Religions are were created by organizations of followers, with made living out of the teaching. Later these organizations developed itselfs into what we call no

Religions are were created by organizations of followers, with made living out of the teaching. Later these organizations developed itselfs into what we call now corporations or big government (actually, governments became bloated and corrupted due to deflation of Catholic churches). Buddhism, my friend, has many branches and sects. The original teaching, which is more or less accurately preserver in Dharmapadda of so-called Pali canon is a philosophic doctrine, losely based on Upanishads, narated in an easy to understand, poetical way - a bunch of metaphors familiar to a village folks. This doctrine has no notions of rituals, idol worship, mantras, tantras, mandalas, monasteries or other kind of social hierarchy. These were almost 1000 years later inventions (the era of Indian writings dated back to 6th to 8th century AD - thousand years after Buddha's death, and associated with places like Nalanda "university" in Bihar). All that lately written nonsense usually referred to by using the umbrella term Mahayana (with implies, of course, better than older teachings). These writings were translated into Tibetan in the first wave of translation, about 7th AD. The second wave, which is associated with the mythical guru Padmasambava and his so-called tantric Buddhism - a profound tribal (non-arian) influence of primitive deity worship - Tantra - could be considered only as a farce. The branch of teaching adopted and developed in China has been already distorted by Mahayana writers, but, strictly speaking, it is closer to the Pali Canon than the texts translated into Tibetan during the second wave. So, which one you are refering to as Buddhism religion? Which set of rithualized idol worship which has been imported popularized in US in 60s and 70s?