Earlier this week I had a most pleasant few hours sitting in the sunset at a table by a fishpond discussing life, the universe and everything with a couple of Buddhists. The Buddhists had the advantage of me because they had both once been Christian, but I have never been a Buddhist. We talked of many of the things discussed on this blog: the relationship of Buddhism and Christianity: the many similarities and the yawning, irreconcilable differences. It was a growing time for me, especially when one of them explained why she had changed faiths. "Buddhism produces enlightened people," she said. "Christianity doesn't." It was a statement that stung a little, and, as statements can only ever hurt us if they are, to some degree or other, true, I had to think a bit about what she said. In terms of the ordinary Buddhists I meet in daily life and the ordinary Christians, I don't think the statement is, in fact, true. Both faiths seem to be filled in similar propor...