A nice summary giving voice to the appeal of Buddhism to people who are willing to make up their own minds about why we are here, how the universe works and how we should act:

Higher Buddhism is pure science. It has no place for theology, and it has got nothing to do with creator gods and fighting lords. It rejects the phantom of a separate soul entity residing somewhere in the body. It rejects a saviour by whose favour one can go to heaven, it rejects the superstitions of an eternal hell and an eternal heaven, it rejects the idea of prayer to bribe the god, and it repudiates the interference of Priests. It is the religion of absolute freedom, which is to be gained avoiding all evil, doing all good and purifying the heart. It is against alcoholism, and killing animals for food and sport. It is a brotherhood, embracing all humanity, and the world of animals as well as gods. It preaches the inter-relationship between man and man. Whole humanity is one brotherhood. It is the friend of enlightened progress, and preaches the sublimest Truths of meritorious activity and shows the Path strewn with the flowers of good thoughts, good words and good deeds, right insight, right aspirations, right speech, right profession, right effort, right fixity of thought and right illumination of mind. Only by self sacrificing activity happiness can be found. It preaches against asceticism and Sensualism. It preaches against unscientific monotheism, polytheism, pantheism, nihilism. Its teaching is that ultimate Truths are to be realized, not simply believed as dogmas.

From: Our Duty to the Peoples of the West, by Anagarika Dharmapala (1927)(Maha Bodhi Journal, Vol.35, Sept. 1927)