Buddhism + Modern Construction + Wealth = ?

This is a monastery in central Taiwan that looks to have been funded by some wealthy businessman.  The scale can't really be seen from the photos, but it is huge and most likely had a price tag in the hundreds of millions of US dollars.  There is one room after another of giant images.  Compared to the older temples, this lacks much of the garishness and is simpler, although far larger in terms of scale.  The entire outside is faced with polished marble to make it more impressive.  Much of the structure is for large numbers of hotel like rooms that are for the monks who live there.  Traditional Christian monasteries provided for the livelihood of the monks by working the adjacent land.  This clearly wasn't being done at this monastery, which leaves one wondering what the source of their income is.

Tourists come in and look at the images one-by-one before moving on.  Many take pictures like I did.  A few will offer up a prayer and throw in some money.  Comparing to European tourism of cathedrals, there is some of the same sense as tourists would look at images of the apostles or other Bible scenes.  What is different is the lack of a hall for congregational worship, and the occasional pipe organ concert.

The reason for this post relates to the atheists.  I have heard atheists claim on multiple occasions that Buddhism is much more compatible to atheism than Christianity.  The pretext is that Buddhism is more philosophical and less superstitious than Christianity!  This temple is the simplest of the ones I have seen.  More common was one I saw in the city center where a large number of people were lined up to get their fortune told.