Buddhism and the God Idea

[sonamdhargey]

Do you believe in God? There are the god realms according to Buddhism. However the argument here is is there the One God the creator of the universe?

See below the Q&A:

Do Buddhists believe in a god?


No, we do not. There are several reasons for this. The Buddha, like modern sociologists and psychologists, believed that religious ideas and especially the god idea have their origins in fear. The Buddha says:

Gripped by fear people go to sacred mountains, sacred groves, sacred trees and shrines.
Dp. 188

Primitive humans found selves in a dangerous and hostile world, the fear of wild animals, of not being able to find enough food, of injury or disease, and of natural phenomena like thunder, lightning and volcanoes were constantly with them. Finding no security, they created the idea of gods in order to give them comfort in good times, courage in times of danger and consolation when things went wrong. To this day, you will notice that people become more religious at times of crises, you will hear them say that the belief in a god or gods gives them the strength they need to deal with life. You will hear them explain that they believe in a particular god because they prayed in time of need and their prayer was answered. All this seems to support the Buddha's teaching that the god-idea is a response to fear and frustration. The Buddha taught us to try to understand our fears, to lessen our desires and to calmly and courageously accept the things we cannot change. He replaced fear, not with irrational belief but with rational understanding.

The second reason the Buddha did not believe in a god is because there does not seem to be any evidence to support this idea. There are numerous religions, all claiming that they alone have god's words preserved in their holy book, that they alone understand god's nature, that their god exists and that the gods of other religions do not. Some claim that god is masculine, some that she is feminine and others that it is neuter. They are all satisfied that there is ample evidence to prove the existence of their god but they laugh in disbelief at the evidence other religions use to prove the existence of another god. It is not surprising that with so many different religions spending so many centuries trying to prove the existence of their gods that still no real, concrete, substantial or irrefutable evidence has been found. Buddhists suspend judgement until such evidence is forthcoming.

The third reason the Buddha did not believe in a god is that the belief is not necessary. Some claim that the belief in a god is necessary in order to explain the origin of the universe. But this is not so. Science has very convincingly explained how the universe came into being without having to introduce the god-idea. Some claim that belief in god is necessary to have a happy, meaningful life. Again we can see that this is not so. There are millions of atheists and free-thinkers, not to mention many Buddhists, who live useful, happy and meaningful lives without belief in a god. Some claim that belief in god's power is necessary because humans, being weak, do not have the strength to help themselves. Once again, the evidence indicates the opposite. One often hears of people who have overcome great disabilities and handicaps, enormous odds and difficulties through their own inner resources, through their own efforts and without belief in a god. Some claim that god is necessary in order to give man salvation. But this argument only holds good if you accept the theological concept of salvation and Buddhists do not accept such a concept. Based on his own experience, the Buddha saw that each human being had the capacity to purify the mind, develop infinite love and compassion and perfect understanding. He shifted attention from the heavens to the heart and encouraged us to find solutions to our problems through self-understanding.


But if there are no gods how did the universe get here?


All religions have myths and stories which attempt to answer this question. In ancient times, when humankind simply did not know, such myths were adequate, but in the 20th century, in the age of physics, astronomy and geology, such myths have been superseded by scientific fact. Science has explained the origin of the universe without recourse to the god-idea.


What does the Buddha say about the origin of the universe?


It is interesting that the Buddha's explanation of the origin of the universe corresponds very closely to the scientific view. In the Aganna Sutta, the Buddha describes the universe being destroyed and then re-evolving into its present form over a period of countless millions of years. The first life formed on the surface of the water and again, over countless millions of years, evolved from simple into complex organisms. All these processes are without beginning or end and are set in motion by natural causes.


You say there is no evidence for the existence of a god. But what about miracles?


