Wow, I go away to see my Dad (he is recovering nicely, thank you for asking) and suddenly this burst of posts about Buddhism. LOL.
A few brief comments and links:
1. For some people Buddism is a religion. For some a philosophy or a technology. Yet others - a combination of the three. For me it is less important what man-made category it fits into than what it can and does accomplish. This link might prove interesting: http://home.btclick.com/scimah/memes.htm
2. Hitchens misses some other examples. But the question is can a Buddhist promote or commit violence or would she be in a state of delusion if she did so? (In the same vein, was the Marxist list that non-consensually deleted me because I was queer acting in accord with Marxist principles or were they deluded?)
3. Buddhists do not believe in reincarnation. They believe in rebirth. Even some Buddhists get the terms mixed up.
4. For radical Buddist critiques (of the world and of itself) you might look to Queer Dharma, Vol 1. Also: http://www.geocities.com/class_struggle_buddhism/
5. For Buddhist economic theories: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9280/econ.htm
6. Just for fun: "Both quantum theory and Buddhist teachings on sunyata suggest that as soon as an observer's mind makes contact with a superposed system, all the numerous possibilities collapse into one actuality. At some instant one of these possible alternative universes produced an observing lifeform. The first act of observation by this mind caused the entire superposed multiverse to collapse immediately into one of its numerous alternatives"
BriaN Dauth Queer Buddhist Resister