Don't consider Buddhism to be a religion as such. It really is far different from what we Westerners would think of as a religion. No deity, no dogma, no commitment of faith. Buddhism was founded on an empirical science of mind and its relationship to reality. For centuries Buddhist thinkers have refined this philosophy through practice and observation. As a result, Western cognitive science is beginning to verify much of what Buddhist philosophy has long accepted as true. Buddhism has never been on the defensive with science the way Western Theism has.