There are many who believe that miracles are proof of god's existence. We hear wild claims that a healing has taken place but we never get an independent testimony from a medical office or a surgeon. We hear second-hand reports that someone was miraculously saved from disaster but we never get an eyewitness account of what is supposed to have happened. We hear rumors that prayer straightened a diseased body or strengthened a withered limb, but we never see X-rays or get comments from doctors or nurses. Wild claims, second-hand reports and rumors are no substitute for solid evidence and solid evidence of miracles is very rare. However, sometimes unexplained things do happen, unexpected events do occur. But our inability to explain such things does not prove the existence of gods. It only proves that our knowledge is as yet incomplete. Before the development of modern medicine, when people didn't know what caused sickness people believed that god or the gods sent diseases as a punishment. Now we know what causes such things and when we get sick, we take medicine. In time when our knowledge of the world is more complete, we will be able to understand what causes unexplained phenomena, just as we can now understand what causes disease.


But so many people believe in some form of god, it must be true.


Not so. There was a time when everyone believed that the world was flat, but they were all wrong. The number of people who believe in an idea is no measure of the truth or falsehood of that idea. The only way we can tell whether an idea is true or not is by looking at the facts and examining the evidence.


So if Buddhists don't believe in gods, what do you believe in?


We don't believe in a god because we believe in humanity. We believe that each human being is precious and important, that all have the potential to develop into a Buddha - a perfected human being. We believe that humans can outgrow ignorance and irrationality and see things as they really are. We believe that hatred, anger, spite and jealousy can be replaced by love, patience, generosity and kindness. We believe that all this is within the grasp of each person if they make the effort, guided and supported by fellow Buddhists and inspired by the example of the Buddha. As the Buddha says:

No one saves us but ourselves, No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path, but Buddhas clearly show the way.
Dp. 165

Source: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/qanda03.htm

[RedLantern]

If man is created by an external source,then he must belong to that source and not to himself.According to Buddhism,a man is responsible for everything he does,Thus Buddhists have no reason to believe that man came into existence in the human form through any external sources.They believe that man is here today because of his own action.He is neither punished nor rewarded by anyone but himself according to his own good and bad action.In the process of evolution,the human being came into existence.However ,there are no
Buddha-words to support the belief that the world is created by anybody.The scientific discovery of gradual
development of the world system conforms with the Buddha's Teachings.
The Buddha's eternal plea is for us to become a Buddha,and he showed,in a clearly rational way,that each and every one of us has the perfect potentiality to attained that ideal.
God-religions offer no salvation without God.Thus a man might conceivably have climbed to the highest pinnacle of virtue,and he might have led a righteous way of life,and he might even have climbed to the highest
level of Holiness,yet he is to be condemned to eternal Hell,just because he did not believe in the existence of
God.On the other hand,a man might have sinned deeply and yet,having made a late repentance,he can be forgiven and therefore 'saved'.From the Buddhist point of view,there is no justification in this kind of doctrine.
For more than 2,500 years,all over the world,Buddha ave practiced and introduce Buddhism very peacefully without the necessity of sustaining the concept of a creator God.A

[DS Star]

"I am the CREATOR..!"

How cool it would be to be able to control everything and everyone in this entire universe...

Unfortunately... or fortunately actually... Buddhists do not believe in a single divine entity known as "God" or "Creator" as in most of other mainstream religions.

Buddhists from all traditions reject the 'Creator-God' concept:

"Mahayana Buddhism is not only intellectual, but it is also devotional... in Mahayana, Buddha was taken as God, as Supreme Reality itself that descended on the earth in human form for the good of mankind. The concept of Buddha (as equal to God in theistic systems) was never as a creator but as Divine Love that out of compassion (karuna) embodied itself in human form to uplift suffering humanity. He was worshipped with fervent devotion... He represents the Absolute (paramartha satya), devoid of all plurality (sarva-prapancanta-vinirmukta) and has no beginning, middle and end... Buddha... is eternal, immutable... As such He represents Dharmakaya." —Professor C. D. Sebastian[35]

"In Buddhist literature, the belief in a creator god (issara-nimmana-vada) is frequently mentioned and rejected, along with other causes wrongly adduced to explain the origin of the world; as, for instance, world-soul, time, nature, etc. God-belief, however, is placed in the same category as those morally destructive wrong views which deny the kammic results of action, assume a fortuitous origin of man and nature, or teach absolute determinism. These views are said to be altogether pernicious, having definite bad results due to their effect on ethical conduct.

