Atheism = Farce!
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JustAsking
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No, huck is right. I meant the spring equinox. This is why peer review is so important.
Buddhists and Jains are Pantheists, and Christians, Jews, and Muslims are Monotheists. None of them are Atheists.
To most the rejection of creator gods is atheism . Buddhism and Jains rejected this idea. Some atheists argue that the rejection of other culture gods is atheism too . To Christians Muslims and Jews the gods of other religions doesn't exist.
Bbucko
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Late to the calendrical picnic, but its sociological importance has nothing directly to do with any divine intervention: it's use throughout the Western world is due to the Roman emperor Constantine's official decriminalization of Christianity (though privately, he had his doubts and remained highly Pagan-esque):
His reasons for doing so were much more political than spiritual in motivation.
D_Gunther Snotpole
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Hha Hha. JA, that's very funny.:biggrin1:
I don't think Buddhists are atheists. Buddha taught that, with so many competing notions of what 'god' might be, there was no way to attain certainty on the matter. This seems more a species of agnosticism.
Some Buddhists might be pantheists, but these are Buddhists whose beliefs have been affected by other traditions, a kind of syncretism.
Some Buddhists do more or less worship certain beings, but I'm not sure whether they elevate them quite to the level of god(s).
(I have to admit I'm less clear about this as time goes by. The range of belief in Buddhism is probably not much less great than the range of belief in Christianity, say. Maybe Hilaire would like to enlighten me a bit on this matter.)
Bbucko
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D_Gunther Snotpole
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Most often, but always? I'm not sure, Bbucko.
I will have to look again at the text that I have hazily in mind.
Erm you're right that syncretism has undoubtedly changed and adapted the teachings of the Siddhartha Gautama in almost all branches of Buddhism.
The incorporation of more ancient belief systems into the the basic message of the Buddha is one of the defining characteristics of that religion where ever it's practiced. Siddhartha Gautama himself can be seen as a reformer rather more in the mode of Zoroaster as opposed to a prophetic founder of an essentially discrete faith like Muhammad.
The reason Buddhism qualifies as a Pantheistic faith is because it does not overtly require belief in a creator god, and that it sees the cosmos and the divine as one in the same. There is no real moment of creation and time is cyclical. The endless wheel of Dharma (present as a central concept in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism) indicates that where divinity exists it is diffuse and within the substance of everything in the universe, human beings themselves may attain semi-divine status by divesting themselves of corporeal concerns and desires in order to liberate the essence of inner divinity which allows us to enter Nirvana.
Syncretism influenced this basic concept to allow for the existence of beings which were essentially emanations of the intrinsic divinity of universe, ie. Gods. Essentially divinities worshiped by practicing Buddhists are rationalised as being the embodiment of the natural divine forces which form and destroy, and protect the substance of reality. That these deities in many cases were worshiped for eons before the Buddhist reformation of Asia is not contradictory to this notion indeed it basically confirms it by making it clear that beings which are emanations of a non-corporeal heavenly nature do indeed exist, they are the living examples to man that beyond our world is a Nirvana which all may enter and become one with as Siddhartha Gautama did if only we follow his example and the teachings he promulgated.
That the more ancient Pantheistic religions of Asia could be grafted on to Buddhist teachings is indicative of the very nature of Buddhist faith, and that this nature accepts that the divine is in everything and everyone and can form itself in to the shape of gods, demons, demigods, and enlightened beings.
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This is a highly eccentric interpretation of the term Atheist, which is a term which indicates the complete disbelief in god tout court, not simply disbelief in a creator god or other gods than one.
As I said to you, Jainists and Buddhists are commonly considered by academic opinion to be Pantheists, and the Abrahamic religions considered Monotheistic. There's a reason that we have different and separate terms for all of these kinds of religious and non-religious conceptions of the world, which is that they are all distinct from one another in some way.
There is hardly any need to appropriate the term Atheist for uses for which is was never intended when there are perfectly good words for such uses already in existence is there? :wink:
For example according to Richard Dawkings " We are atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believe . Some of us just go one god further" I don't think that Buddhists and Jains are real atheists because this religions believe in devas or heavenly beings but both religions rejected the idea of creator gods . Yes both religions can be considered pantheist.
Using that Richard Dawkings logic most people are atheists in the sense that most people dismissed other culture gods of the present and of the past . For ancient Romans Christians were atheists because they refused to worship local gods .
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D_Gunther Snotpole
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It means that . In debate with religious people he used that quote to argue that everybody is an atheist in saying that there is a god from Ra to Shiva in wich he does not believe . All that the serious atheist and objective atheist does is to take the next step and to say that there is one more god to disbelieve in
Drifterwood
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Would a devout christian from Kansas be a devout hindu if they had been born in Delhi?
I see it as atheism being pretty much the current fad.We know that most people follow each other around like sheep,on this and much most other subjects.It's fashionable to mock religion and to blame the worlds religions for all the current problems.I've heard all these anti-religion arguements a thousand times before and they're predictable as ever and just as ignorant.As my grandfather used to say being ignorant is the worse thing you can say of anyone!....
Drifterwood
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I don't think so.
It is about whether it is the nature of the human being or the absolute nature of the faith.
If you believe that a certain religion is the absolute truth, then you would have to say that if you had that faith, then you would not adhere to another one even if you had been born in a country in which another faith was predominant.
I think that it is in the nature of the person to be religious and have faith irrespective of the faith, and what the faiths say about each other. Your bible bashers would equaly be Koran fundamentalists had they been born in an Islamic culture IMO. Of course for them to admit this would also be an admission that their current faith does not have the monopoly on universal truth.
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The hallmark of religion is following someone else like a sheep. But we are the ignorant ones.
I was never spoon fed my beliefs.- Status