Is Buddhism An Atheistic Religion

REL 2011 REL 2011
MIDTERM EXAM

Essay 1

Buddhism is essentially an atheistic religion. And yet it is one of the major religions in the world today. How can Buddhism be used to illustrate Durkheim’s and Geertz’s point that religion is really not about “God,” but about “us,” that is, about human society and culture. In order words, in what sense would it be true to say that religion will not go away or disappear (as the radical Enlightenment and Marx believed it should and eventually would) because it is an inalienable aspect or dimension of the human?

Buddhism, or any religion for that matter has been said by Durkheim and Geertz’s to stand for, ironically, not God; but
for “us”… as in society and culture. Buddhism for example, can supportively illustrate this proposition with just with taking the religion’s fundamental principle’s into consideration. As said in plenty of Buddhism teachings, the purpose set within Buddhism and its teachings is overall meant to better ourselves, as humans, spirits, to be the best we can be. Instead of a “God,” Buddhism is derived from the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, which translates to “the awakened one”. The purpose withstands clearly, there is no questioning to where the principles originated or derived from, the clear purpose of bettering “us,” ourselves as a whole, as a society with little to no evil. This religion doesn’t obligate us to worship anyone or anything, it’s meant to deliver us incentives and state of mind. Reaching a sublime state of Nirvana is our purpose as humans according to Buddhism. Overall, the basis of the religion has to do with ourselves, without our own actions and beliefs there isn’t a so called “God” to follow. Though this might sound frightful and opposing to the stereotypical definition of religion, it gives a peace of mind to know we are in control of our own lives, not a God with no justified origination.

Opposing to the ideas of the radical Enlightenment and Marx; which stated that religion would and should later in the future become extinct and deceased, I believe religion will not go so easily, thats if ever.
Not only does it take credit for a huge portion of our societies and cultures, despite the religion or the beliefs, it presents us with the assurance of the existence of something bigger than us all. Similar to the government, Religion gives us a sense of organization, structure, and control. Religion has justified plenty of conflicts we’ve faced in the past years of history, the crusades, terrorism, and so on. Though religion is and for ever will be manipulated by people themselves, those same people won’t let it just fade into another page in a history text book, it’s only as important as any other essential function to our every day lives. Besides this, emotionally and spiritually, it inspires a lot of people and gives them hope, it serves to plenty of us as a foundation, something to always rely on whether or not it makes sense to us. Religion saves plenty of us from depression, hopelessness, and gives so many of us comfort as well as purpose and a sort of salvation in which is rare to find in any other “aspect or dimension.” All in all, it’s impossible to begin to even imagine the destruction of Religion when so many humans live for it or depend on it to
live. Essay 2

Ritual and sacrifice was found to be an essential feature of the Hindu religion, and as we saw, of Western religions like Christianity and Judaism. Why is ritual so central to a religion, and what role does it play in religion? A central part of the ritual is sacrifice, with an emphasis on the power of the blood of the sacrificed to bring about a desired transformation in or influence upon the God (or gods) to whom the sacrifice is offered. From the examples discussed in class, why does sacrifice have so much power?

Ritual has always been and always will be a very important function within religion, due to its great symbolic meaning. Rituals are set into repetitive social practice,they’re based on something practiced day by day without fault, always following a specific schema, and mostly encoded in myth. Ritual mostly always has its origination in myth and religion, allowing us to connect with ancient practices, keeping them existent between the divine and humanity. Religion is defined and differed according to its concepts or ideas and the practices associated with them, meaning rituals also serve as an import identification component to religion. Amongst rituals there’s the every day and most common ones including praying, attending church, baptism, and plenty more. One of these rituals that isn’t as seen within each religion is sacrifice.

Sacrifice holds a great power to rituals in religion. Sacrificing, including blood in many religions were symbols of sacrificing for a greater purpose, for God, resembling the act of his Son. In Islamic religion, the sacrificing of animals (a cow, lamb, sheep, goat, or camel) is more common, the animal has to be in good conditions, including healthy and conscious. ..."Therefore to the Lord turn in Prayer and Sacrifice." This holds such great power due to the fact that the rituals have been performed since the early ages, the birth of the religion. In Hinduism, the sacrifices include milk, ghee, curd, grains, and plants, all performed in weddings and funerals. As well as sometimes personal sacrificing in acts of inner and outer surrender to worship. Though human sacrificing was mostly recognized in many ancient cultures, it was believed to be a very powerful ritual because it caused pleasure to their God(s). Also, within the Bible, God makes it a point that the only way to be cleansed from our sins and completely pure, would be through the sacrifice of our own blood. As seen in this verse; Genesis 15:9-10 and 17-18: "So the LORD said to him, "Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon." Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other" and "When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram." With so much evidence that sacrifice held a high amount of importance, many of these rituals were constituted by exactly that, containing a lot of power within religion.

Essay 3 The type of religion represented by the Upanishads and Buddhism is very different from the type of religion we encountered in the Vedas and later the Bhagavad Gita (and Judaism, Christianity, and Islam). In particular their conception of the divine or absolute reality and salvation are quite different. Explain those differences.

Within the Vedas, Hinduism’s ancient texts are found.
They contain all the main concepts of Hinduism, but they are written in poetic and symbolic form, rather than direct language which we practice today. They consisted of four texts; Rg veda, Yajur veda, Sama veda, Atharva veda. On the other hand, the Upanishads are texts that were created a while after the Vedas, more philosophical texts. They include more of the philosophical meaning of hinduism, rather than the more poetic tone.
Basically, we can conclude that over time the Vedas were the poetical and symbolic expression of the spiritual truths of Hinduism who’s meaning later had an evolution to the Upanishads; the expression of the philosophical truths of the
Veda.

Fundamental differences between Buddhism and Bhagavad Gita consist of their general teachings. Buddhism’s teachings include the action of withdrawal from earth and its life by constant meditation, while the Bhagavad Gita teaches the importance of continuously moving and acting including fighting, which concludes to the wellness of the world. Who ever fails or removes themselves from action has been deluded from by the laws of nature and considers themselves to be the “doer”. When you succumb to the three different stages of personality; including high (sattvic), middle (rajasic), and low (tamas), you forget that yourself is all. In opposition, Buddhism views ourselves as subjects to aggregation and subjection to suffering. Another noticeable difference is that within Buddhism everything is suffering and according to the Bhagavad Gita, everything is the beauty of the creator. They also acquire different “heavens” for Buddhism, enlightenment is a state much like death, where we may free ourselves from both the suffering and joy we experienced on earth, while within the Gita we are capable of reaching heaven while still on earth by performing heavy mediation. To the Gita, absorption with the Godhead is better than heaven or even all of our desires to the “eternal unity” which is what we aim to achieve.

Besides differences they also have a couple of similarities, they both define that “cravings” is what causes us pain, though they explain it differently. Gita believes there are cravings that can bring upon happiness and that selfish cravings are the of ourselves, parallel to the Buddhist belief. They both teach a path of righteousness, the importance in meditation, the essentialism in morality, and the greatness within obtaining compassion. They differ in where Buddhism is about discovering the truth by one's own means, while the Gita believe we must discover the truth by seeking it with your own dharma and only yours, no one else’s and the the Supreme’s knowledge is the greatest. Buddhism doesn’t support the ideas of eternalism while the Gita embraces it strongly. And lastly, Buddhism’s ultimate incentive is to reach a state of paranirvana which is obtained in our death’s that stops our rebirth, and while on earth is a state that surpasses cravings and consciousness. Gita’s ultimate goals is to reach a state of unity with the universe, including friendliness and love to all things and always keeping in mind the wise Supreme.