Theism, however, is regarded as a kind of kamma-teaching in so far as it upholds the moral efficacy of actions. Hence a theist who leads a moral life may, like anyone else doing so, expect a favorable rebirth. He may possibly even be reborn in a heavenly world that resembles his own conception of it, though it will not be of eternal duration as he may have expected. If, however, fanaticism induces him to persecute those who do not share his beliefs, this will have grave consequences for his future destiny. For fanatical attitudes, intolerance, and violence against others create unwholesome kamma leading to moral degeneration and to an unhappy rebirth.

Although belief in God does not exclude a favorable rebirth, it is a variety of eternal-ism, a false affirmation of permanence rooted in the craving for existence, and as such an obstacle to final deliverance." by Nyanaponika Thera, "Buddhism and the God-idea"

Buddhists believe in the Law of Karma. And that we do not blame others for our misfortune because we are responsible for our own lives...

Hence, in reality we are our own "Creator" - the Creator of our own Karma...

Our happiness and unhappiness does not depend on others but we also SHOULD NOT inflict harms or unhappiness onto others, especially with our inconsiderate acts of inconveniencing others due to our own selfishness.

[fruven]

Because most of the people in this planet does not recall the memory of previous lives when we met with something that is unexplainable with the knowledge we have or we want to control something but have a different outcome we said it is God willed or God created. It is the attitude of blaming, and that we dislike taking responsibilities and pushing something unfavorable to someone else, in this case, God. What is the worst human suffering? War, poverty, violence? God is the cause of it? Isn't this putting the blame of one's action or nation's action on God? In actual fact it is intolerance of others, of not accepting others, of not accommodating others, and wanting to control and grab what others have that causes of all human misery and unhappiness. This is not caused by God. It is because we do not want to share what we have with others.

[WisdomBeing]

I attended a methodist school and of course had religious studies. I must say I was attracted to Christianity and Christ's teachings, but many things did not sit well with me.

I did not see how an omnipotent, compassionate creator God would create such inequalities in the world, as in why was i born where i was born with a relatively good life, which was a roof over my head, food on the table, while people were born in Africa with AIDS, diseases etc. Why would a God be so unfair? And no Christian has ever been able to explain that to me aside from saying it's God's will.

Another thing i don't understand is why the Old Testament God is such a vengeful, jealous God. Not qualities i would imagine associated with an omnipotent God again. He exhibits qualities which are more associated with the Buddhist gods or demi gods.

Also, if God is so powerful, just smite Satan down. God has killed many in his name, why not Satan, then that would be the end of all human's issues, right?

Anyway, as you can see, i am definitely more convinced by Buddhism than the monotheistic Christianity.

[Manjushri]

I do believe that there is a God, that there is Buddha. Maybe they are the same, they are one, manifesting in different forms to help the countless types of minds there are. I do not know enough to comment on how we came about, or how we were created. Or the most basic answer would be we came from an egg, and from the copulation between our mother and father.

Well, the idea of the presence of God is fine, but I think by just accepting God, I do not think that it solves all problems. Definitely people develop more faith in God in times of crisis, but to throw it all on God and blame God when the result does not go your way is just not right. Why? Because 10billion other people must be doing the same thing too, so who does God help? I believe that the supreme cannot help you if you don't help yourself first. So you fall into a deep well, and there's a rope that's thrown down to you to pull you up. But if you do not initiate and grab on to the rope and pull yourself out, then there's really no way out.

The Q&A might come off as a bit on the offensive side to the reader, especially if the reader is a Christian. I believe if there is believe in God, and because of that believe, it pulls you up and you develop the qualities of Buddha or God, then great!

[apprenticehealer]

Like Wisdom Being, i also atttended a Methodist school and had taken years of Religious Knowledge classes. But somehow i had a lot of questions and when i asked them, i was reprimanded by the teachers.

So, my quest continued in search of answers, the more i read, the more questions i had. Then i found Buddhism which answers a lot of my questions and the teachings of Buddha really resonates in me.

