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Buddhists losing faith: Thailand

Thu, 2008-05-15 03:36 — Robyn

May 15, 2008

Nearly four out of 10 people have lost respect for monks after hearing about their misbehaviour from the media, according to a recent survey.

Nearly six per cent of the respondents said they had lost faith in Buddhism altogether.

Conducted between May 7 and May 12, the survey covered 466 people in Bangkok.

The Family Network Foundation conducted the survey to study how relevant Buddhism is in Thai families today. It also checked people's reaction to news reports on bad behaviour by monks.

LINK TO ORIGINAL

Comments

Thu, 2008-05-15 10:54 — jonathan

Who is the Family Network Foundation

This sounds like some Christian organization, could not find anything about who they were on an internet search. But I did find an article that that stated the poll was conducted along with Assumption University. (the article - http://www.bkkok.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3288) (the assumption university site - (http://www.assumptionu.ca/). Assupmtion University is clearly theological school. If you google the name of Wanchai Boonpracha - he looks to be the head of several Christian oriented foundations and all of them don't seem to have much of an existence outside of the articles they are mentioned in.

Thu, 2008-05-15 15:33 — Robyn

family crisis

Good point. I did find the Family Network Foundation on Wikipedia's list of non-governmental organizations in Thailand under the "Community Development" section, but there was no information about them and no link to any website.

Re: the article you mentioned above, ABAC Poll Indicates Family crisis looming in Bangkok, some of the stats from that poll are:

-30 per cent of the survey group experienced a family conflict which led to fighting
-42 per cent were stressed because of a family member's behaviour
-50 per cent of all respondents said "some members of their families" were addicted to alcohol
-21.4 per cent felt isolated
-almost half of the respondents said they wanted love, understanding and support from their family

This supposedly indicates that the Thai family is on the "brink of critical crises," which may be true. But I wonder...would the numbers be much different if this same survey were conducted in an American city? My guess is probably not.

I bet more than a measly 21.4 percent would say they felt isolated.

Show me an American family that doesn't have at least a few drunks.

And who doesn't want love, understanding and support from their family?

I guess we're on the brink of our own "critical crises" too.