible way.

My point is people often 'identify with some idea' - but those ideas, and even their understanding of the more formalized idea, can be essentially fictional - or rather, they are used to 'paint a picture of their self identity', and possibly nothing more.