There are a lot of people who followed what they are taught by the various dominions of religion with no questions asked, with blind faith . If they do not follow as 'taught' or 'preached' , then they would be condemned to hell by 'God'. How could that be so ? Is 'God' so wrathful, jealous, and unforgiving ? If they follow precisely as taught ( to the extend of killing man because these men are pagans, infidels, practices natural healing- 'witches' )  the faithful ones will be well rewarded with a place in heaven.

This whole idea does not make sense to me. The Dharma , however, makes complete logical, rational sense. We are all in the cycle of life and we are in control of our own 'destiny' by Karma. We create for ourselves how we want to live our present life and all our future lives. We are in charge .

[Q]

I believe there is a god, but not an all divine god like how the Christian and Islam faiths believe it. The god I believe in are the beings that exist within the god realm and they are not free from suffering just like us.

For us to understand why as Buddhists we do not believe in a creator God, we have to go back the time if Gautama Buddha. We all know the story of how Buddha left the palace to search for enlightenment. So it came to a point at the age of 29, the Buddha, realizing that even all the gods in India could not end the suffering of even just one human being, he stopped praying to the gods, left the palace and searched for the truth about suffering.

I think many of us miss out on this part, that Buddha, prior to leaving the palace, he too used to be from a theistic background... but upon gaining Enlightenment, the teachings he gave to all his disciples are non-theistic. Since the Buddha's teachings centers on eradicating suffering, the fact that the Buddha's teachings is non-theistic shows us that there is no god that can bring us out of samsara.

[Positive Change]

The whole concept of a "creator" God defies Karma... how can one being be the ultimate "creator" and therefore above karmic repercussions? And if there is an existence of a creator God and he was all powerful, why did he have to create "suffering" too? Why not create absolute bliss void of any suffering?

The disparity in life is all too glaring to ignore and, no disrespect to anyone, but why create such differences in the first place to only say it is our fault and that we should repent and therefore be forgiven? Sounds completely warped to me...

The believe in a divine or a divine nature that we can all aspire to be sounds more plausible to me! Once again, my stance and comments are my mere humble opinions and in no way meant to offend!

[Tenzin K]

The Buddhist ideology raises a question on the authenticity of God's role in Salvation. The Buddhists argue that, it was Buddha who realised that each and every person has a capacity to purify his soul and mind and therefore he encouraged people to find solutions to their problems themselves. He asked people to follow the path from Heart to Heaven rather than from Heaven to Heart. And therefore, the Buddhist path to salvation does not go through prayers, but is rather based on deeds including mental culture through meditation.

Buddhism and God
The concept of Buddhism refutes the idea of a God, who throws the sinners into everlasting torments. In fact, the Buddhists believe in the existence of an Enlightened being, who vows to save all sentient beings from their sufferings. The concept of enlightenment is principally concerned with developing a method to escape from the illusions of the materialistic world. According to the Buddhist ideology, anyone can enlighten himself by undertaking a method of mental discipline and a code of conduct.

Indeed some of the early Indian Mahayana philosophers denounced God-worship in terms which are even stronger than those expressed in the Theravada literature. Some later Mahayana schools, which flourished outside India, ascribed some degree of divinity to a transcendent Buddha, considering living Buddhas to be a manifestation of the Adi-Buddha. But even then it cannot be said that the Buddha was converted into a Divinity comparable to the God of the monotheistic religions. In the Brahmajâla Sutta and the Aggaa Sutta texts, the Buddha refutes the claims of Maha Brahmâ(the main God) and shows Him to be subject to karmic law (i.e. cosmic law). Even though long-lived Mahâ Brahmâ will be eliminated in each cycle of inevitable world dissolution and re-evolution. In the Khevadda Sutta Mahâ Brahmâ is forced to admit to an inquiring monk that he is unable to answer a question that is posed to him, and advises the monk to consult the Buddha. This clearly shows the Brahmâ acknowledges the superiority of the Buddha. This is view that the Buddha is some kind of God figure. In the Theravada tradition the Buddha is regarded as a supremely enlightened human teacher who has come to his last birth in samsára (the Buddhist cycle of existence). But, Mahayana traditions, which tend to think in terms of transcendental Buddhas, do not directly make a claim for Buddha as God. Thus the Buddha cannot be considered as playing a God-like role in Buddhism. Rather the Buddha is considered as an enlightened father of humanity.

