[Buddha-l] the existence of God in Buddhism

[Upeksacitta at aol.com]

vicen.bcn wrote:
"Another  point is the authentic sense of atheism. Prefix '-a'  in
fact drive us to a privative meaning. Therefore, it is closer  to
"without" than to "not". In this sense, Buddhism can be  truly
atheistic, because his followers are living without be  conditioned
or concerned by some god. "
 
The meaning of a term is created by its use rather than its derivation, and  
the most widespread use of "atheism" is understood as definitely denying God's 
 existence. Of course one could stipulate a new use of "atheism", but why 
bother  when we have the term "agnostic" (perhaps "hard agnostic" to be more 
specific)  which describes the Buddha's fundamentally pragmatic approach much 
better? I  would have thought that the most important practical reason for 
avoiding the  term "atheist" to describe Buddhism is also to avoid misleading 
dualistic  oppositions to theistic religion.
 
Upeksacitta
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