Buddhist atheists

[Angrboda]

@Polaris: I believe you are incorrect, as noted in my discussion. But even those gods that are accepted to exist in Buddhisms are not like the god of Judeo-Christian-Islam, they are not omnipotent determiner's of our life, fate and destiny. The gods in Buddhism are no different from lesser mortals such as humans, except that they are much, much more powerful than puny humans. But my understanding is that, traditionally, the gods were no less subject to the wheel of samsara, mortal, and karmically bound. As a matter of fact, the accounts I've read place the gods as less than human in a critical respect. Animals lower than us don't have the necessary stuff, karmically or mentally, to reach nirvana, the extinguishment of reincarnation from where they are; they need to be reincarnated as a human first. And the gods are in a similar position, as being as powerful they are, they don't experience much suffering (dukkha), and their power and invulnerability makes them lazy, and are not really motivated to work towards enlightenment and release in moksha/nirvana; so they too won't reach extinguishment from where they are. Only by being reincarnated as a human do you have a chance of entering the stream (reaching the point of no return), and moving on to enlightenment and nirvana. Now this is obviously a self-serving rationalization, but that is the classic picture as I understand it of gods in Buddhism.

(Again, this is a generalization, and probably only purely applies to one tradition of Buddhism at one time; Buddhism has diversified greatly with time, and I'm not real knowledgeable about the Pure Land Sect (or Nichiren Buddhism), but it seems centered around a god-like Boddhissatva, Amhitaba (sp?), who can basically whisk you off to enlightenment if you say the magic word. And things are not always pure. The figure referred to as the Goddess of Mercy, is sometimes viewed as a mere Boddhissatva, and sometimes as a goddess, and she is claimed in both forms in Buddhism, Taoism and folk religion in China and east Asia. [As a Boddhissatva, she is sometimes referred to as Kwan Yin or Guan Yin, with the appropriate titles, honorifics and such added.])