Speaking of atheists, I found out something interesting yesterday. A good many buddhists could be termed "atheists" by the common definition, since they do not believe in a sentient, sumpreme being at all! What they do believe is that earthly life is a form of sense-based illusion and suffering, and that the ego is a false construct. The key teaching of the Buddha is that life is suffering. In order to reduce this suffering, one follows rightful conduct or "darhma"...in order to eventually attain an egoless, desireless condition termed nirvana. In that condition, one is simply merged with the infinite, ceasing to exist as a separate entity at all.

So...they DO believe in a spiritual purpose in life, but they ARE atheists! (depending on how you define atheism...)

How about that?

Perhaps the main respect in which a buddhist differs from a western atheist is this: the buddhist thinks this life is unreal and that only spirit is real. The western atheist thinks this life is the only reality and that there is nothing else ("what you see/touch is what you get").

We oughta start a thread on how to define the word "atheist"...

(I add to this commentary that probably not all buddhists believe precisely what I said in the foregoing...but some of them apparently do...and what the heck is it that atheists believe? The answers to that might vary widely, depending on which one you talk to. *GRIN*)

- LH