An Atheist is one who denies the existence of a deity or of divine beings (according to dictionary.com). Are most Buddhists also Atheists, then?
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hedge-rider
ANSWERS: 5
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No, as I understand it, Buddhists acknowledge the existence of Spirit, it's just extremely amorphous and not a more identifiable, "concrete" Being like the Judeo-Christian God is.
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Nah. They have actual spirituality. The christians would never understand.
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Buddhism has no deity. I have met a few Buddhists who say they believe in God, but I know quite a few Buddhists who say that makes them not Buddhists. I know some who refer to themselves as atheists and some as agnostic. In any case, I have only met less than 3 personally who claim to be buddhist and also to believe in a god of sorts. I did not bother to ask how that is possible, but there is a guy on AB that lost his mind just because i asked were there any who made such a claim on AB. I simply wanted to ask any how they reconcile such a thing. For most Buddhists I know , God is simply a non-issue. I have never heard the word mentioned once in the temple I attend. i don't believe in God. I concede that anything is possible, but i am 100% sure that the God of the Abrahamic tradition is pure nonsense. So, yes, i guess that technically makes us atheists. Most sources refer to it as "non-theistic" which is not as strong a word to some.
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Buddha was an agnostic. He said he did not know if there were gods or a god. Consequently, a true follower of traditional Buddhism would be an agnostic also. They would say that the tenets of buddhism could be followed no matter if you believed in a deity or not. However, over the centuries, Buddhism has become mixed with traditional religions in many countries, so forms of folk Buddhism proliferate, where deities are included within the Buddhist framework.
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As I understand it, Siddartha Gautama, the Buddha, considered the question of the existence of deity to be distracting, an issue that occupied the human mind in endless fear and speculation instead of letting it get on with the "real," practical work of enlightenment. Achieve awakening and those questions are either answered, or seen as unnecessary. It wasn't so much the rejection of the possibility as it was simply the perception that the question was unimportant, a non sequitur.
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