To whom..,
C. Liu forgot to mention that bodhisattvas predate Mahayana Buddhism, and that other lines of Buddhism do not worship bodhisattvas or believe that such worship is a legitimate expression of Buddhist theology. Then again these lines of Buddhism are probably "lesser vehicles" as far as C. Liu is concerned. The red hat/yellow hat struggle is one of the many very interesting theological dramas in Buddhist history. It is not a John Wayne movie. The take-home message of that theological struggle is lost on chauvinists.
I have not even a little compunction about saying a religion is filled with hocus-pocus if I feel it is. I am a secular person living in a secular state and that is a superior way to live. I will always be suspicious of religion, especially when it draws out real theology into a magic show. People who worship things like trees, geographical locations, and pictures on a wall are fooling themselves. That's all right so long as they know it and everybody else does. No theology was ever served by fetishizing it. After all, that is what people object to about the Dalai Lama in the first place - that he's some type of "fraud". He's no fraud but an honest representation of a fetishized ideology. I think he's charming. Anybody who takes him too seriously deserves whatever he gets.
As for the red mandarins of the P. R. C.: mandarin is as mandarin does.
peace