Thread: Does Buddhism have a God?

This is my question:

In Buddhism is there a God (creator or supreme being or whatever) and if yes what is his role in the world?

thanks in advance to any buddhists or other people for answering

PS: I tried to look in Wikipedia but the article was too long and full of strange names so I gave up. I guess it should be a simple question for any religious people out there

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_in_Buddhism

Originally Posted by Article

Buddhism is usually regarded as a religion without an absolute God who created the universe ex nihilo (from nothing) and to whom devotion and worship are due (although veneration and worship do play a major role in Mahayana Buddhism). Buddhism is a way of life which does not hinge upon the concept of a Creator God...

It somewhat depends on what direction and sect. I think one of the sects do have an eternal creator, but I'm not sure.

Buddhism is semi-atheistic, since they still have omnipotent beings, known as Buddhas.

The Buddha is an idea, or a state of mind.

Originally Posted by sogart

This is my question:

In Buddhism is there a God (creator or supreme being or whatever) and if yes what is his role in the world?

thanks in advance to any buddhists or other people for answering

PS: I tried to look in Wikipedia but the article was too long and full of strange names so I gave up. I guess it should be a simple question for any religious people out there

In some Buddhist sects there are divine deities, but in the early Buddhism, as taught by the Buddha gotama siddhartha, the question of whether any gods exist is not discussed. It is simply irrelevant to the teaching, and gotama refused to discuss anything that is not relevant to his teaching. You can accept all his teaching while being theist or atheist, it does not matter because the teachings to not talk about any gods. This is why the early Buddhism is not a religion at all, but instead it a way of life. but there are other Buddhist traditions in which there are gods, and divine entities.

Not in the sense of Jahova or Allah, but there are immortals.

some adaptations of buddhism had deities. but doenst really have a god. I stil think its a relegion. It has traditions and temples all that other relegions have.

As for buddha he is there to guide people to nirvana or soemthign and that swhy hes constantly "reincarnated"

No.

If you want to know what religions are monotheistic (with a creating deity), just look up how much wars that religion has fought. It just about always works to find them 'great' monotheistic religions that spread 'love' so much.

(Buddhism > monotheistic religion i.e. Christianity)

Maybe the original teachings didn't mention a deity but in my admittedly limited experience all I've seen is worship of Buddha as a God, with the philosophy as a side order. I lived in Phnom Penh for much of my childhood and Buddhism seemed to be the primary religion. You can say that the people don't worship him as a God, that they're just following his philosophy. But when Buddha's followers are erecting giant status of him inside temples where hundreds of people spend a large portion of their day bowing to him, it's hard to take any notion of "philosophy, not religion" seriously.
Me and my brother were once lectured by a Buddhist monk there about the ways of Buddhism. It was interesting and it seems like a good philosophy, but he quite clearly worshipped Buddha. About half his explanation was about the man. I think if Buddhism was really a way of life, details about the man who created it would only be known by those interested in the origin of the philosophy, and there would be no statues of him.

I am not stubborn in my view, please tell me if I have misinterpreted, or if I'm just being ignorant.

Originally Posted by Quartz

Maybe the original teachings didn't mention a deity but in my admittedly limited experience all I've seen is worship of Buddha as a God, with the philosophy as a side order. I lived in Phnom Penh for much of my childhood and Buddhism seemed to be the primary religion. You can say that the people don't worship him as a God, that they're just following his philosophy. But when Buddha's followers are erecting giant status of him inside temples where hundreds of people spend a large portion of their day bowing to him, it's hard to take any notion of "philosophy, not religion" seriously.
Me and my brother were once lectured by a Buddhist monk there about the ways of Buddhism. It was interesting and it seems like a good philosophy, but he quite clearly worshipped Buddha. About half his explanation was about the man. I think if Buddhism was really a way of life, details about the man who created it would only be known by those interested in the origin of the philosophy, and there would be no statues of him.

I am not stubborn in my view, please tell me if I have misinterpreted, or if I'm just being ignorant.

Well, there are many different kinds of Buddhist. Most of them are probably like those that you saw that just bow to statues and all that, but many practice Buddhism as a way of life: There are many Buddhist atheists, and there are many Buddhist who are also religious Christians, Jews, Hindu's etc.

As for talking a lot about Buddha as a man in Buddhist teachings, that does not necessarily means that it's worship. It could have other reasons, for example:
An interesting and personal way to teach: Instead of just teaching dry ideas, the teacher talks about Buddha's life because it makes an interesting story, and allows you to learn from his life lessons as to how he implemented his teaching in everyday situations. For the same reason, Buddhist teaching is often based around stories, not just about Buddha, but about other people, stories that convey some kind of message in a fun way, a way which is easy to understand by anyone.
Another reason: Many Buddhist have a lot of respect and admiration to Buddha, as the person that discovered the technique that they are practicing. so it is only human for them to manifest their admiration in some way, such as talking about his life. It does not mean that it's worship.

Hm. What do you mean by "many"? I have no trustable statistics, but my impression from pretty much everything I've heard on the topic is that mainstream buddhism is what I saw, and a few westerners (a miniscule number in comparison to the amount of buddhists in the buddhist nations) have adapted the original philosophy to fit their lives.

Well, I don't have the statistics too, but even in my limited experience, I come across several disiplines that are like what I described. For example, there are several Vipasana traditions from Burma. Here's a link to the site of one of these traditions, that I have studied: www.dhamma.org
If you research some more into the subject, you will see that there are a lot of very serious Buddhist traditions, that are focused on the technique and the teachings of Buddha, and not in the devotional and ritual aspect of it.