Therefore, instead of believing in the God, the Buddhists believe in humanity. They believe that each human being is precious and important and all have a potential to develop into a Buddha - a perfect human being by replacing hatred, anger, spite and jealousy with love, patience, generosity and kindness. Even the Buddha had said, " No one saves us but ourselves, No one can and no one may! We ourselves must walk the path, but Buddhas clearly show the way. Buddhism is, therefore, more of a moral philosophy, an ethical way of life.

[diamond girl]

I am neutral and respectful of the different belief systems which prevail in different religions. I was born a Buddhist as stated in my birth certificate. I attended a Catholic high school in San Francisco, and then a Church of Christ colllege in L.A.  Whilst I was schooling I respected and followed the religious traditions with no bias to any religion.

Today, I am a practising Buddhist. Why? One would imagine that being submerged in Catholic and Church of Christ schools for most parts of my life would make me Catholic or Christian...it did not. I did not understand the doctrine. Many things in life could not be explained in a manner which settled my mind in contentment.

Why did people still suffer? Why do young people die? Why does natural calamities claim so many lives? How come wars can be started and so many lives lost? Why are some people "luckier" than others? Why am I here?

Karma, our attachments, emptiness gave me understanding of why life is the way it is. AND, the fact that I do not go to hell for everything I do which is "wrong" made it simpler to live. I cannot and will not accept the concept of God-fearing religious practices. I strongly believe that religion should make me a better person in pursuit of happiness and peace of mind, and also of being a source for others to benefit from. It is in Buddha's teaching that I found this. I like the fact that in Buddhism we contemplate and make informed choices about how we live and accept why life is the way it is. Plus, Buddhism gives me solutions from myself. I am source of my problems and solutions. I can create happiness for myself and others.

So, I do not believe in ONE God, and I mean no disrespect. There IS God and also many Buddhas and other deities of worship. The key is to have happiness not derived from fear. The one-God theory is a way of domination and control and also economics. If people believed in ONE God then people preaching this has full control over us. I believe in me and Buddha shows me how to be happy depending on my mind changes. Buddhism is about taking responsibility and understanding Karma which totally explains all my questions.

[Big Uncle]

Well, the Dalai Lama himself said that he doesn't believe in a creator God and I don't too. In Buddhism, we believe that it is our own karma that creates the conditions for our world to exist. It is karma that creates everything that we experience. And so, our eventual outcome would be determined by our own actions. On top of that, we believe that the Buddha is not a God either like what some people would think.

Buddha is just an ordinary human being with tremendous potential that he created in innumerable previous lives to achieve Buddhahood, a spiritual awakening. Therefore, any of us can be a Buddha as the Buddha himself said that every sentient being has this potential embedded inside of us. We just need to discover this potential in us by overcoming all the lifetimes of negative karma and dispositions that we have accumulated.

[Positive Change]

Here is an interesting article that tackles this discourse with a very interesting angle:

Why is it... The Buddha never talked about the One God of the desert, the Judeo-Christian God? Does this mean that all Buddhists are atheists and don’t believe in God? Did the Buddha believe in God?

These are some of the questions I would like to try and answer today.

The Buddha was born 500 years before Christ, in what is now Nepal. His dad was a king, his mom was a queen, and his dad wanted him to take over the family business (the kingdom) when he got older.

The kind of world the Buddha was born into was magical. Everything seemed to be alive. The trees, mountains, lakes, and sky were living and breathing with a variety of gods in charge. If you needed rain you asked one god, if you needed it to stop raining you asked another. The priests of India did all the religious work, and got paid for it.

In India at the time of the Buddha you became a priest if you were born into the right family, and not because of the school you went to, or the grades you got.

