Why did Buddha deny the existence of God?

Question

Isn't is a paradox?!?! The world's most enlightened person professing the concept of "no-God" to all mankind.

Then what for did he renunciate? why did he practise 'ahimsa'? and why did he initiate disciples?

Answer 1

He never denied the existence of God. In fact he avoided the question altogether. The middle path is supposed to lead one to free themselves from suffering and ultimately to reach nirvana (which is Sanskrit and means "annihilation"). He never bothered with the existence or nonexistence of God probably because in Hinduism there is a lot of different definations of God. Thus he didn't want to deny one defination and accept another, so he just didn't say anything about it all. He left that theological point up to the individual person.

What he did reject was
1) the Vedas - the root of Hinduism
2) the caste system - by this time the caste system was just starting to be bad and fall away from it's original way of being (this is noted by simply comparing earlier texts in which people seemed to change castes with ease to by the time of the Buddha there is a more rigid system, but not yet deeply complicated, and then look at today and see how extremely rigid and complicated it has become).
3) the individual soul - Buddha taught that there was no individual soul, that it was all a collective soul, collective being. This is different from Hinduism in that it believes that the One (God) merged outward and formed the many (souls, material world, etc). Buddhism teaches that everything is part of the collective whole and that once nirvana is achieved you cease to be part of samsara (the cycle of birth, death, birth, death...or creation, dissolution, creation, dissolution, etc) and return back to the collective whole without any attributes. It's all very vague as the Buddha didn't elaborate much on this (probably because the Buddha was not necessarily trying to start a new religion but instead just another path within Hinduism...it's later adherents would see it as a seperate religion and work to distinguish itself from Hinduism....Hindus often call Buddhism Buddha Dharma and Jainism Jain Dharma and Sikhism Sikh Dharma and Hinduism Sanatana Dharma or Veda Dharma...thus not viewing the dharmic religions as really being seperate religions at all, but merely different paths to the same Truth).

Answer 2

What do you mean that Buddha denied the existance of God? Which God? in case you're speaking approximately Hinduism, they have many, many gods and goddesses. Buddha would have meant that folk would desire to look for happiness from interior of and not anticipate some cosmic, outer enterprise to grant it. Many historical Greek philosophers suggested an identical element, have been seen heretical, yet by no potential went directly to create a prepare out of it because of the fact the Buddha did. Buddha became into raised an exceptionally wealthy Indian and indulged in each and every exhilaration. He did not discover happiness or contentment from this. He joined numerous religeous companies and discovered alot yet didnt discover genuine happiness. He attained enlightenment at a later date and all that.

Answer 3

Buddha was raised as a wealthy Hindu in ancient India. He knew every physical pleasure, but found that they didn't really make Him happy. He turned to religion, but found that reliance upon the gods didn't make Him happy. He eventually found a way that people can find enlightenment on their own. Some Buddhists have gods, many don't. The philosophy of Buddhism can be used with any religion since it is not, technically, a theology of it's own. You have to rely on yourself for much of the important things in your life. Gods are great, they can offer much help, but they aren't going to do all the work.

Buddha lived long before Christ ever did. He was probably never exposed to the God of the Hebrews. If He had been, I doubt it would have changed anything. A god is a god.

Answer 4

Buddha always remained silent on the question of god, instead focusing on the problem of suffering. He knew that all positions taken on whether there is a god or not were all examples of engaging in concepts which underlyingly involved the self. And the self is the root of all problems. In a sense, enlightenment is the experience of God -- but it's god that is beyond all concepts.

Answer 5

Buddha believed in reaching divinity within a Soul through self-improvement. He only did not support the idea of a God that stands outside the realm of Souls and is in charge of humanity, and can manipulate it. Buddha taught self-responsibility. He did not deny the Divine within a Soul and the Divine Nature of the Universe.

If this topic interests you from a perspective beyond Buddhism, click on "Rational Spirituality" on the Dhaxem website.

Answer 6

In Buddhism complete independence does not exist in the universe. Everything is dependent on other things.

So, if a God existed 'he' would either a. be dependent on other things (and not be much of a God) or b. be independent of all things (and thus would/could not care about you, me or anything else).

The dependent nature of the universe rules out the traditional existence of a God.

Answer 7

He actually believed in the 'Theory Of Karma' which says ur actions always revert back to u - watever u do - u'll have to pay for it in this life itself - so he said there is nothing like God punishing you or stuff like Rebirth...

Answer 8

You can still have morality without God. Some of us are intelligent and strong, and don't need a group of sheep telling us what to do.

Answer 9

He didn't...go read the Lotus Sutra.
He did say HE was not a God.