BUDDHISM AND ATHEISM

Buddhism and Atheism



Buddhism and Atheism

Introduction

The paper compare and contrast Buddhism and Atheism on the basis of religious practices and faith, it also answers some of the questions on personal views about marriage, sexual relationship, religious festivals, body modification and abortion in light of the religious beliefs.

Buddhism

In general, because Buddhism has no single, centralized religious authority and it philosophically a places and emphasis on individual effort, there is no single stance on any controversial issue. Buddhists, if it is possible to generalize, tend to believe that most issues are decided by the individual or by the basic ethical guidelines that first lay out by the Buddha himself and then subsequently elaborated on in the Vinaya Pitaka (Anthony, 2009)

. The foundation of Buddhism is attributed to Buddha, named Siddhartha Gautama. He was the prince of the Shakya tribe, based in Kapilavastu, a small kingdom of ancient politically dependent Koshala great kingdom. It is said that his birth was miraculous, to give birth to her mother without pain, in the woods. Legend has it that spoke to the birth, saying of himself that had come to save all the suffering karma products such as old age, sickness and death by teaching Dharma. He grew up in the arts of the warrior, but in an early age noted for its continued his introspection states of Jhana (meditation happy a state of continual contemplative happiness which abstracted the world and felt one with nature). His father, yet the prophecy of a famous seer summoned when Siddhartha was just born, he knew his son could be either a great king ("king that moves the wheel") or a Buddha ("enlightened" or "awake”). Wanting his son to follow his legacy, locked him in his palace in the midst of a life of luxury and excess, with which he hoped he was not interested in the profound problems of existence. But everything went wrong. Siddhartha escaped the watchful eye of King Sudhodana, and noted on the streets the suffering of ordinary people. He met a sick person, someone who is old and dead. Understanding that these problems are inevitable and nothing can be done against this fate, decided to seek an answer to this endless chain of suffering through personal goodness and meditation. Since then meditation has become a core philosophy of Buddhism (Michael, 2009).

Atheism

It has no founder, and its origin goes far back in time. It is almost as old as animism, and as early as biologically teleological inferences. Moreover, we can say that is the natural state of all human beings before they inculcated religion. Until recently it was believed that children had enormous teleological inferences, but new discoveries have debunked this idea. Children are not as gullible as they used to think, and moral purity is manifested even before they can teach the concept, at very early ages (Michael, 2009). Arguably the oldest exponents are Democritus and Buddha. In modern times, figures such as Bertrand Russell, Friedrich, Nietzsche, Albert Einstein and others have ...