Yes, you are supposed to follow a variety of precepts, much the same way a Christian follows the 10 Commandments, and in some branches of Buddhist thought much attention is paid to "right action" and the doing of good deeds. Meditating is often called praying in other religions.
What great and noble organization like the Salvation Army or the Red Cross (originally anyway) have they produced?
Major portions of the civilizations of Asia, but since the spread of the religion occurred a long time ago, you probably aren't familiar with them. A number of ideas that grew up within Buddhism may well have informed or influenced later religions, such as Christianity.
In fact, there is no good basis for the claims of the Buddha other than to “trust him”.
Actually, the Buddha himself rejected the idea of "trusting" him, but instead challenged his disciples and followers to conduct the same explorations and experiments in life that he did and to discover what he believed to be truths for themselves. This is perhaps the primary reason why you don't find many Buddhist missionaries - doing so is inconsistent with core beliefs of the religion as interpreted by many of its branches.
No one predicted the coming of the Buddha either.
And that is completely consistent with the message of the Buddha - he never claimed to be any kind of God, or anything other than a person who discovered a bunch of important and interesting truths about life. Many of those truths are as applicable to life as a Christian believer as they are to a Buddhist.
I guess I was not clear on my point. In Christianity, it is *God’s work* that brings salvation, not *man’s work*
The 10 Commandments are moral laws, but one doesn’t reach salvation in Christianity by trying really hard to follow them :)