There Is No God

On the Buddhist path, of course, we posit no god in the Christian sense of an omnipotent creator god.

There are some minor god like entities floating around in several of the sutras, or the discourses of the Buddha, but they are not essential to understanding the Buddha’s teachings. The Buddha only paid attention to what was directly available to the six senses. Remember that the Buddha found the five senses we’re accustomed to, but added a sixth sense organ, the mind, with thoughts as its object.

After his awakening, people would ask him if he had found an omnipotent deity running the universe. He did not. Nor did he condemn such belief. Believing in an omnipotent deity is not blameworthy, although attacking or persecuting persons with different beliefs is.

Belief in such a god is a form of attachment that will prevent full awakening, although persons who believe in an omnipotent deity and lead moral lives as a result, if any such exist, may enjoy a favorable rebirth.

People on the Buddhist path should treat theists with the same compassion as we treat everyone else, including a dollop of pity for their confusion. From a theistic perspective, then, Buddhism is atheistic, even as the Buddhist path does offer some of the same benefits to practitioners that theistic religions do to those who believe in them. On the Buddhist path, one gains…