It's quite ironic! Buddha was against idol worship and today they worship his idol!! It's so ridiculous it's actually funny.... a related article of mine on the topic can be found in EU ... it's called "Let us set God free".

little buddha, good. nobody can reach the source although oracle is there. buddha was there but he was made god by godless people. human cannot be god. without human there is no god. the cat, goat, tiger lion, none worship god. humans wanted to threaten their children, so cultivated GOD. Every religion promotes sin: you can take other's wifes. you can have illegal trades. you can have polygamy. you can lie.you can mistrust. nothing and nobody is clean. even buddha was not clean as such when he had the lady visitor who gave him the porridge to keep him alive. it was a sin too. Jesus himself was sacked to death in the final supper. If he ahd not taken that supper with the 13th man? books say, Krisna had 33 million girlfriends and he helped to kill a lot of bad people. Killing in any form is non- godly. do not take meat goat or sheep , because you kill. do not kill insects, animals, snakes. To reach God's status which humans can't because there is noone who saw GOD's manifestations, his omnipotence, and power, coz, whoever doeth that shall be killed immediately by intolerable power.

little buddha, good. nobody can reach the source although oracle is there. buddha was there but he was made god by godless people. human cannot be god. without human there is no god. the cat, goat, tiger lion, none worship god. humans wanted to threaten their children, so cultivated GOD. Every religion promotes sin: you can take other's wifes. you can have illegal trades. you can have polygamy. you can lie.you can mistrust. nothing and nobody is clean. even buddha was not clean as such when he had the lady visitor who gave him the porridge to keep him alive. it was a sin too. Jesus himself was sacked to death in the final supper. If he ahd not taken that supper with the 13th man? books say, Krisna had 33 million girlfriends and he helped to kill a lot of bad people. Killing in any form is non- godly. do not take meat goat or sheep , because you kill. do not kill insects, animals, snakes. To reach God's status which humans can't because there is noone who saw GOD's manifestations, his omnipotence, and power, coz, whoever doeth that shall be killed immediately by intolerable power.

Well the idol of buddha was created in the time of alexander.It was mostly created in Afghanstain of which the Taleban destoryed the big ones in Bamiyan and other small ones in their regime.And the Buddha-Bishnu concept was because of the Aadi Sankaracharya who revived Hinduism in the then 'Bharatvarsa'.

I do not regard going to temple as a superstition nor that I expect god to appear in a physical form and grant me a wish. All religions, when we look at them deeply, its all the same thing taken from various perspectives, from various ways to the ultimate truth. Experiencing the god thats within us and surrendering things that takes us away from our true nature, from our self is what I think visiting a temple would do. Every time I go to a temple, I feel pure. My thoughts get cleared.

I would accept that in some way that a religion is a philosophy not just Buddhism but all of them in some form is a philosophy but there are things added to it. Things that just philosophies will not describe, things that is difficult to express and has to be experienced. Its the nature of Buddha that we call God not the body that he possessed. Idols are made so that its easy for us to understand the nature of the Gods. When we go to a Buddhist temple we experience peace within us. It happens automatically because we see the idol of Buddha and we know and we have accepted that he spread peace, he gave answers to the unanswered questions about life, sorrow and joy and the path towards satisfaction.

I agree with Dhilung in the opinion that true
teachings of Buddha has been confined to only few sects and followers..
But however wrong we may think, we should be glad that at least it is influencing people one way or the other..its been about 25oo years but still he is in head of many people..The buddism became Tantric when it went to Tibet, in certain parts of India it merged with Hinduism, and wherever it went the people moulded it to fit in their society and culture .It may be shocking but many westeners think even think monastaries as "religious spas"!
And there is nothing we can do..If we know what is truth,"follow it in life and others will follow"..By giving logics and reasonigs ,what is right and wrong is useless unless we practice ourself..
And let me remind that Iron Rusts..but he is not
Iron, he is a GOLD (needs polishing!)
I dont know who is going to shine and clean the few particles of dust(all those years and so many orthodox beliefs!) "the valuable treasure"Buddha has given to the human civilizaion...

You are a buddha! Are you not?
I am surprise how you forgot your budda hood!
I reminded you this 2500 years ago and again you forgot this. Be aware an know you are the budda.

Relgion is of the finest creation of Human mind.Inteded to fullfill intended purposes of then.
Buddhism is philosophy;self seeking procedure of being out from ignorance.

Through the conviction that the Gods created all men, we created the Gods.

Ism is: A distinctive doctrine, system, or theory: “Formalism, by being an ‘ism,’ kills form by hugging it to death” (Peter Viereck).

Global free liberal world tells there is on "ism" of any sort. "ism" is fraction, breaking away:marxism, communism, capitalism, buddhism, hinduism,jewism, muslism, shikhism, racism, geneism,feminism, maleism..to name a few ism.
But world order has changed. No "ism" is gonna rule.

He was actually the prince tired of $ex, alcoh_l and all kinds of physical stuffs. Had he been the son of a commoner, he would not get the kind of attention and follower he got. Good for him. He did not release anything new.