There were other kinds of religious people as well.

Mendicants were men who left their family, friends, and jobs to find the answers to life. They did not live in homes or apartments, but lived under trees and in caves, and would practice meditation all day long. They wanted to really be uncomfortable, so they could understand what suffering was all about.

Many kinds of meditation were practiced by these mendicants. In Tranquility Meditation for instance, you think about just one thing, like looking at a candle or saying a word over and over. When the mind becomes focused in oneness, you experience a great peacefulness.

Even if the mendicants were sitting in the rain on a cold day, they were still content. They found in their meditation practice the essence of happiness.

Renunciation is when you give up all the things that make your life pleasant. Sometimes the people with money and power in India would buy a lot of stuff to make themselves happy and their lives more comfortable, thinking that happiness and comfort depended on what they owned.

When the mendicants could see their own suffering clearly, after many years of renunciation, they understood that happiness was not dependent on the things they owned, but the kind of life they lived.

Even all the gods in India could not end the suffering of one human being.

At the age of 29, the Buddha stopped praying to the gods to end his suffering and the suffering of others. He left his family and friends, went to the edge of the forest, took off all his clothes and jewelry, covered his naked body with rags of cloth, cut off his hair and started to meditate.

He became a mendicant, and It took him six years of hard work and much suffering, but in the end he was able to stop his suffering forever (Nirvana) and help others stop their suffering as well.

Did the Buddha believe in God, the One God of the desert, the God of the Christians, Jews and Muslims?

Well... No... He didn't... Monotheism (only one God) was a foreign concept to the Buddha, his world was filled with many gods. The creator god Brahma being the most important one.

At the time of the Buddha, the only people practicing the religion of the One God of the desert, were the Jews. Remember, it was still 500 years before Christ came into the world.

The Buddha never left India. The Buddha walked from village to village... In his entire lifetime he never went any further than 200 miles from his birthplace.

The Buddha never met a Jew... And because of this, he never said anything about the One God of the desert.

There is also nothing in the teachings of the Buddha that suggest how to find God or worship the god's of India, although the Buddha himself was a theist (believed in gods), his teachings are non-theistic.

The Buddha was more concerned with the human condition: Birth, Sickness, Old age, and Death. The Buddhist path is about coming to a place of acceptance with these painful aspects of life, and not suffering through them.

Please be clear on this point... The Buddha is not thought of as a god in Buddhism and is not prayed to. He is looked up to and respected as a great teacher, in the same way we respect Abraham Lincoln as a great president.

He was a human being who found his perfection in Nirvana. Because of his Nirvana, the Buddha was perfectly moral, perfectly ethical, and ended his suffering forever.

Does that mean that every Buddhist in the world is an atheist?

No!!! I have met a lot of Buddhists who believe in God. I have met a lot of Buddhists who don’t believe in God... And a lot of Buddhists just don’t know.

All three points of view are OK if you’re Buddhist because suffering is more important than God in Buddhism.

Sometimes a student will ask me how everything in this world got started... "If you don’t have God in Buddhism then who or what caused the universe?"

When the Buddha was asked how the world started, he kept silent. In the religion of Buddhism we don’t have a first cause, instead we have a never ending circle of birth and death. In this world and in all worlds, there are many beginnings and ends. The model of life used in Buddhism has no starting place... It just keeps going and going.

Now having said that... If you’re a Buddhist it’s OK to believe God was the first cause... It really doesn't go against the teachings of the Buddha, his focus was on suffering... It's also OK to believe science has the answer… Like the big bang theory, etc... Some Buddhist’s don’t even care how it all started, and that’s fine too. Knowing how the world started is not going to end your suffering, it’s just going to give you more stuff to think about.

I hope you can see that God is not what Buddhism is about... Suffering is... And if you want to believe in God, as some Buddhists do, I suppose it's OK. But, Buddhist's don't believe God can end suffering. Only the teaching's of the Buddha can help us end suffering through wisdom and the activity of compassion.

In his whole life and in all his teachings the Buddha never said anything about the One God of the desert.

http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma3/budgod.html