Have you ever explored Buddhism?

[Mudhammam]

Just wondering. I've been reading a lot about it, and there's so much richness to it. So much goodness. And it's so vastly different from anything I ever was 'taught.' I read a little every day about it, and find it fascinating on many levels.

I'm an atheist, but exploring Buddhism...is that acceptable?

It is perfectly acceptable if you accept Nietzsche.

"I hope that my condemnation of Christianity has not involved me in any injustice to a related religion with an even larger number of adherents: Buddhism."

"Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity: posing problems objectively and coolly is part of its inheritance, for Buddhism comes after a philosophic movement which spanned centuries. The concept of "God" had long been disposed of when it arrived. Buddhism is the only genuinely positivistic religion in history. This applies even to its theory of knowledge (a strict phenomenalism): it no longer says struggle against sin" but, duly respectful of reality, struggle against suffering." Buddhism is profoundly distinguished from Christianity by the fact that the self-deception of the moral concepts lies far behind it. In my terms, it stands beyond good and evil."

"Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times colder, more truthful, more objective. It is no longer confronted with the need to make suffering and the susceptibility to pain respectable by interpreting them in terms of sin — it simply says what it thinks: "I suffer."

"One should not mix up Buddha's 'religion' with so pitiable things as Christianity."