Buddhism and Atheism
Disclaimer: this post represents the views of an individual, and not of the Secular Student Union as a whole.
Today in my philosophy of religion course, we discussed Buddhism. I’ve heard a lot of atheists who, while incredibly derisive about Christianity, are incredibly enthusiastic about Buddhism. This was the case for most of the students in the class. I have to confess, I’m perplexed. But I think it says something about our psychological need for belief, for spirituality, that when people leave or lack theism, they feel a need to turn to some, any form of religion or areligion.
I don’t understand the attraction of Buddhism. To me, much of it reads like a poetically written self-help book. The beliefs espoused by Buddha are not, in my opinion, religious, although it certainly depends on your definition of religion. Which is not to say that Buddhism isn’t a religion. Despite the Buddha’s rejection of any form of idiosyncratic metaphysics, the vast majority of Buddhists do hold such beliefs, believing in a soul, reincarnation, and nirvana as distinct from the body in this life. As in, the Buddha is basically telling people ways to be happier in this life. You can find many modern equivalents to his work that are better supported by recent psychological research in any supermarket. No one would call those religious. Neither would anyone study them in the way I have seen some atheists study the teachings of Buddha. Why are the works given such respect? I don’t think atheists are giving Buddhism (if one can call the teachings of Buddha “Buddhism” when the two often have large metaphysical differences) the serious critical attention it deserves as both a theory of human psychology and happiness and as an ethical theory. It appears to me, instead, that they are almost giving it the respect of a somewhat dogmatic occasionally questioning religious practitioner. If you’re interested in human flourishing and how to live, I would recommend a combination of modern positive psychologists and modern virtue ethicists as much better sources.
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This entry was posted on Friday, April 17th, 2009 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:22 pm
I think one of the reasons many atheists scorn Christianity, yet embrace other spiritual or ‘religious’ alternatives is that they’re used to large amounts of antagonism from the obsessed in our country.
Buddhism, while leaving aside its actual qualifications as a religion, is very much less in-your-face. I personally have never heard of any wars being fought over Buddhism. Part of that must certainly be that religion is thought of differently in Asia, than in the West.
As an atheist myself, I entertained Buddhist leanings around the 11-12 age mark, but gave it up pretty quickly. It should also be noted that not all people are atheists due to any desire to rid themselves of irrational superstition, but as an emotional response to the outright barbarism of some well-known religious leaders.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Well first I just want to add that Buddhism has in fact been behind some fairly nasty religious wars in the past.But that’s besides the point,while Buddhism is a religion, it like all eastern religions is more of a philosophy than an actual belief system. Granted I agree that it is just as superstitious as other religions, and exists for similar reasons, but a lot of Buddhist techniques such as meditation can be help full in everyday life. I see no reason why certain things from religions can’t be taken and adapted to less religious uses. Condemning certain religious techniques (and in this case philosophies) simply because their religious is just as silly as condemning lightening because it is associated with the dark side of the force in Star Wars. Also, religions have done enough harm in this world, why not harness as much good from them to give back as we can?
May 2nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
“Condemning certain religious techniques (and in this case philosophies) simply because their religious is just as silly as condemning lightening because it is associated with the dark side of the force in Star Wars.”
I don’t believe this is what I was doing at all. I wasn’t criticizing Buddhism; I was criticizing people who claim to be rejecting poor philosophical theories like theism but who then seemingly unthinkingly agree with much of Buddhist philosophy. There is a reason you can only study Buddhist philosophy at the UW in the religion department; because it is really, really bad philosophy.
Meditation is certainly great, although historically it is hardly an exclusively Buddhist practice; nearly every religious tradition in the world has a history of meditation, although historically that aspect of the tradition has been much more central to Buddhism than to, say, Christianity.
I never condemned Buddhist techniques, and I certainly never condemned them because they are associated with the Buddhist religions. I am simply suggesting that it is highly hypocritical or unthinking of people who claim to reject religion because of reason to then accept an entirely different system of poor philosophy. Excluding the few strange metaphysical aspects of original Buddhism as espoused by the Buddha (although this is somewhat kind, as I have seen many atheists accept these), you are essentially left with a system of ethics, one that no sane modern day philosopher holds anything close to. Even the most basic precept of Buddhism, human teleology ought to be eliminating duka, is simply wrong. Although I really would rather not go into a lengthy philosophical/ethical/metaethical debate.
If, however, you believe in meditation as a good practice because of your own personal experience with it and because of the numerous studies showing its vast benefits, that’s not being a Buddhist, that’s being a completely rational modern-day humanist.
October 21st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Thick Black Theory says:Thick Black Theory…
An interesting post over at . . ….