Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira

Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira

15. Why Has Buddhism Been Perceived as Atheistic?

Atheism in Five Minutes - Teemu Taira

Jens Schlieter [+-]
University of Bern
Jens Schlieter is a Professor in Institute for the Science of Religion and Central Asian Studies, University of Bern. Being trained in Western Philosophy, Comparative Religion, and Buddhist Studies, his work comprises contributions on the history of religions (especially Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, discourse on religious experiences in the West), the Western Reception of Buddhist Thoughts and Practices, and on Bioethical Discourse of Buddhism. Methodological contributions include Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Philosophy of Language, applied to the Study of Religion, and Cognitive Science of Religion.

Description

Although there is no direct equivalent of “atheism” in pre-modern Asian languages, early and medieval Indian sources of the Hindu traditions declare Buddhism to be “non-theistic,” and, indeed, Buddhists themselves declared that God, or gods, are largely irrelevant if the aim is to reach final liberation from suffering. This harmonizes with the philosophical view of Buddhist scholars that reality, and even the reality of Gods, is illusionary and inaccessible. On the other hand, in various Buddhist traditions gods or other supernatural beings have significance. So, why has Buddhism been declared to be atheistic? The contribution will move on to look into the early European missionary sources that declared Buddhism to be a “cult of nothingness,” followed by some remarks on European philosophers’ comments of Buddhism as atheism. Finally, in the surge of Western empirical sciences, Buddhist converts and Asian Buddhist modernists themselves declared Buddhism to be atheism, or, at least, compatible with a scientific naturalism. The latest move are Western Buddhists that explicitly aim to transform Buddhism into a belief-free “Atheism” (e.g.,Steven Batchelor), which will subsequently be contrasted with less ambitious or confrontative projects of Eastern Buddhist modernists such as the current Dalai Lama.

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Citation

Schlieter, Jens. 15. Why Has Buddhism Been Perceived as Atheistic?. Atheism in Five Minutes. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 56-59 Oct 2022. ISBN 9781800502376. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=43301. Date accessed: 29 Mar 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.43301. Oct 2022

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